1795 US Dollar - Counterfeit ?

The 1795 coins were made from dies that were produced by individual elemental punching. For that reason no two dies are the same. The problem is that this coin has apparent "post strike damage" that is seen on other essentially identical coins. The coin was struck from a pair of dies CAST from an original.

longnine009 I missed your comment about the small curl. Not only can modern transfer processes pick up features that small - they can pick up features much MUCH smaller.

There are several different ways to make dies and molds from real coins. Gone are the days of lead castings in plaster molds. Some of the current techniques are easily spotted others are not, but the use of dental plastic can and does produce very small features - some of which are only visible under magnification. This development which is the origin of many of the Chinese fakes has made die forgery rather easy and inexpensive. Even though the dies only last for a few strikes, they can be made cheaply and QUICKLY. That is one reason why the fakes are proliferating so darned fast. They can buy a coin and make a copy within an hour or two. That is also why some of the Beijing forgers are actually taking orders for specific coins.

The world of counterfeits is complex but VERY INTERESTING. I have been following this side of the hobby for nearly 50 years now (since 1960) and there are new things I am learning (or re-learning) daily. One thing I have recently learned is that short term memory is the first thing to go.

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Originally posted by swamperbob

longnine009

Some of the current techniques are easily spotted others are not, but the use of dental plastic can and does produce very small features - some of which are only visible under magnification.

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This is one of the reasons why I suspect we're losing ground with forgers. There was a time when that would be turned against forgers with the ANAAB files because it would also pick up the smallest blemish on the host coin. When "repeaters" showed up they most certainly were forgeries. There wasn't anyone else around back in the 70's and early 80's authenticating coins, just ANAAB and INS. I'm not sure many people even knew about INS so ANAAB was something of the "central clearing house." Building up a data base was easy. Now submissions are defused through many TPGs. As far as I know ANAAB is gone. Who's the keeper of the files today?