8 Reales Mexico 1756 Forgery Or Real

The moderators may want to move this post to the World Coin section.

Pillar dollars are widely counterfeited. Your weight value seems a bit low which could be a red flag. Larger, sharper photos would help the diagnosis and close-up photos of the edge are very important for Counterfeit Detection; please post some if possible.

CCF member Swamperbob is the #1 authority for 8 reales authentication so hopefully he will chime in.

Do you think you could post a picture of the edge? From what I read counterfeiters sometimes have trouble getting the edge right and it could help determine if it's real or fake.

I am not having an warm fuzzy feelings with this coin. The weight should be 27.07g and given the grade that it appears to be in, it should be no more than a few tenths within that number. Another thing I notice is the sunken appearance in the D in the king's name. The denticles don't look quite right. Even though there is no picture of the edge yet, I can see a bit of the edge and might resemble another coin that I am pretty confident is counterfeit. In fact, the sunken D, denticles, and date all seem to match. The coin in the picture was one that I had purchased sometime ago but was luckily able to return it back to the dealer when I started finding things weren't right with the coin. I would still wait for swamperbob to take a look at it. He is incredibly knowledgeable on 8 reales and I would trust his opinion before mine.

to the family vcrik.
I am afraid and sad to note it's counterfeit.
I am hoping you do still have the chance to return it
to your seller asap.

Isn't it possible that the coin felt on the floor and that it damaged the edge ?
I am not the expert of course ?
Difficult piece

Both 1756 8 Reales posted in this link are COUNTERFEIT. Sorry but that is very conclusive - I hope you can get your money back.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever.

But the two coins were made at different times and places using what I believe to be different methods. Neither is worth very much as a counterfeit - about $15 over melt for a specialist collector like myself. Melt can be determined by checking the SG. I would seriously doubt that we are dealing with silver here. If there is any silver I would suspect it is heavily debased. Forgers usually do not waste real silver on coins of this type.

How do I know? That would be a good question that I hope you are asking right about now.

The second coin posted the 1756 with the diagonal ding between the crown and the pillar - is a casting (centrifugal pressure cast) made from a well executed transfer impression of a real coin. This may have been done with dental plastic or one of the newer high strength epoxies. The details captured in this way are far sharper than the earlier transfer methods. The coin is edged post-cast. The date 1756 is generally accepted as the cut off date for post strike edging and few originals come that way - so caution is advised with any 1756 that is edged AFTER the face designs are in place. The edge detail is crude, vague in shape and has a wear level that is totally out of sync with the wear on the faces. The proof of the post-cast edging is the distortion of the rim and dentils by the application of the edge design. The dentils in this case also are horrible and show that this was one of the cruder forgery operations (I would guess) in Mainland China. Extremely typical of the type - super common - usually VERY low grade or NO GRADE silver.

The first coin posted is harder to see because the photos are not clear but I own several similar copies that employ the SAME EDGE pattern. This is a slightly older style (still relatively recent however ca 1960) and the forger was not at all familiar with the correct edge application. Once again the coin is edged post creation (my copies are struck from flat dies) so I suspect this one could be as well. But without better photos I can not rule out a cast. But the edge application is extremely BAD. The edge is a series of figures pressed into the edge with the square edge of the blank filling the gaps in between. It is a more interesting edge but the faces of the coin are very blunted with NO SHARP features like seen on the cast copy. Also notice in the edge photos (especially the second picture) the presence of little grip marks right at the CORNER between the edge and the face. That is a trace of the manufacturing process used to apply the edge and is 100% OUT OF PLACE.

Sorry but no amount of wishful thinking will make these real - they are very simply Numismatic Forgeries.

Dear Swamperbob,
The coin you see in this topic is at the moment for sale in the Netherlands. The price is 250 euro's.
Is it possible to see if it is a forgerie or real ?
I only have the picture below.
greetings,
vcrik

swamperbob
greetings,
vcrik

Overlap position, and edge width.
Those are two different coins, I posted them here already (I have more edge pictures of the first one if needed) :