* Reales With Bank Of England Counter Stamp.

Very nice piece, I would like to have it by this starting price. "Why do you say why?" Any polishing of coin was unintentionally to preserve the price of it. The owner just wanted to have a better appearance so he/she polished it. This is part of the history of the coin. Most important is the coin is real or not. Henry

jfransch - That is a very good point and quite true - the coin was polished BEFORE it was overstruck. Therefore the stamp is a modern fake. You can tell by the way the perfectly polished surface warps in with the punch but the punch itself is not seriously damaged. Also on the reverse there are hints of some of the anvil damage that may be sharply defined. Of course the angle of the photograph is picked to hide that fact.

Now any guesses with reasons on the Host coin itself. Is it real?

And a secomd question - any guesses on who is holding the coin?

Yes - andyg -I was very disturbed by the fact that this well known forger has finally made a really good copy of a privy stamp. At one time you just looked at the King's portrait and all the fakes were horrible renditions. This one does in my opinion look GOOD. Perhaps in person it would look different but at this scale it looks really good.

But what first got me looking harder was the block work in the castles. It is incorrect for the Mexico City Punch for that year. Once I saw that I looked harder including the FINGER PRINTS of the person holding the coin. I am not a fingerprint expert but the lines on the index finger in his auction for a 1/2 real MATCH the identical pattern I have seen on other index fingers associated with other forgeries from Spain. I therefore believe this is the same guy that under a few names has been selling bogus coins (all counter-stamped) from the infamous Catalogo that has been discussed on a few occasions. This is our "unnamed" forger possibly author, who basically wrote the book he is selling (see his other auctions). I have been watching this guy for YEARS. He is a THIEF pure and simple. He sells TRASH.

The seller is Belyerac and gives a location of San Pedro Alcantara, Spain. He changes names and sells in bursts. After one name gets a bad feedback score he moves on to another name that was set up a few years ago. This is well planned in advance by a thief.

This is the Book he sels for $60 - it has 64 pages (32 folded 8.5x11 inch Xerox sheets stapled through a color copy on card stock that serves as the cover.





So even the fake book is a rip-off. I suspect that he adds pages as he makes new punches. He counter-stamps common junk coins and makes them worth $500. His foolish book has prices and nearly all are $500 or $1000. This is so that in ebay ads he can show the page of the book alongside his rip off coin and the unsuspecting "mark" doesn't check to see who wrote the book - when or if there are any credentials behind the publication.

The printer in this case is a store front Xerox shop in Madrid that prints for folks walking in off the street. Nice way to run a rip-off.

thankyou: I needed some detail to grasp the scam - and that is a very clever scam.
I collect coins of the Napoleonic era, and would like to add a counter-stamped 8R, but I can now see that I'll have to be very careful.

Pressure can be adjusted. I have been collecting pictures of his stamps so that when he gets the strike correct I can still recognize them.

I would advise every collector interested in Counter marks to do the same.

This discussion has also hit the Face-book - counterfeit discussion group. There are some people on that forum that are suggesting the stamp is real.

After a very painstaking analysis of the stamps on 12 certified original coins - I will state that my initial opinion of the Stamp is Correct (in my opinion) because there are at least 3 errors in the stamp that I could not find on any other coins that I consider original. My collection of photographs of high grade original stamps may not be 100% complete as I believe more than 12 different stamps are known to exist. However, I do know that these were all Royal Privy stamps used since 1784 in the marking of Silver Plate. There was an official portrait specified but like any other punch slight variations are noted.

But in the end, what I see is not a variant of an original but a clever COPY of one in which the engraver made a few mistakes - likely based on a misunderstanding of the components of the Royal design.

Since it is possible that the comments on Face-book could be coming from the forger himself - I will not disclose my clues. They could be easily corrected just like the striking pressure.

It is unfortunate but this particular forger has been a thorn in my side for many years. I see his work quite often and the story of being defrauded out of a few hundred dollars is always the same from the buyer. Thieves like this guy MUST be stopped. At least now there are photographs of his fingerprints should anyone want to go after him.

I recognize the problem. Quite obviously, anybody can play dumb, ask about why a coin/counterstamp is fake and adjust their production methods accordingly afterwards.

The question what is to be preferred - to distribute knowledge about forgeries, thus enabling the forgers to improve quality, but disclose their existing products as fakes, or to keep the secrets within an informed group and leave the ununformed to be victimized - is as old as numismatics itself, I guess.