8 Reales 1811 Fj Fernando VII Santiago Fake Or Authentic ?

HMMM ... Bob ... you have this one ... interesting raised dots in the right obverse field ...

John Lorenzo
United States

For a cast, the details would look very impressive. (I love that design BTW, particularly the hair )
I have one of those (not sure if I've posted it here - I'll up it if someone want to see it) - and I don't see anything really different, except the overall look of the coin ...
FER.. has a strange cast impression, but just after everything is really sharp.
Fire damage would be my best guess.

Before making any comments on this I have one question.

Why do you think it may have been in a fire or in the water? Those two types of "mechanical" damage to a coin do not look the same. It sounds as if you are starting a hunt for a possible hypothesis to justify the surface appearance before you have examined the facts.

It is better (my opinion) to have the evidence tell you that is what happened to the coin - rather than to start from such a premise.

Of the three possibilities I see here - fire - water - cast counterfeit. I see the third as most likely of the three to account for the appearance. But we are WAY ahead of ourselves.

You started with weight which is good. The result 25.72 grams is clearly very low and could indicate that the coin is a counterfeit. In fact, the weight is so low that there really needs to be a solid reason for the loss of weight.

The diameter is clearly on the high side for a typical 8R. However, the era was one of political instability in Chile between the first and second Juntas so there may be a reason for less than optimal conditions at the mint.

You also indicate the ring is odd. So far not so good. The bad or odd ring could is a very strong sign of a forgery.

Did you closely examine the surface of the coin with a magnifier or binocular microscope? Is the surface porous? Is there actual corrosion present? Does the surface near the King's name look like actual fire damage? Are there contact points where the surface may have melted AFTER the strike as a result of a fire?

Did you try to measure the Specific Gravity? That might give you a solid (no pun intended) answer about the originality of the coin.

I also suggest that the edge might give you a solid clue as well. Does the coin use the appropriate colonial edge? Is the condition of the edge the same as the other faces? Are all the circles circles? Are all the rectangles the identical size? Are the segments spaced equally around the edge? Are there 2 overlaps in the design exactly opposite one another? Are the overlaps the identical length?

Remember a bad edge usually points to a forgery.

Once you have looked at all the physical parameters you can assess what you have learned about the coin.

Then look at the coin itself and assess the likelihood of a counterfeit or forgery.

So far there are some serious obstacles to believing the coin is real. This is not a common date and survivors are not always in the best shape. Yours is high grade for either a fire or water corrosion. Losing over a gram takes a serious toll on surface appearance.

Krause indicates that 97,000 coins were originally made. That compares to an average output in Mexico of perhaps a million a year or more.

The grade is very high for an 1811.

Some of the die elements are poorly spaced (such as the date) and aligned as in the case of the elements in the shield. This could point to turmoil at the mint too. The punch set used seems appropriate and the puncheons seem to comport well with the known Chile matrix. But so would a forgery.

The dies were VERY poorly finished based on the coin's surface. That is not normal based on a quick review of similar coins from photos. Also to postulate weight loss from a fire or corrosion should have eliminated the fine details first - so do the fields make sense when viewed along side the king's hair or clothes or the Crown over the shield?

I think I would like to get the answers to the questions I have asked before rendering a final judgement. It is clearly worth doing well because the coin stands to be worth well over $1000 if real.

You may also wonder if it is NOT real is it a valuable counterfeit? That of course depends on the age of the coin. An period circulating counterfeit of this type say in Sheffield plate with a solid early provenance might be worth $500 or more. I would pay that for sure.

However, the likelihood of a contemporary counterfeit is remote. In the early 1800s counterfeiters targeted COMMON coins seen in every day circulation. This coin was never such a common coin on the world stage. It was a home land issue not an export coin and the numbers made were small. The only place in the world that was capable of this level of counterfeiting in the early decades of the 19th century was Birmingham, England. They never targeted this design. They did target Santaigo issues but only of Charles IV not the transitional Ferdinand design used in Chile. As a contemporary I would expect to see a far more local issue - hand engraved crude dies and debased silver.

So what is it based on what we know?

There are only two viable possibilities - an original worth well over $1000 or a Numismatic Forgery worth about $50.

Let me know what you discover and please post edge photos and blow ups of the details like the Kings name and the round dots in front of the king in the field. I would also appreciate a close up of a castle, a lion, the date and the letter A.

hi again !
thx so far !
here are the first new pix and the specific weight aprox. 9.5-9.7cm3 as far as my weight skills got me :-)

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