How To Avoid Fake Gold Dollars

You bring up some many excellent points. IMHO, there is no such thing as the above. Education is the key to protecting yourself and part of that education is learning that even the experts are wrong. Two cases come to mind:

• A wrongly attributed 1917 dateless Standing Liberty quarter - it was in a 1916 slab. This was discussed on CCF within the last year


• The last 1913 V nickel was "rediscovered" after Mr Walton's car accident. The family took it to experts and were told it was not authentic. Years later, it was revisited and the experts said "Oops" (well not so much that but you get the picture)

Also get Dave Bowers book on Gold Dollars, part of the Whitman series. He breaks down each year and mintmark. This book is essential collecting these coins. Unlike many federal issues, these changed over the years and some features that may appear "wrong" on certain issues are actually a hallmark. It is a fun but dangerous series to collect. Been there,done that.

I understand what you're saying. IF you can show me a counterfeit gold dollar in a TPG slab I'll send you a $50 gift certificate for Chilis. It simply dosent happen. One of the greatest and most important part of the TPG system is detecting counterfeit gold. Also, Comparing a few Heritage auction archive photos of a certain gold dollar that shows a slanting five in the date for instance.... should certainly be taken as word of Law when you compare it to fuzzy photos of a raw gold dollar sold on ebay by Joe Schmoo which clearly shows an upright five. It's so so so easy to fool yourself on ebsy and talk yourself into a piece of Junk made in Lebanon twenty years ago. Those coins are tough, get what help you can and DO trust the TPGs. I guarantee you, I can go onto ebay any day and locate a fake gold dollar. I collected this series with great verve some years ago and was burned early on by a fake 1850 and a fake 1865. I learned. I learned many of these ARE so darn good without loupes and photography it would be impossible to detect these to a past era collectors. None of these "good" fakes are contemporary counterfeits, meaning unlike fake English halfpence or 2 Real pieces, these never actually "circulated". That in itself is a Great way to avoid fakes, buy well circulated coins that show wear marks, nicks, worn reeding and "XFish" lack of luster. ~~~~. I don't want to stir a hornets nest but seeing all these raw gold dollar posts makes me want to offer some concrete help and advice. Return policies are "great" but arguing with a seller fake/real just isn't worth the effort. Armed with the books, Internet archives, and TPGs can stop these fakes dead on their tracks, or at least stop them from becoming YOUR problem.