Show Us Your Worst Counterfeit!

So you guys have bought all this counterfeit stuff thinking is was original?

My counterfeit came out of a "bargain bin" of world coins. I paid only a few cents.

Current thinking amongst French experts is that ALL 5 centimes and decimes yrs 5-9 in MDC or brass are "faux d'epoque"

see http://www.amisdufranc.org and select "site Dupre" for detailed descriptions of these interesting coins

Interesting David. What is the evidence of casting?

So far as "worst" I think it's generally bad contemporary counterfeits. But this thread started out with realeswatcher's modern fantasy 2R. I've been fooled by good counterfeits and usually disappointed when the casting pits or edging flaws are pointed out to me. Many of the contemporary forgeries are highly collectable. Even my $4.95 1845W 2F is collectable - cgb's better example sold for 75 euros. It's the brazen Gaudi-esque stuff I'm interested in. Now where's one of those grotesque ca 1809 colonial 8R's?

thq:

here's a bad "copy" don't believe it was ever intended to circulate, nor would it fool a serious collector - probably a facsimile for tourists on the Costas



So we have:
Contemporary forgeries
Facsimile "tourist" pieces
Forgeries to defraud collectors

Maybe we should add restrikes to this list- some 19th century examples are highly valued and collected

I'm sure there are fake coins out there with genuine counterstamps on them.

My worst is a 2005 $2 Canadian toonie. Look at the core which is misaligned and crooked, the dullness of the metal, and the sound of the metal. Some of the details were actually more prounced in the fake, like the lady's pearl necklace on the obverse. If they only got the metal correct on this issue it wouldn't be a bad fake. What scares me though is that in order to fake this coin, one MUST strike it with a die for the core and rim to interlock. That one action alone will propel a bad counterfeiter into a good one because they've learned that a coin MUST be die-struck. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a fake loonie ($1) that passed through expert hands and ours alike. If it were me doing the faking I would target one of those special commemorative coins that no one sees every single day. There are some gaping holes in the Canadian coinage system. Hopefully the new loonies and toonies fool the fakers, but now the mint is using cheaper metals so they've shot themselves in the foot.

I would love to see a picture of the fake toonie. I have been avidly hunting for my own (strange, huh?) with no luck.

FUN did not produce great results on the Counterfeit front. There were plenty of forgeries but very few counterfeits.

As noted above, there is a big difference in types of non- genuine coins. The hobby suffers from a general lack of understanding about that.

To me my "WORST" counterfeit would be a Numismatic Forgery meant to fool collectors that is a PERFECT COPY of an original and rips off people all the time. That is worst to me.

Here is an example of one of my personal favorites - but in your view it might be a candidate for "worst".





It is the size of an 8R and I call it 1817. Definitely an illiterate die sinker.

I wonder if he played ball for UNC?