Show Us Your Worst Counterfeit!

This is the first fake I bought off ebay thinking it was real and getting a great deal at $12. Knew right away something was not right when I opened the envelope.

After some emails with the seller back and forth, I got it for $1 and got $11 back.

Methinks it's time to revive this thread?

CalzoneManiac I agree with you 100% about the need to keep the topic at the forefront of all collectors minds.

I do think we must be cautious about terminology when discussing this topic. Not all fakes are "counterfeits". A counterfeit by definition is made to circulate as money. That is the first and best definition. Numismatists need a way to distinguish between fake coins made to circulate at "face" value and those made to defraud collectors. The former type can and often are of historic interest while the later are of very limited interest and almost no value over metallic content.

Personally I prefer the distinction drawn by Charles Larson in his book "Numismatic Forgery". I adopted the same general definition in my own book "Counterfeit Portrait Eight-Reales". A Counterfeit was made to circulate and a Forgery was made to defraud Numismatists. It is a definition that I had been using without actual definition since I began collecting counterfeits in 1960. My interest has always been in coins made for actual circulation. They are scarcer and the older the date of origin the more scarce they tend to be. Modern forgeries in particular are junk and should be melted down.

Here are three examples: First a Counterfeit of an 1824 Mo JM that is in an NGC holder.



Second is a modern Numismatic Forgery that uses the incorrect design, contains no silver and could have been made in the past few days. It is a piece of absolute garbage.



Third a Numismatic Forgery made in the 1960's which can be identified by a reeded edge and the fact it copies one known original coin.



I would never include these three coins in the same category of either interest or value. The first coin was made before 1845 and circulated in the US and Mexico while the second and third never circulated. The second appeared in the past two or three years and the third about 1960. Both are extremely common but the second coin is still in production so the number made (supply) is not capped.

jfransch I agree with you I have seen others with similar portraits - to me it looks like Beavis! He-he-he.

Am I correct in reading the reverse as Mo LM?

Optimist-numismatist The holder is genuine - the coin was certified as genuine, however it is not. It is a Contemporary Circulating Counterfeit.

I maintain a sub-collection of authenticated counterfeits - I even have a couple certified Numismatic Forgeries.

1894 Republica Argentina.
2 centavos.

CalzoneManiac There is no one person or even a small group of authenticators that knows every coin series ever made. It is an unreasonable expectation to place on the staff of authenticators at any of the TPGs that they get them all correct.

I have been a student of the Mexican 8 reales and in particular the Cap and Ray series for about 6 decades. In the process I have picked up a level of expertise at authentication of this rather limited spectrum of coins that is difficult to achieve. If a TPG had access to the same level of expertise for all coins, they would need hundreds of people on staff not 5 or 10.

At the same time, in the same roughly 60 year period, I have picked up a knowledge of various forgery techniques that at times serve to pick out some forms of fakes (mostly numismatic forgeries) in many other unrelated series. This ability to spot fakes by the way they are made is what most authenticators rely on. It is not a fool proof method in particular when counterfeits were made and struck using techniques that matched the correct process. It is these cases where you need more than expertise at what correct surfaces look like. If the counterfeit was made correctly it will look correct. That is why you will find counterfeits encapsulated. There is a presumption that if the surfaces look good (correct) that the coin is genuine, while that is not correct in numerous cases.

What is needed to supplement expertise in surface appearance is understanding the correct design.

In a single series, it is possible to memorize the "correct designs". The correct die making methods, the correct punch shapes etc. This expertise is unreasonable to expect from a TPG as they now function. However, it could be available if the TPGs recruited people like myself from forums like ours and relied on their added expertise. I would do that for any TPG for very little or no cost. I did it for ebay for NOTHING for quite some time.

Beyond this combination of correct surface appearance and correct design you can expanded the authentication process by adding scientific tests. You can start with scientific tests to prove the correct alloy was used.
1. Weight for each coin should be checked accurately. That is a simple test needing only seconds to complete and needing minimal expertise. Many outright fakes would be identified at this step.
2. S.G. is a slightly more complex test, but still very easily done with proper equipment and some training. This would eliminate most fakes made with deficient alloys.
3. Finally two levels of XRF testing could eliminate many of the fakes that are very nearly correct. A handheld XRF gun accurate to 0.1% could be used in some cases while others require a higher level of accuracy.

It might reduce profit margins but it would increase accuracy.

CalzoneManiac The question was a fair and logical one from a collectors viewpoint and I find no fault with you or anyone else who asks.

However, after speaking with several professional authenticators and coming to understand a bit more about how they operate, I was trying to explain what is done now and what I see as a few simple steps that could be taken by the largest TPGs to improve their error rate. My comments were meant to be an approach they could follow fairly easily to eliminate some of the more obvious problems across the board.