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 Replies: 11 / Views: 1,557 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
589 Posts |
Hi All, A store called American Gold Rush just opened near me. They remind me of a mix of a pawn shop and a LCS. They have a lot of Morgan and Peace dollars both slabbed and raw for sale as well as other coins. Now I bought a common date Morgan last week, AU condition for 30.00. But I wanted to get a Morgan from them every other week. The slabbed are obviously authentic but what can I see that would stand out as a fake to me when looking at a raw one? The owner says they are all authentic and has been in this business for 20 years and knows a fake when he sees it. Thanks John |
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Pillar of the Community
Korea, Republic Of
1881 Posts |
Wrong, missing details, casting marks on edge, casting bubbles on the surface and the weakness of the design is what I look for in a counterfeit.
Be careful even with the slabbed ones until you know how to tell a fake slab from a real slab. There are many, many slabs being counterfeited in China, and the quality gets better day after day.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2757 Posts |
Weights will always be off on fake Morgans. Buy a $10 digital scale and bring it with you. Make sure it gives the right weights of coins before you bring it in a shop or to a show.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4883 Posts |
There are so many ways of faking Morgan dollars that a tutorial on detecting them would take up quite a few pages of text, and in fact does in many books that address this issue. So step one is to assemble a library of those books, as some counterfeits are very subtle, starting with an authentic coin and altering it in some way. I agree with the comments above about the increasing sophistication of the Chinese in this area, and also about accurate weighing. I'd add that you should learn how to determine specific gravity, although you can't really do that test until after your purchase. I'd also recommend that you always have a good magnifier and magnet on your person when shopping. Colligo ergo sum
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8516 Posts |
Oregon coin geek.....*** GO BEAVS ! ! ! ***
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Pillar of the Community
United States
648 Posts |
 Quote:
Weights will always be off on fake Morgans.  no  but a good place to start, be sure your magnet can pick up a war nickle, or you will miss some off metal fakes   Edited by tokenmast
05/01/2014 11:16 am
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
Your best weapon for detecting Morgan fakes is knowledge of what a good one looks like. Learn the various reverses used, and what years to expect them - there's only a few, and they're essentially the same from 1881-1904. The differences on a good fake will be very subtle, possibly only detectable in the quality of the fields and strike in places on the devices where you wouldn't normally expect the strike to be affected. And some will fool you, as well as all but the very most knowledgeable expert. I'm not one of those.
There's a subset of counterfeits, usually 1890's Carson City issues, which use the 1921-only reverse. Learn that one for sure.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1531 Posts |
Lol, they have multiple 1892-S for sale a little over $100?  |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Quote:
Lol, they have multiple 1892-S for sale a little over $100?
Wow. That's a $10k coin if real. And we can't touch them, because they're in China.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4883 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2824 Posts |
there is s sound most fakes make if you drop them very a different sound then a good one.. not sure if it good idea to go around drop testing Morgans lol.
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Valued Member
United States
291 Posts |
If you run the PCGS cert # of the counterfeit coin linked to above, you can see that the real one was sold at a Heritage auction in June 2011. Compare images of the counterfeit to the real one and it is night and day.
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Replies: 11 / Views: 1,557 |
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Posted 05/01/2014 08:34 am
