1834 Libertad Is This Real Or Fake ?

It is a Mexican 8 reales struck at the mint at Guanajuato, Mexico. Common date, looks legit at first glance. Not really my field of expertise but I see nothing in the picture that makes the hair on my neck stand up. Nice coin. This type of coin is called a "resplandores" or "cap and ray" coin.

A common issue for which nothing jumps out (at least to me) visually as a red flag. However, the 1834 Go was widely forged at the time. Riddell lists ten different known contemporary counterfeits, some of which will not be off much by weight. An accurate determination of its specific gravity would be your best recourse to authentification.

27 grams would be the target - it'd be a starting point to know, but that may not be in and of itself a definitive measurement in this particular case.

JTSfastguy I see very little chance that this one would be one of the counterfeit varieties. However, SG is always advisable. Check the scale accuracy to make sure it is not one of the digital ones with a 2% plus or minus tolerance based on total weight. The dies at this mint were prepared from nearly complete hubs so all that was added to the die after hubbing were minor fine details (like cactus pad spines etc.) and of course the last digit of the date and the assayer's initials. The counterfeit coins made from the stolen dies and or hubs usually have a VERY poor looking small 4 in the date. I own 42 1834 Go 8Rs covering many distinct die varieties and 40 of those are counterfeit. So far I have a high 4, a tilted 4, two double cut 4s and a small slightly low 4 on a badly rusted die. The other counterfeits for the date tend to be a rather typical grouping of debased strikes from fantasy dies like the ones seen in Riddell.

Let us know how the SG comes out.

As in 26.0 grams? That'd be a smidgen light.

SG = specific gravity. There are several sites on the web that will walk you through the process of mesuring this. But you need a scale with fine enough graduation. Whole grams won't get it done.

Not any real, actual coin, so far as I know, if I understand the thrust of your question. Just a generalized rendition of the "cap & rays" design I happened to come across, thought it'd represent my interest well enough.

I should add that with respect to this genre, I'm very late to the game, but still feel I already know more than 90% of the dealers who dabble in these, but on the other hand only 10% of what I really need to know, and probably only 1% of what you know. My goal is to raise all those percentages as time goes on, without making too many expensive mistakes.