Opinions On A French Indo China Piastre?

I could be wrong, but IMO that Indo-China piastre is not genuine. The strike is not sharp enough and some areas of the coin the design lack details, incomplete or inaccurate. For example the rice stalks, the lap area under her right arm and the area around the stomach.

snowman - The coin is in my opinion a modern copy based on the irregular collar seam on the obverse of the coin and the presence of raised markings in the die fields.

Look at the large version of the posted obverse picture on the left side of the coin. If the collar seam actually shows it should be a smooth arc not this rough and irregular arc seen here. This is a trace of a molding seam and indicates the die (if the coin was struck) was created by a transfer process using a material that shrank slightly. The forgers will add diameter to the coin at the rim (about 1/2mm all the way around) to make up for natural shrinkage in the die transfer process.

The small lumps and pits occur over the entire surface, but the worst part is the irregular reflection of the light from the edge of the individual letters. For example look at the Q specifically the lower line along the upper edge - it is NOT sharp. I see both lumps and pits in the fields (based on the way the light is reflected or not).

The lines on the reverse (they are NOT from cleaning) are in the die. These line segments are raised above the field and may be attributed to two possible sources (which can not be distinguished from a scan with 100% accuracy). On an original these lines would be lapping marks caused by a mint worker attempting to erase the clash marks on the die. There are in fact clash marks on this coin. On a forgery they are lapping marks made on the counterfeit die to cover copying flaws from the transfer process. Lapping on the 5 Piastre is seen most often on forged not original coins, but I can not be 100% it is a forgery based on these lines alone. I do notice that there are heavy lap lines running through the lettering near the rim of the reverse - the position of these lines is rather suspect. I would be more comfortable if the lines were nearer the center of the die.

I do not see evidence of cleaning on this coin, but there is an uneven color which could point to a recent chemical "toning" of the coin. At times, the chemical will drip off the coin creating a streak of light or dark color running off the edge (depending on the chemicals being used).

I would ask to see a large scale picture of the edge to be 100% sure it is a forgery. The counterfeits are edged with a ring die and there are tell-tale signs of this process on 99% of Chinese forgeries. The ridges (reeds) will have a folded seam at the top center of each reed caused by the way the reed is cut into the edge of the coin. An original reed is made by the flow of the silver under high pressure into the collar die - the forged reed is cut into the edge of the coin by lateral pressure in ONE direction perpendicular to the face of the coin. If you look at the obverse picture - look at the reflection of the edge reeds in the plastic film - directly above the letters LI in REPUBLIQUE show clearly traces of being split reeds. The dark lines at the centers of the reeds strongest nearest the rim is a BAD sign.

I also noticed that comparing the edge of the obverse with the reverse that there is a distinctly different appearance. I believe this proves that the edge of the reverse has been slightly ground down to cover the worst cases of split tails on the reeds. The side that comes out of the ring die last has traces of metal that drag along and make the edge rough to the touch. The Chinese forgers will grind this roughness off. If they are in too much of a hurry (as in this case) they will grind only one side not both.

I would ask the seller for an accurate weight to 1/10th gram to determine the actual value of the piece. I suspect the coin will weigh 27.1 g (most recent Chinese silver forgeries are too heavy), that it will be high grade silver possibly sterling or even 0.999 (because those materials are readily available - machined down from 1 ounce silver rounds) and it will show split reeds on the edge. If the coin is heavy - it is at least worth bullion values (about $10) but if the coin weighs 22 or 23 grams it is a plated white metal copy that is essentially worthless.

I believe it was made in China within the past 5 years.