A Fake/Counterfeit Pair On Ebay - Coin Community Forum

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Author	Replies: 4 / Views: 1,289
swamperbob Pillar of the Community United States 5362 Posts	Posted 01/06/2008 7:23 pm Sometimes it seems to be difficult to make myself understood. Recently on ebay a seller sold a counterfeit Cap and Ray coin. That by itself is not strange at all. It happens several times every day. But in this case, I wrote to him regarding the coin because it was simply getting too many bids in my opinion. The coin is dated 1831 and has two stars after the date instead of two dots. There is a scarce to rare original version of the 1831 with two stars, but the variety is of fairly recent notariety. I believe that the forgery is actually a 20th century Numismatic Forgery made for collectors and not a counterfeit made for circulation because of the rarity of the originals and the fact that almost no contemporary copies of true numismatic rarities are known to exist. Here is a link to the coin: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...200188586551 The seller did not believe me. In fact he has thrown down the gauntlet so to speak - telling me that I am wrong about his coin. I guess my question is - How many people looking at that particular coin would be fooled into thinking it is REAL? Would the next attachment convince you? Here is a comparison of the counterfeit 1831 Two Star coin with an original 1831 Two Star coin as shown in Resplandores. The Eagle on the fake (at the top) is looking upward at an unbelievable angle. Image Insert: I own several copies of each coin. To me the difference is obvious but to someone less familiar with the Cap and Ray series - is it obvious? or NOT? Am I being too hard on the seller? Report this Post to the Staff

tnwalker10 Valued Member United States 393 Posts	Posted 01/06/2008 7:58 pm I'm definitely a counterfeit novice, but even I can tell the coin is likely a fake from your diagram. First, the coin is very porous all over and extremely porous on the feathers of the eagle. Second, the snake around the eagles head makes a perfect arc on the counterfeit. This arc is really evident in the ebay listing photos. Plus the differences pointed out on your diagram convinces me that no doubt his coin is counterfeit. Fascinating as always swamperbob. Report this Post to the Staff
t360 Pillar of the Community United States 2703 Posts	Posted 01/06/2008 8:34 pm quote: Here is a comparison of the counterfeit 1831 Two Star coin with an original 1831 Two Star coin as shown in Resplandores. I can easily see the two stars after the date on the ebay coin. I can't see two stars on the Resplandores coin. Looks like it has two tiny dots to me. Is it really a Two Star coin? quote: The Eagle on the fake (at the top) is looking upward at an unbelievable angle. Yes, I see an obvious difference in the angle of the head. Also I can clearly see the differences in the Libertad caps. The differences you pointed out would be enough to raise my suspicions. I would pass on bidding on it. If I were the dealer I would refrain from selling it to protect my reputation. Report this Post to the Staff
swamperbob Pillar of the Community United States 5362 Posts	Posted 01/07/2008 01:19 am Sharp eyes - the 1831 Go 8R coins were made from hubbed dies. The coins with and without the stars are made from the identical hub - so the coins produced from all the dies made from the hubs are essentially identical with very minor variations. The hub used in Guanajuato in the 1830s was missing only the last digit of the date, the two assayer initials and the punctuation marks in between. So the only permissable (initial) variation in the dies are confined to those elements. Resplandores identifies three varieties which occur in just these few - non-identical elements. The die finishers used both a Straight (narrow) J and a full (wide) J when finishing the dies. They also used two types of punches for the punctuation - a circular punch and one that was star shaped. All of the dies used in 1831 display some combination of these elements. Resplandores has full size illustrations of a coin with two dots for the full J variety and another coin with two dots for the Straight J variety. The book has only a smaller micro-photo of the date and stars to illustrate the stars variety. Here it is: Image Insert: So technically the real coin in the illustration is not the two star version, but they are identical as far as the major elements of the coin itself are concerned. There are potentially more versions unlisted in Resplandores. If you look closely at the picture of the two star coin above - notice that two different 1 punches were used. The 2 star version has a small second 1. On examples of the Full and Straight J a different 1 is used again. So I am now looking for examples of a die that has dots but uses the small 1 in the date and a straight J. This is the beauty of the 8R series. It is similar to the US Bust Half Dollar series only with more dies and more numerous variations. Report this Post to the Staff
babybrams New Member United States 2 Posts	Posted 01/09/2008 12:35 pm Can anyone tell me a way to tell the real from tha fake Capped Bust Halves. thanks Report this Post to the Staff
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A Counterfeit Pair On Ebay