Contemporary Counterfeit Vs Numismatic Forgeries

I'm not going to start a technical definition war of 'forgery' versus 'counterfeit' and I will leave it as that.

In the history of numismatics, while it might seem to be easy to claim counterfeits were produced by a group of criminals, this is not necessary true and official mints have been involved in producing counterfeits for various reasons.

The top three that comes to mind are as follow:

Russian 5 kopek struck in Avesta mint, Sweden

http://www.stacksbowers.com/browsea...014&Lot=1474

Dutch ducats struck in St. Petersburg, Russia

http://goldducats.com/about-ducats/...d-forgeries/

This is not strictly coins but it's related - Operation Bernhard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bernhard

There may be more cases - please feel free to add more!

gxseries I agree completely that there are many cases of legitimate mints manufacturing what were "counterfeit" coins intended to circulate. Some war time (WWII) issues of the MTT were made without Austrian approval.

I would add another class as well - non criminal business men and entities who made counterfeits while the government turned a blind eye toward their operation. Here I refer to the Birmingham counterfeits of 1796 and the UK, US and Chinese manufacture of Portrait 8Rs after 1830.

If someone considers themselves a coin collector or numismatist and they choose to ignore the niche market for contemporary counterfeits, they are doing themselves and the entire hobby a huge disservice.

One cannot invalidate an entire segment of the collecting world simply because one does not agree with the definition of "counterfeit" or how it is applied.

Take for example the Machin's Mills series of halfpennies. THESE ARE COUNTERFEIT COINS. Yet they are accepted by ALL colonial coin collectors as a stand-alone series. I would argue that because this series appears in the Red Book that the series is de facto accepted by all coin collectors as a legitimate part of numismatics. This includes grades, varieties, and VALUES.

To suggest that Machin's Mills coins should be "destroyed or stamped" is disgusting. To imply that they hold no value is irresponsible.

My understanding is that this website's aim is to educate collectors. Education is fine as long as the education does not come with a "chip on your shoulder" mentality and is not biased towards or against any area of numismatics.

moxking Your opening statement may be correct in your case but it is not at all correct for those of us who have been working from the scientific perspective in some cases for decades.

You say:




To start with you are creating a straw man argument by expanding my suggestion to include things I never intended. I am suggesting that what is needed is for every collector to be able to decide if a coin is a recently produced Numismatic Forgery or Contemporary Circulating Counterfeit. A choice of just two. Not 6, 10 or an innumerable number.

What I am suggesting is much easier than you may think with modern world coins especially any made BEFORE 1850. Collecting of these coins by large numbers of collectors is a relatively recent phenomenon. It dates back perhaps 100 to 150 years in the vast majority of cases. I know in the US the expansion actually dates to the mid-twentieth century.

Modern numismatics is plagued by recently made numismatic forgeries of the type made in Eastern Europe and the orient. That is something I believe we can all agree with.

We need to differentiate between the recently made junk and the older circulating counterfeits.

Using US coins as an example:

How many counterfeit US cents are being made to circulate along side originals. The last serious case I am aware of was in 1893-1894.

The last circulating 5 cent counterfeits date to the 1950s. Silver coins were counterfeited during hard times but over 90% of those were white metal varieties from the 1930s. Recently bullion counterfeits have appeared but these can be identified by test cutting or specific gravity.

So the number of Counterfeits made to circulate in the 20th century was minimal. Likely the most spectacular examples are the micro-O and O over CC Morgan dollars. The others are all forgeries.

That is basically it for the past 100 years.

Earlier than that it becomes easier not harder to do.

There are many tests now emerging that can with nearly absolute certainty identify the differences. As time passes and data collects that ability will increase not decrease.

Before 1850 the differences are absolutely EASY to identify.

I am suggesting that we all need to read up on this topic and learn the basics about dividing fakes into TWO types.