Question About A Peruvian 1933 Silver Crown (Un Sol)

Totally bogus coin. You have been robbed, literally. You have your photos to use in the future as a reference, return it to the vendor and demand a refund.

No legitimate coin dealer would market these.

Well, Shadydave, this is fascinating information. I would not have guessed this. I have many of this type and will check. I would like to check the composition if I had the right equipment.

Just how magnetic are they? A little or a lot?

ShadyDave and thanks to share this information with us.

Interesting, I have 1 Sol 1934 coin which is not magnetic at all. But I performed the magnet test with another Peruvian coin I have (1/2 Sol 1923) and It is slightly magnetic.

The only magnetic metal that can amalgamate well with silver I believe is Nickel, in large proportions (0.500) would give magnetic properties to the alloy. In addition, it has a density similar to copper, which makes it a good candidate to replace It, or mix with It.

I agree that only nickel would provide significant magnetic characteristics when alloyed with silver. How much is a bit iffy.

reyzaguirr I would like to explore a little further 2 things that you said;




First, was the magnet you used a "standard" iron magnet - a weak type or was it one of the neodymium magnets - very strong magnet. There is a huge difference. Most metals show some trace of magnetism and we should not confuse a response to a neodymium magnet with a response to a weak magnet (like a refrigerator magnet). Care must be taken with this point because in 99% of cases a coin that responds to a weak magnet is a fake.

Second, the fact that the weight of a 20th century silver coin could be 0.2 grams overweight is a stretch - even for a very poor mint. I have to ask just how bad was Peru in 1933? I believe that the US produced several denominations for Peru in that general period of time at Philadelphia and San Francisco.

I guess in summary - I do not trust that this coin is anything but a complete fake. There were (according to Krause) only 5,000 copies of the 1933 Sol minted.

So to consider this genuine - I would be forced to accept that a magnetic - overweight - rarity is genuine. Personally I doubt that.

Very good points SwamperBob.

Most times when I am checking suspect fake coins, with what the shop
calls a rare earth magnet.

Many of the fake ones jump right off the counter and stick hard to the magnet.

But then sometimes I use the magnet to pull Canadian coins out of
large groups of foreign coins we purchase. I have no idea how much
nickel is needed to be magnetic... but U.S. Nickels that are 25% nickel
75% copper do not stick.

I did not look up ..or know .. that the 1933 Sol was low mintage ...
Knowing that now .. I would be very suspect that that OPs coin
as fake.

999fine You ask several good questions which point to the heart of the matter. The first one:




I would re-state the question as when would making this coin make sense financially?

The coin is of course a faithful copy of a genuine coin. So first I would look closely to see if the last digit of the date was altered.

If the coin is altered to make a profit by fraud - that is numismatic forgery and you can have the coin melted for the silver content.

If there is no trace of alteration of the date, then I suspect the coin is a recently made Numismatic Forgery because in 1933 there was no monetary profit margin in making a 50% silver coin.

Now if the coin is NOT 50% silver and is instead nickel then if could be either a monetary counterfeit or a modern forgery. The only problem is that even in 1933 the date would have attracted undue attention and because of that it far less likely to have been successful as a monetary issue.

In 1933 I suspect but have not come up with absolute proof that these coins were manufactured in the US. A run of 5000 coins suggests a single die pair is most likely. No proof just supposition awaiting proof.

A close look at the dies reveals ragged edges on many letters. A looks that for me classifies the coin as a copy.

Had this coin been referred to the CWG I would have voted Fake and asked to have the auction stopped until some further verification was made possible.

You also said:




That is not a correct statement. Struck on off metal planchets is a possibility but the 1933 Sol was never cast. To prove a switch you need to find the alternative coin that the was intended to be struck on the planchet at the same mint at the same time. Or at minimum you need to match the alloy of the metal stock to an actual coin type.

Postulating such a rarity is of course possible but it violates Occam's Razor which states that when you have competing hypotheses the one with the fewest assumptions is likely correct.

swamperbob: good point about the planchet substitution, one which eluded me at the time.