Started Collecting Pillar Dollars. Best Way To Spot Fakes?

Bob, practically speaking - particularly this early - CCs are not part of the wreck discussion. VERY rarely do you come across legit CC wreck material... and as you know, there are SO few legit CC pillar-type 8R anyway.

I sort of get the concern about the denticle area... but when there is some off-centeredness (as does happen on these early 1740s Mo pieces)... that's what they look like. Also note that Reijgersdaal/Reygersdahl pieces present with varying types of surfaces/toning... they were dispersed by more than a few sources.

FWIW, the seller of the purported Reijgersdaal piece on the right is actually a legit dealer (have seen him at major shows). Indeed, as his username suggests, he is of the Asian persuasion, but I never recall seeing any sketchy material from him (perhaps a bit strongly priced)... and he does seem to handle a decent amount of Spanish material. That price is kind of rough for a very harshly hairlined piece... but aside from that, it is what it is.

PS - this:


That's really a pointless statement without knowing what you paid, no? I've NEVER understood the whole blanket statement logic of "Well, don't buy problem/wreck coins, you'll never get your money back". MAYBE you could make the argument that a problem-free piece may rise in value at a greater rate than a problem piece... but really, the important part is what you paid.

$125 for the piece on the left (looks like genuine wreck, no cert, moderately corroded)... that's actually just about FMV for that piece today. So if you could buy that, with some smart shopping, for $50-75... that's not a good buy?

As has been pointed out, maybe that isn't the best advice for a novice collector... but once you get your feet wet, it's something to keep in mind.

PS - You JUST missed the easiest way to buy wreck material, if you're amenable to acquiring those types - the Sedwick auction. I will say his material seems to be going for stronger and stronger prices (relatively) each time... but if you want lots of material in one spot from a reliable source, these auctions are it:

http://www.icollector.com/Treasure-...49021?ps=999

Thank you, everyone, for the advice. I will stick to buying certified coins for now until I learn a bit more. I'll also try to get better at estimating values.

The coins in that auction looked amazing. I wish I had known about it. I would likely have bid on a few of those. I'll keep an eye on that website.

I bought "The Milled Columnarios of Central and South America. Spanish American Pillar Coinage, 1732 to 1772." by Frank Gilboy.

Oddly, I checked every website for it a couple days ago. I check another one today that I had already checked and there it is suddenly in stock. It was as if it was fate. $325.

My local coin shop owner is really into the same coins that I am. He sure if going to be jealous when I show up with the book.

jgenn In the case of the entire shipment of counterfeit Portrait 8R coins the answer to your immediate question is yes. The find was a shipment Portrait 8Rs to China in the last half of the 19th century.

However, the fact of the matter is that counterfeits are discovered in various hoards including cap and ray varieties. They occur at roughly same rate as counterfeits are found in general circulation.

I believe that this only makes sense. Any discovery of coins taken from circulation should include counterfeit examples in proportion to the percentage of counterfeits that are in circulation at the time the hoard is buried or sunk.

A group of English pound coins that circulated until recently should contain about 2-3 counterfeit examples per 100 coins.

So why would we not expect to find counterfeits within any group of Pillar 8Rs?

The rarity of Pillar counterfeit coins has little to do with the situation - we need to focus not on survival rates of today but what was the prevalence of counterfeits that circulated at the time the Pillar coins were in day to day circulation. I am not a specialist in the Pillar area so you make accept or reject my conjectures.

There are colonial references to the manufacture of counterfeit coins. I have never even attempted an estimate of the percentage of Pillar dollar counterfeits in circulation but from the number of written reports it had to be significant.

So you may ask if counterfeits were common in the mid-1700s why are they so rare today? Wouldn't the scarcity today prove the fact that they were rarely counterfeited in the mid-1700's and therefore finding them in the few known hoards would be extremely unlikely?

The first question is a valid and logical question that begs for an answer. However, the second is an example of a form of logical fallacy. It reflects a conclusion that may not be correct.

Here is why. Silver was treated as specie (in the era before the 1869 Comstock discovery.) In say 1760 metallic silver could be used as actual money and silver was much closer in rarity to gold than it is today. The conclusion to be drawn is that counterfeit coins containing silver would most likely be refined (destroyed) to recapture any silver they contained. This means that survival rates for high value coins is lower than for copper washed with silver.

So I conclude that all TPG's should be careful to look for contemporary counterfeits when handling wreck recovered coins.

@swamperbob said




Riddell's monograph reported that in 1845, 90% of silver dollars circulation in the US were Mexican or the earlier Spanish American issues and roughly 1% of these were counterfeits.

Is it the case that the Class II makers kept their production within the normal rate of expected counterfeits? I know I'm mixing apples and oranges here, but the prevalence of Class IIs among surviving portrait 8 reales seems much higher than 1%.

@swamperbob, I understand from your response that I misinterpreted your comment regarding the "rate of counterfeits found in general circulation". The rate must fluctuate for contemporary counterfeits, or as you point out with Class II portrait 8Rs in this timeframe, is impossible to determine since there were no genuine issues.

jgenn knows this about hoards, I'd say (that Sedwick piece might be a record, no?)





So a good bit later. You wouldn't have such a large-scale (wreck) find as what you're alluding to from an era well before these restrikes started. PERHAPS you would find a grouping of British-sourced Birmingham/Sheffield types... and perhaps smaller-scale land hoards (something liek the Castine, ME hoard).... but not really wrecks.





Again, maybe for individual miser hoards... but I wouldn't really expect this for large-cargo wrecks... Large shipments generally involved a bit more sophisticated level of trade - to where they may be somewhat better at having weeded out semi-detectable fakes that may fool local yokel merchants.

Relating to the pounds (have to get around to eBaying my stash, don't I...) - 2-3 per 100 in "general circulation"... but someone who is very experienced with the coinage is going to weed them out better than someone who isn't (and particularly, a bank or similar would be especially good at avoiding them).

Also realize that oftentimes, wreck cargo consisted of large chunks of coin directly from the Mint or treasury (or almost directly) - whether official government business or done by large traders. Think 1715 Fleet... Vliegenthart 1733-34 ducatons... 1783 El Cazador... and so on, and so on.

The only types of 1700s wrecks you stand a good chance of seeing some CCs from are ones like the Feversham, which was a whole mixed bag of circulating coinage.



Unless they were SO poor that over the years almost all got weeded out/melted/otherwise destroyed... contemporary reporting aside, I don't buy that. There are PLENTY of non-wreck pillar 8R and especially a lot of pillar minors (often worn to death) still extant... but SO FEW contemp. pillar fakes, ESPECIALLY of the pillar minors. And, of course, there are all sorts of CC portraits (8R and minors) that still abound.

Also, look at the contemporaneous Spain-proper milled shield (pistareen) types... TONS of CCs of those minors still around.

Double also - where are all the cob CCs then, especially here in the Americas? CERTAINLY some of these (even moreso when heavily worn) would've gone forever undetected.

realeswatcher Quite a few questions. I will try to take them on one topic at a time. They are very thought provoking. I hope my answers will be clear and to the point.

The first question would be "Are larger shipments of coins more or less likely to contain the same ratio of counterfeits as the general circulating monetary supply."

I would say that it would depend on who did the sorting and where the shipment was going. When Brazil (mint officials) selected Spanish Colonial coins for re-striking into 960 Reis coins before 1833 - they did make errors. Riddell says:




Similar things happened in the Philippines when the mint officials counterstamped circulating counterfeit dollars with the FVII or YII stamps.

The likelihood of US Banks screening out counterfeits is of course more likely than the average man on the street. Experienced tellers are likely the best people to do such sorts, being most familiar with genuine coins. This would hopefully apply to all shipments originating at banks intended for private commerce. Those shipments would PROBABLY have fewer counterfeits as well as fewer well worn coins (under 95% of the standard weight) than other transactions.

That leaves us with "What would the bank do with counterfeits that passed over their counter?"

Today, at many banks, the tellers confiscate the counterfeits and the depositor is simply out the funds.

If a counterfeit was discovered in the vaults from previous receipts - the bank is out the cash.

This leaves the bank holding possibly quite a few counterfeits. In the days of hard money the counterfeits were sent to the mint along with worn and culled silver coin. The Bank was credited with the actual value of the silver contained in the batch.

The bank had to write off the silver lost due to wear as well as shortages due to counterfeiting. In the case of counterfeits 50-70% of the value of a dollar is still better than nothing and it offsets loss due to wear, especially if the bank had confiscated the counterfeits.

I suspect that savvy businessmen asked the Bank for credit for the silver content of the counterfeits.

So the source of any recovered shipment has to be considered. A shipment from the mint should contain NO counterfeits. A shipment from a large bank should be decent but a smaller local bank might lack the required expertise.

The second issue raised was relative to the Riddell estimate of 1% of circulating coinage being counterfeit. That is actually a minimum rate. Riddell says:




So at times, Riddell noted rates that exceeded 1%.

Personally, in Riddell's day, the rate may have been even HIGHER than what is seen on ebay (as long as modern forgeries and Class 2 coins are excluded - as they were in my review of auctions.)

The reason is that most counterfeits containing a decent amount of silver would have been recycled. In addition some proportion of worthless base metal counterfeits would have been thrown away. Even genuine coins were melted in large numbers for other purposes requiring silver. So the rate measured today is composed of all losses of coins for all reasons.

Riddell noted that it was his hope that by using his book 90% of counterfeits could be detected. That means he clearly recognized there were some very hard to identify counterfeits lurking in the monetary supply.

Next issue is the prevalence of Counterfeit Pillar coins? Sources documented in several books document instances of counterfeiting before 1772. These must be Pillars. The pressure to counterfeit prior to 1772 was lower than after 1790. The world was more peaceful (England and Spain were not at war.) Spanish mines in the colonies were producing at higher rates in 1770. Labor unrest was growing but had not disturbed most mines in 1772.

I think you were completely correct when you made the statement:




The fact of the matter is that Pillar counterfeits are far scarcer than Portraits (mostly because of changing situations) but why were survival rates lower for pre-1770 coins? For one technology was not yet available to make counterfeits that matched genuine coins. There was no way to transfer an image accurately in 1770. Most counterfeits had to be struck with hand engraved dies. Errors were made in the dies and the results were not great. So I absolutely believe that (1)original incentives for forgery were lower, (2) production was much slower and (3)survival rates were also lower. In many years of searching I have found fewer than 20 Pillar coins that I believe are contemporary counterfeits.

Regarding the survival of pistareens - I attribute those numbers to the fact they typically contain little or no silver. Also minors started with far less silver than an 8R.

Cobs are a different subject. Collectors and dealers typically accept as genuine cobs that are as low as 10.00 in density as being genuine. The real issue might be that counterfeits could be hiding in plain sight. Miners were allowed as part of their pay to "gleen" silver ore -tiny bits - from rock tailings as part of their pay. In other places miners received ore as payment. Not much would prevent these workers from making cobs on their own and adding to the profits. I have always been quizzical when dealers dispute the counterfeit nature of a 700 fine coin.

My personal view of the number of Class 2 counterfeits in the remaining supply of Portrait 8Rs (of the 2 Charles plus transitional) is very near 50-50. Very few coins that I believe to be Class 2 coins have been determined to contain the required gold. Visual clues seem to be adequate to diagnose the typical Class 2 coin.

Early Class 2 coins made in the UK from about 1820 to 1850 can not be detected by XRF since most of the sliver in the UK contained trace gold contamination before 1850. That was the year that the process to remove gold from argentiferous lead was first employed.