Mexican Counterfeits

@WA, just to be clear, these are contemporary counterfeits, right? I'm thinking we wouldn't want to publicize a sale of modern counterfeits.

Here are the pictures of the 1829 coin:





I see this as an electro-typed mold. By the time this process was developed commercially the EoMo coins were largely out of circulation. one cardinal rule of counterfeiting is that you never make a coin that will attract attention of the mark. You may have your own opinion of course but the opening bid of 3000 Pesos equates to $160 US.

Spence In most cases, I agree with you 100%. The typical forgery ring that mixes Numismatic Forgeries with genuine coins with the intention of defrauding bidders nust be eliminated. We should not promote their auctions at all. Those mixed sales are simply wrong and in the US they are also illegal.

However, nothing at all is wrong with the Duane Douglas Auction. He has a distinct "Counterfeit Section". That section includes some worthless numismatic forgeries along with some rather valuable contemporary circulating counterfeits. A buyer who can not tell the difference between the two types really has no business bidding unless he is 100% ready to assume the potential loss of a bid made in error. A bidder can defraud himself because he can not tell one kind of fake from the other. That is why most sales of fakes can not be returned.

In the Douglas auction the bidder/buyer is placed on notice that the coins are NOT genuine. What they actually are and how much they are worth is left up to the buyer. I know Duane and I know he and his people are NOT expert at making the distinction between modern and contemporary fakes. Either that or they see no point to it.

If you notice, Douglas & Co. does not post any photographs of the "counterfeits". You need to write in to get them. I really believe Douglas (like many others) thinks of all fakes as a uniform group worth the same regardless of age. Otherwise there is little reason for his opening bid structure. He often ties value of the fake to the rarity/value of the original. The case of the 1829 EoMo seems to support that contention.

With regard to telling the difference, there are very, VERY few people I know of that can do it accurately. It takes time, experience, exposure to thousands of fakes, a bit of scientific savvy and definitely experience with industrial metal work to tell what you are looking at.

There is another problem as well. There is no universally accepted terminology in numismatics to cover the distinctions in types of fakes. The two types discussed by Charles Larson in his book "Classical Deception" were the basis that I built on. It is simple and logical. Ancient coin types have been divided into two classes for many years, but the language proposed by Larson is not used by the average dealer or collector.

Until the terms are accepted universally and are properly understood, we can not expect anyone to draw the proper distinction between a "Recently made, non-circulating numismatic forgery" and a "Contemporaneous Circulating Counterfeit".

I think the lack of acceptance of the terms is due to a combination of factors. There are many old school collectors and dealers who do not care. If a coin is not genuine it is no good period. They believe such a coin can be called a counterfeit or forgery interchangeably. That is a lazy approach. It takes much less effort to determine a coin is bad than to to draw a conclusion based on scientific proof of the original intent of the maker.

Until we reach that point (universal acceptance and use of terms) we can not demand anything more than a warning that the coin being sold is somehow not genuine.