1909 S VDB Lincoln Wheat Cent - Pretty Good Fake

Well TB, hope you don't get ate up for posting this...seems a few folks don't see the need to study such fakes.



Is a good one by eye appeal. I don't see the die dot on wheat stalk and position looks good. Interesting that the planchet was created to look as an alloy mix problem.

Looks to me like a CDC produced die off an original coin. THAT'S scary! Yikes!

http://goccf.com/t/306594&whichpage=1

The mark below the mint mark would appear to be damage. A depression on the left with a raised ridge on the right edge of teh depression suggesting an impact plus a little recessed trench like a bag mark running ENE from there.

Crazy you are really hitting it! That's almost certainly the wrong mint mark style but the location looked pretty close. I also agree that the bar of the B is not right and I think all of these are supposed to have all three dots. But you did nail exactly how I know it is a fake. The S is glued on which you figured out but isn't verifiable without some real close looking. Here is the photo of the proof.




Interstingly, it weighs 3.2g but makes a bit of a tinny sound when on a hard surface like an underweight coin would.

Also, the dot after the D is too close to the D, suggesting this may have started out as a genuine Philly mint 1909 VDB.

As an aside, the more dense a piece of metal is, the more likely it will have a higher pitch when struck than a less dense piece. I don't know exactly what you mean by "tinny", though.

I looked through some recent auction results for 1909 S V.D.B. cents in VF-30 and they sold for between $630 and $750+. So I'd say $600 is a pretty good deal - if you need one for your collection and you can afford it, go for it.

Buying this type of coin without NGC or PCGS or ANACS is just silly. It costs no more to have those educated opinions.

Still Lookin that is an excellent point. Makes me think that one of the grading services could do a bit of a semi-scientific study to determine the population of fakes that are thought to be real in people's collections (as well as known fakes of various types out there). At a big event like FUN they advertise hard for everyone that owns a 1909-S VDB of any kind to bring it in for the study. They then determine the authenticity of each coin along with a questionnaire to the coin providers asking questions about whether they think the coin is real and what they paid for it and suchlike. Would be really interesting to see the results of that. They could add in the data they would already have from people sending in those coins and how many were fakes and it would make for a very solid article.