How To Spot Fake Danzig 1 And 2 Pfennig.

Text originally written in 2006 by someone from a Warsaw auction house. Translated and regrouped to make easier to read.


How to spot Danzig bronze coin fakes.

Most of the good grade Danzig 1 and 2 pfennig coins appearing for sale are modern fakes. The truth is that red MS Danzig coins are nowadays a great rarity (and underrated by the catalogs).
Many people are able to get these MS type coins to their collections. But are they genuine? Once you know the details, these coins, produced in a very primitive way are easy to spot.

First of all, these coins are struck (so there will be no characteristics of cast fakes). Then, we have to know that the counterfeiters, to cut costs, used ONE reverse die. Therefore, any date will have the same characteristcs of the reverse. It has to be mentioned that ALL DATES of both 1 and 2 pfennig coins were copied. They have many characteristics easy to describe and point out on photos.

There is also one thing difficult to point out on photos, but easy to understand when we have both the copy and the genuine coin in hand - the copies have higher reliefs.

1 pfennig:
* the dot above I in PFENNIG - in the originals it's a perfect angular triangle, while on the fakes, it's shaped more like a tear. Also the inclination angle of the dot is greater on the fakes (ca. 45 degrees).
* the letter E in PFENNIG - the interior space of the letter E is greaater in the fakes. It seems that the inscriptions are too thin.
* the crown - see how the two balls look like they are about to fall off the crown, the left one has almost no connection to the crown. In the original ones, these are firmly connected to the crown.
* the die chips (WARNING examples without these may exist) - since there was one reverse die, it quickly deteriorated. There are two of them - one is 2-3 mm right from the middle of the "1", the second just above P in PFENNIG.

2 pfennig:
This one is more difficult to recognize. Here also all coins were struck with one reverse die.
* the inscriptions are a bit too thin.
* wrongly spaced letters - P is too far from F, Z from I. ,
* too big interior of E in PFENNIG.
* different shape of dot above I.
* on the obverse, depending on the date, the upper cross is too low in comparison to the crown.

The thickness and weight of the coins are also wrong.

The photos. On both of them, two first are fakes, the last one being the original.


Image: 1.jpg
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Image: 2.jpg
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