1874 S Trade Dollar Guaranteed Authenticity.. What Do You Think?

Do not care for the way the coin is bent from chopmarks and there are some raised areas that look like cast bumps.

What about this one in same price range: 193168561529

Does your Trade dollar need chopmarks?

He has two similar. I don't think the seller knows they are fake.

Save $50 more and TPG. But you do get brownie points for asking BEFORE you buy

I took a pic of one from APMEX and one from the auction. I overlaid the auction piece onto the APMEX piece. I am a novice with Trade dollars. I do not know if there are known varieties using different dies. I also know that for some reason the ebay pics were absolutely deaed on square (1599 X 1899 pxels) and the APMEX ones were not (1599X1589). I also took a PCGS picture and did another overlay (not shown). The results were similar. Note I lined up the dates as best as I could. The other details fell out of alignment. When I align the head etc, the date is wrong.

I am sorry, I should have been more clear. An overlay of a legit coin with another should mean all of the details line up in both pictures.

In the past I deliberately bought fakes directly from the Chinese so I could make overlay pictures to see how accurate, or not, a fake would be. Here is a fake Morgan 1879-P I compare with a legit one using overlays. Scroll through the whole thread to see how good they got the REV (but problems still show) vs how bad the front is (but not to the eye necessarily).
http://goccf.com/t/119357

I have been able to ID other fakes using this method as well as by drawing straight lines across the face of a legit coin's pic. I then transfer those exact lines (copy/paste) onto the pic of a coin in question. When details do not hit exactly on the same lines, I suspect a fake coin.

Since I have not bought and handled anything but two Trade dollars, I also do not know if there is some known die that was very different than the others at the San Fran mint for this year. Its probably unlikely (and I don't know of anything like that in other coins/denominations), but I am not up on Trade dollars.

No. See the doubling on the overlay image? The one ebay seems to be a fake. Its image was made slight transparent and then overlaid onto the image of a certified coins. The ebay coin's design elements are not where they should be if ti was a real coin made at the mint.




On a legitimate coin, if I overlay its picture onto another legitimate coin, the deigns will lign up perfectly with each other. All legitimate coins from the same year and MM should have absolutely identical design elements and layout b/c each coin from the mint is made (from working dies all made) from a master die.

Multiple working dies are made from the one master die. Working dies wear out with usage. But since the next working die to be used was created using the same master die, the designs are identical.

Since the makers of this ebay fake did not have original dies, they were only able to make the design look, to the eye, like it could be real. The placement of the design elements is off though as clearly seen by the overlay.

aka. If I was you I would run from it!

thank all of you .... especially Earle

I thought it had been pulled also, but I believe it is re listed as an auction. I had sent a message thanking him for pulling it, and then found it re listed.... so much for giving human nature the benefit of the doubt....