Ottoman Coin That Confused Me? (Fake 1 Kuros)

Yes seems to be a so-called Magician's coin. Typically we see them with US coins, but no reason why they couldn't be made from other country's coins/tokens.

Except this isn't a "magician's coin" because such things are usually made from genuine coins; this piece is not and never was genuine. The engraving, particularly of the date-numerals, is much worse than on a genuine coin. It's presumably a circulating counterfeit, and presumably at one stage had some sort of silvery coating on it. Perhaps a mercury wash, which has since evaporated away.


That's precisely why such counterfeiting worked so well. Fewer people paid close attention to the low-denomination coins, so they're much more likely to get away with it. Remember, a counterfeit coin only has to fool one person, once, and it's mission accomplished for the counterfeiter. They don't care what happens to the counterfeit coin after that.

I'm in the counterfeit camp as well.

I think the coin is supposed to be a 1 Kurus from 1909, silver. I agree that the date script appears off, as do the dentils on the reverse. They are uneven in length and width and at the top, about 1 o'clock, they appear to be split.

The stars also look poorly engraved.

While that secondary rim makes this look like a Magicians coin, at the top, especially around 12- 2 o'clock, it looks more solid.

I wonder if that secondary rim is the result of the strike? Can you tell us the diameter of the coin?

As for the low value arguing against it being counterfeit, I think just the opposite is true. The lowest value silver coin (such as this) was the one more likely to be faked because it's more likely to have been used in daily commerce and subjected to less scrutiny.

Thanks for your help guys.
This one will go to fake pile haha