1907 French Indo-China Piastre: Bona Fide Or Bamboozle?

A nice coin! With weight and metal right, I would say genuine. It might have been cleaned, hence the toning around lettering and other parts. For grade I would say VF-30, or TB (Très Beau) in the French scale. Value perhaps 20-30 USD (some premium over melt value).

I would agree.



to the CCF!

It's a very common ruse the fake-sellers employ: if you challenge them and say their coins are fake, they will pull out a tray of much more authentic-looking coins, and say "these are the real ones". But they will be fake, too, only they will be the higher-quality fakes.

I'd have to concur that this one is not genuine. Besides the odd streaky pattern to the toning (probably as a result of whatever fake toning has been aplied), the design is "mushy" where it should be sharp and clear, and sharp where it should be mushy. For example, if the coin is so severely worn that Liberty's face and the details on the fasces are obliterated, then the rice plants tot he left should be severely worn, too. INstead, they are sharp and clear.

It might fool me, unmagnified, if I saw it in hand (though the toning pattern is typical "Chinese fake" and would make we wary) but magnified like this, the defects become obvious.

Mushy details, fake antique surface color and aging, all typical of the current Chinese fakes.

If you saw a real one , you would immediately see the difference
Between a quality product of the Paris Mint and this CPOC .
Yours has the typical fake cleaning , Grey toning .
Frankly this garbage from China is getting incredibly tiresome.