Exciting Brass Contemporary Forgery 1726 Ecu

I'm uncertain if someone was trying to imitate adjustment marks, which are generally pretty common on French Ecu's, or if it falls under defacement. I attached an example of what adjustment marks would look like on a genuine piece. Could be someone was bored in the past too, quite a topic for conjecture. I also thought maybe it was an official way of saying "this coin is fake, not legal tender", but I imagine a nice counterstamp or some other method would be more official.

That's actually a topic of debate in of itself; whether or not this coin would've made it into circulation. I was able to tell immediately upon holding it in my hands that it was nowhere near the correct weight for a genuine Ecu, so it's definitely not fooling scales in the past. Besides the slightly small diameter and lack of inscriptions on the edge, the details are pretty good on this piece with regards to the portrait and lettering. So my question would be: Who was this intended to fool? With the Class II Spanish 8 real counterfeits, those were made with debased silver and attempted to get as close to in spec weight. This piece is completely off in weight and is obviously not the right color.

It would be slightly more believable if it was silver plated and diameter was right as well. Granted, I have no idea when this might've been made, so who knows if silverplating was an option.

Yes good points. Thx for the spirited conversation and I'll watch this thread for replies from more knowledgeable folks to weigh in with their thoughts.

After this topic came up, I did go to three favored online coin sellers looking for a non-genuine 1726 ECU to see if I could buy a coin in order to add comparison data to my book pages. Like I mentioned, the 1726 ECU that should have been fake turned out to be genuine. I normally buy one fake and one genuine to have A-B comparison data for the book. It just worked out that the two 1726 ECUs I have are both genuine. So I lack a fake for the book.

Wow, very knowledgeable as ever! I had many theories as to what was up with the marks on the reverse. Awesome to know I have an early piece, I wonder what the earliest example of a brass Ecu dates from? If these were intended to be silver plated, as far as I know silver plating has been around since the 18th century. Interestingly enough, I can't find any traces of past silver plating on this coin.

I did take a jewelers loop with 5X magnification and a light to the coin and still cannot locate anywhere with signs of silvering. There is a halo around the characters, but it just looks like the brass patina. Might I ask if that's your coin? It's a nice example and has clearer dentils intact than mine.

Excellent illustration of trapped mercuric silvering within the devices. It also takes some time with World CCCs to properly distinguish between Sheffield Silver plating and mercuric silver wash as on this example. As Gurney discusses in this CCC8R book and as seen in ancient/medieval metallurgical studies Sheffield plating is really a 19thC counterfeiting process and mercuric silvering was done from ancient times to the 18thC - in general. HOWEVER - We do see foil silver plating and earlier crude forms of silver plating say from the 1600's particularly in early British silver pieces from Charles I onward as illustrated in my book on World CCCs - FORGOTTEN COINS. Sheffield Plating or the so-called Birmingham counterfeit 8Rs in Gurney is actually a THREE LAYER counterfeit with a thin eutectic CENTRAL layer. Although we never had of course any written records to this activity since its counterfeiting and therefore no records anywhere this is why we incorrectly call them Birmingham counterfeits but undoubtedly from a sophisticated manufacturing CCC house. If not in Birmingham then where? So therefore the undocumented tag <BG>. John Lorenzo, Numismatist, United States