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Pillar of the Community
 United States
7935 Posts |
Since Counterfeit Detection gets it share of space on this thread, I thought I would post up a couple I was involved with recently. First, the 1835 silver 1 zloty coin of the Free CIty of Krakow. This series (several denominations, one date only, 1835) is popular with Poland collectors, and I had been looking for one. I saw an example up for sale at a well-known auction house with a modest starting price, and decided to check some other recent auction listings for selling prices. I then realized the coin did not look quite right, started looking more closely and decided it was probably fake. Bottom photo is an authentic coin recently auctioned by a Polish auction house, top photo is the questionable coin.  I notified the auction house and it was pulled. Looking at the coin in isolation it was fairly convincing, but in the side-by-side I noticed one tell obverse, and a different one reverse (probably there are more). Any guesses? Edited by tdziemia
06/21/2023 1:24 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
 United States
25023 Posts |
The lettering is "puffy" on the fake, along with some improper fonts. In addition to other issues, the top of the crown on the obverse and the size of the acorns on the reverse are tip-offs.
Inordinately fascinated by bits of metal with strange markings and figures
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
7935 Posts |
 Well done! Even more noteworthy obverse, each prong of the crown has a flower or leaf near the base on the real coin, and this is missing on the fake. And indeed, the font reverse is too thick. The strike is also slightly offcentered top-to-bottom, and I could not find this on any other examples. |
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Pillar of the Community
Sweden
2124 Posts |
The first thing I noticed is that the eagle looks very different, particularly the wings are completely wrong, but also feet and other details are wrong.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7935 Posts |
Nice! I missed that completely. Next up, the 1835 3 rouble / 20 zloty gold coin struck in St. Petersburg for the Russian partition of Poland. A more troubling case, as a member on another forum posted this coin thinking it had a minting error. He/she reports that the size, weight and purity (22 karat) are all correct. So, somebody has bought an expensive fake that passed all the initial tests. Again, the main design details look OK at first glance, but with the context provided in the side-by-side comparison:  I saw at least four issues after comparing it to six recent examples on CoinArchives. Edited by tdziemia
06/21/2023 2:29 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
The mint and officials' marks on the genuine Russian piece are much lighter (narrower) than on the questionable one. Also the bogus coin has no relief on the eagle's body : the spaces in between the feather detail appear to be at the level of the fields. On gold, thickening of the letters could perhaps be attributed to wear, but not loss of modelling. Also the genuine piece has a rim, whereas the dentils on the fake are small and go right to the edge.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7935 Posts |
The rim and dentils looked off to me, but I did not know how to put that into words, which you have now done! For me the more glaring thing about the mint letters is that they sit much farther from the eagle's legs. I know there can always be a question if these are punched slightly differently on different dies, but the six authentic examples I looked at all had them tucked up closer to the legs. And yes on issues with the eagle's feathers. I first noticed the tail feathers were wrong, then also saw the outline of the upper left wing is wrong. (probably copying feathers is something that keeps a counterfeiter awake at night) I saw one major thing on the lettering side, and one more thing on the eagle side. Edited by tdziemia
06/21/2023 3:43 pm
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Moderator
Australia
16809 Posts |
Interesting. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, before China became the most notorious source for fake coins, Eastern Europe held that title - particularly, fakes of older Eastern European coins like these. These two items might be examples from that time period.
First coin: I have to say, the first thing that stood out for me is the lack of Petra-Sancta vertical hatching behind the eagle. This is something of a collector interest of mine, and I'd have missed it.The eagle does looks "wrong" for the Krakow coin type, but does look "right" for modern Poland, which is probably from where they copied the style from.
Second coin: the overall style seems to be very "flat". Compare, for example, the imperial orb in the eagle's talon - on the genuine, it's a flattened dome with the high point in the middle, but on the replica, it's just a flat disc, with the high points around the edge. The eagle, overall, is very low-detail and "not-Russian-looking".
I am curious though - what was the "mint error" the original owner of the gold coin spotted and was wanting information on?
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7935 Posts |
Well, the gold coin is held by a collector in Bulgaria, confirming one of your thoughts/suspicions. This collector inquired about doubling that he/she saw in some places, and I think got surprised to find out they held a fake. As pointed out also by @publius, the degree of relief on the eagle just doesn't look right. Even on a worn specimen, there is more relief than the fake: https://www.coinarchives.com/w/lotv...58d89da604b5 I still have a lot to learn about thinking in three dimensions rather than just two when it comes to matters like this, so I am grateful to learn from you both. Edited by tdziemia
06/21/2023 8:55 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7935 Posts |
So, the other two "tells" I saw ...
On the side with lettering, the fake uses a font that is too small for the legend that goes around the rim from 9:00 to 3:00, and for the date. On an authentic specimen, this font is a bit smaller than the other lettering, but not by as much.
And on the eagle side, the fake makes the shield on the eagle's breast nearly square, whereas the authentic type has an oblong shield, much longer in the vertical dimension than the horizontal (also differences on the horesman/dragon design).
Not an area of numismatics that I aspire to be an expert, but occasionally an opportunity presents itself, and in this case, these two coins just happened to come up nearly the same time.
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Replies: 9 / Views: 859 |
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Posted 06/21/2023 1:16 pm
