1814 Bolivia 8 Reales

Boy, I hope it's real! The seller is a former dealer who has been collecting world coins for probably 50 years and he was 100% positive this is a genuine coin. I didn't photograph the edge, but the edge design consists of a blurry pattern of alternating circles and rectanges which I think is normal for these "bustman" dollars. There is no sign of a casting seam anywhere on the edge.

Hopefully Swamperbob can weigh in on this one.

Coin looks OK to me, thought hard to tell in a computer picture. Just weigh the coin, is it close to 28 grm? If it is a cast copy it will be lighter (and still worth $30 as a contemporary counterfeit). Check with a high power glass and see if the surface looks "struck" or cast? Cast surface is always grainy looking usually with microscopic pitting that can be seen with a magnifying glass. Great cin and a good buy! Well done Jaobler!

nice deal

Jaobler - Nice pictures - the depressions in the rim are in my opinion post strike damage. There is a pice of displaced dentil next to the rectangular impression between the ET which shows displacement of the raised dentils into the field. A planchet defect would not have a displacement - the dentil would simply be weak or missing. The fact that there are corners on some of the holes removes casting as a possibility because bubbles do not have angular corners.

The edge photo shows very clearly one of the edge overlaps I discuss all the time. This one is rather long! I see overlap across the entire picture at least 10 segments in length. That does present a problem unless the entire edge is doubled or there is evidence oon the edge of a second edging. The possibility of a mint error is indicated. The blank may have beeb edged two times accidentally. This did happen but not often. There are also instances of a blank jamming so that a restart had to be done. Those are usually seen when there are large retained spurs on the blank (due to poor blank punching).

There are normally two overlaps from 1 to 5 segments in length with a single impression of the edge in between. In the case of a doubled edged planchet it has 4 overlaps but they are usually very difficult to spot after any wear occurs.

Does any of this point to a forgery? - only minimally. There were silver counterfeits struck in the late 1890s and early 1900s when silver bullion prices fell and these coins were still trading at a high face value. It was similar to making a Morgan dollar in the same period when it contained only 35 cents worth of silver. If you could pass it in the US you made a profit. The same thing happened in China when the merchants were accepting Bustman dollars at the old face value but the silver value had dropped. Enterprising forgers made full weight silver copies for less than 50 cents each and got $1.00 value in China.

That said - this edge does NOT look like a typical edge from that period.

If it was a silver counterfeit - you wouldn't have lost anything anyway. Fewer than 1 in 10 dealers even recognize them so they trade as originals anyway.

I STILL THINK IT IS REAL.

Congrats on the pick up.
And SwamperBob excellent description.
Quite informative.

Kris - Your impression is correct. There is a link to extended discussions on this forum. The blanks after being adjusted for weight were edged in a Two die milling machine. This not only added the edge device it also upset the rim for a better strike. The mill consisted of two flat bar dies mounted on a flat table like surface. One die was fixed to the table and the other movable. Screw devices controlled movement toward the fixed die and a second screw moved it parallel to the fixed die. A blank was inserted - the movable die was pressed into the edge of the blank at 90 degrees squeezing it and reducing the diameter of the blank to the size of a planchet(in the process it made impressions on both sides simultaneously). The movable die was then cranked along parallel to the fixed die causing the impression to be cut into the edge as the coin blank rolled along between the two dies. The blank was held tightly by the pressure until just a bit over one half revolution was complete. At that point the entire blank was edged and it was just a bit SMALLER than it started out - that reduction in size released the pressure and allowed the blank - now a planchet to fall out the bottom of the apparatus into a basket. On many single coin edgers the cutting teeth of the die were ground off at this point to allow a free drop which PREVENTED double edging.

This was a production effort and no time was wasted. If each planchet took an extra second or two production rates fell. The workers were paid by the number of planchets produced. They needed to completely edge the planchet but did not spend extra time normally adding too many extra segments. It could happen - say a novice operator - but I can not now recall ever seeing one.

Later edging mills (1880's say) were multiple blank edgers and were more sophisticated (mechanized) but in the later dates multiple edging 2 or 3 turns are very common.

The specific problem I saw was the length of the overlap. Too long an overlap can indicate a forger attempting to duplicate the effect of the edging mill. Ten segments is a long overlap for most Portrait coins. Edging a planchet a second time makes far more sense than an extended overlap. That is why I wonder if the entire edge was doubled. The initial set of pressure was done manually so it was possible to do an edge twice (but that is a scarce error in my experience).