1873-CC Trade Dollar Real Or Fake?

@leo, I see that this piece has been slabbed and in your first image it looks like it might be a slab from China. Can you please post a picture of the full slab, including the label? Thx.

Here it's. As I understand, this is not the most trustworthy TPG, which is why I did not post their image.

It would be nice for future visitors to know why.

The 1873 CC only has one known die pair that is close to the OP example. If you look at Joe Kirchgessner new book on Trade dollars, the die pair is JK3 with obverse 2, and reverse C. On the obverse 2 there is a 7 repunched into the denticles that is missing on the OP example. Below is a close up photo of the repunched 7 in the denticles.

Genuine JK3 PCGS AU53 Date Below

OP Fake without repunched 7 in Denticles


Genuine PCGS obverse MS63+die pair JK3


OP obverse


Genuine PCGS reverse MS63+ die pair JK3


OP Fake Reverse


On the reverse the eagle's neck feathers are wrong as they are rounded. Everything that I have seen on a genuine JK3 die pair the eagles left leg has a soft strike. Note on the OP XF45 the eagle's left leg the detail can still been seen.

The Chinese counterfeiter went to a lot of work to get there coin to be close to the genuine example.

Thanks for the insightful discussion—definitely a great learning experience!
It's wild how much effort some people put into counterfeiting these... pretty frustrating for new collectors, honestly

By the way, I also noticed that this coin has a die rotation between the obverse and reverse. Could that be another indicator of counterfeiting?

I had seen this coin before on ebay for sale, but the neck feathers were enough for me go get off the purchase. The die rotation may or may not be indicator of a counterfeit as it depends on the genuine die pair. Counterfeits typically make one die pair to save cost and change the dates and the mint mark on the same counterfeit die pair. It looks like the OP fake die pair came from another type 1 obverse and type 1 reverse and the date and mint mark were added to make the 1873 CC. On the OP counterfeit the date is close, but the position of the 1 appears to be slightly off. The CC Trade dollars are highly counterfeited, so stick to major TPG and dealers when buying a CC example. I still need 4 CC Trade dollar dates to complete my set and they will be in a major TPG holder.

I see. Thanks for the detailed explanation and suggestion, Slider!
On thing for clarification, what were you referring to when you say the neck feathers are rounded? I understood the rest of your comments but do not understand this crucial point.