Different Type Of Counterfeit - Two Countries

I got a reply from the seller regarding this particular coin. He is sure it is REAL. Here is what he said:

Item: SIERRA LEONE RARE 1974 Restike On Mexico 1872 Peso (8411750059)
This message was sent while the listing was active.
demar_coins is the seller.

Hello,
Thanks for your interest. This mule appears to be a real Mexico 1872 Peso. It weighs .8+ ounces. The eagle looks real. Much better than the Chinese fakes you see.
Demar Coins

Here is my reply:

Item: SIERRA LEONE RARE 1974 Restike On Mexico 1872 Peso (8411750059)
This message was sent while the listing was active.
swamperbob is a potential buyer.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. The coin is a creation made from transfer dies. Many are actually struck and some are struck on polished sterling silver blanks. I know because I communicate regularly with a group of individuals in Beijing who are making them. I own many examples (at last count about 30 muled combinations).
In order to actually fabricate this item you would have to do one of two things. If you took an old peso from 1872 and restamped it with one Sierra Leone die - you would have a sharp image on the newer side ONLY if you polished off the old Mexican design and prepared a surface for striking. If you left the old design - you would see traces of that design like a double struck coin. But either way you would still end up flattening the old side during the strike. The only way to make this piece is to have both dies at one time and to strike the blank at ONE time. The 1872 Mexican dies were nearly all destroyed and the remaining ones are in the Casa Moneda, Bob


I am rather surprised to find that anyone would be unaware of what happens when you restrike an existing coin. The process is simple physics and is totally logical. When you impress a design on one side of a coin you get the same pressure exerted on the back side of the coin. If the pressure is hard enough to form an image on one side it will also form an image on the other. So you get an impression of whatever you place the coin on when you restrike it. If it is placed on a hard flat surface you get a flattened area opposite the punch or die. The more pressure used to impress the die, the less remains of the original design.

If you want to see a one die restrike see any of the 1967 Anguilla restrikes. There are always a few on ebay. Most are of course as real as hen's teeth but you can see what happens in a one die strike.

Here is a real example:

http://cgi.ebay.com/1967-ANGUILLA-L...categoryZ537

That one is certified (for better or worse) but there are others - here is another:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ANGUILLA-Counte...mZ8412509848

This one is being sold by the SAME seller as the mule - so he does know in theory what a one die restrike actually looks like. I am willing to bet that is why he calls it a mule.

A MULE is reserved for a coin struck with two dies that were not intended as a pair. It has happened at various times and the error is usually rather valuable. But there are two problems here. The two dies needed to produce a mule were 100 years apart in time and a half a world away from each other. The chance of accidentally muling this pair has gone from astronomical to requiring a miracle.

To make a mule BOTH dies need to be in the same coining press at one time. There is simply no other way. All original Mexican Peso dies that still exist are supposedly in the Casa de Moneda collection in Mexico City. A friend who has written many scholarly works on the Mexican mint and its coins has been allowed to see and examine the collection with an eye toward creating a catalog. He reports that it is truly a FEDERAL case to get access to these dies and the chances of getting one out of the Casa are astronomical.