Bolivia Again.

Hmm, good looking coin. What is odd is that I'm not seeing this one in my 4th edition Krause.

Swamperbob Diameter 30.5 mm. Edge is reeded.
Archaz, a twenty year old reference, Chicago Coin Club, refers to seeing something like this in "Krause telephone book #5". The reference is lost on me. Also in HWCA New York World Coin Auction Catalog #458, refers to a copper 1/2 Melgarejo in lot 50400 on Sunday Jan 6th. There also appears to be some kind of die line running down to the date.

The line is a die crack. A pattern strike or a die trail of a cracked die is a stretch. Patterns are usually made from pristine dies - this die pair shows use - possibly heavy use or poor quality die steel. That is why I was leaning toward a counterfeit. Also the poorly formed rim says to me forgery - not a mint product.

The telephone book reference in relationship to Krause must be a joke regarding the size of the typical paperback copy of the Standard Catalog of World Coins. (They do hold up like Phone Books - poorly). In earlier Krause editions several copper varieties were listed which were later determined to be counterfeit. The most common are the Hatian counterfeits from the 1820s which had their own Krause numbers. Perhaps this coin falls into that same class.

Since it is the size of the 1/2 Melgarejo and is substantially underweight - it is typical of late 1800's counterfeits. A reeded edge is correct for the coin but without seeing how the reeds were made I can not comment on how they were applied.