Two Altered 8Rs With A Twist

I found another pair of altered 8Rs and a Death to Huerta Peso on ebay all obvious frauds - but the seller faces that fact head on and indicates they are TWO NEW VARIETIES and a Pattern or test coin.

Some nerve in my opinion. I also suspect at least one additional coin is a counterfeit - anyone care to guess which one and what the clue in the picture is?

Here are the three:

First an 1866 Durango a VERY RARE coin - the entire mintage was produced by one die pair and there are VERY few known copies. That is according to Dunigan in Resplandores. Krause lists both an overdate and normal date but that is typical of Krause - there are numerous errors and it does not claim to be accurate on varieties. However, just for argument's sake let me pose a question. If there was a "normal date" 1866 Durango wouldn't you expect the normal date type to use the same die style as the overdate and the next year? The style ran for 5 years from 1865 to 1870.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mexico-SILVER-8...220497264078

This coin is clearly made from the die style coin minted AFTER 1874. In addition - I clearly see a difference in color on the 66 in the date and one or both assayer initials. It is a simple altered original like the numerous Chinese altered dates seen on ebay every day.

However, in his description the seller cites the "RESPLANDORES" reference then indicates that ....




It has a "DIFFERENT SNAKE AND TAIL" of course it does! It is altered from a common date that had a different snake and tail.

The second coin is one that according to Dunigan simply does NOT EXIST.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mexico-SILVER-8...220497264109

I like the seller's note -



I didn't locate the citation, but there is NO reference that holds a candle to Dunigan's book Resplandores for this series. I was also amused by his use of "PEQUEÑOS CHOPS" like it is something special. PEQUEÑOS simply means SMALL. I guess he is hoping that the Spanish term will get extra interest going. This one has PEQUEÑOS chops wow!!

The third example is another coin where the text is misleading to a "novice" collector. The coin is the famous Death to Huerta Peso. The originals are rare, but there are numerous counterfeit examples of this particular "emergency war time issue".

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mexico-1-PESO-1...Z22049726399

He is selling a standard copper counterfeit but he calls it a




Once again the Prueba reference is a mix of Spanish and English terms - a cobre test (or pattern). But you know - it may be a test at that - A TEST STRIKE TO PROVE A COUNTERFEIT DIE PAIR.