Weight Loss Due To Wear

It seems that weight comes up as a criteria for identification of a forgery in virtually every case, yet few of us have actually studied wear rates of originals.

For some time, I have been doing just that because many collectors mistakenly think that a worn original dollar can lose several grams due to wear. I have had collectors and dealers argue with me that an 8R which weighs 24.5 grams is real JUST WORN.

The raised details on a coin are in reality not very high. That was done for a very important reason. The value of a silver or gold coin was contained in the amount of metal it contained. Wear which reduces weight of metal and thereby VALUE - HAD TO BE APPARENT. Coins were first and foremost a storage mechanism for value and a worn coin was worth less.

In the past few decades, we have all become use to Token coinage. Token coinage refers to coins with a face value that exceeds the intrinsic value of the metal they contain. When I began collecting that was not the case. Many of us lived through the silver transition which was caused by rising world silver values.

So coins were designed to show wear. The rule of thumb was that when the wear removed all the lettering - the coin was sub-standard and should be turned in.

I know that many beginning collectors get impressed by medals simply because of the great detail and high relief. More than one has wondered why can't they make money that impressive? The reason simply stated is - Medals do not circulate as money.

So I have located a perfect coin to prove my contention (I own a few others as well). The coin is posted on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...TRK:MEWAX:IT








It is an example of a worn original 8R from 1833. I wrote to the seller and asked for the weight - it weighs 25.9 grams. Standard weight is 27.07 grams {edited} so the total weight loss is only 1.17 grams (4.3% of the total weight). This coin has reached the point where a merchant would discount the value or a bank would retire the coin and send it to the mint for reclamation.

So the next time you are offered a nice VF dollar coin that weighs only 95% of what it should, think of this coin, because the coin you are being offered is most likely a forgery.