1771 Peru 8 Reales Pillar

Hi Nicolashsing to the community
I am afraid to note that your recently acquired pillar has all the redflags that indicates it's counterfeit based on my little knowhow in Dos Mundos.
Among others...
1.00 the edge has the usual design I normally see on fake ones.
2.00 the three fleur de lis design in the center of the crown is not symmetrical with each other.
3.00 the letterings are inconsistent specially the letter Q
4.00 the four petals of the rossette are not the normal ones.
5.00 and once the weight exceeded, I am pretty sure it has some problems.
I started collecting these ones in almost 2 decades ago and mind you,
collecting these pillars really has a lot of risk involved. Thru experience, I have acquired numerous fake ones and that's the main reason why I already stopped on Pillars and shifted to other types by which I am now more comfortable investing with...

Hello Nicolashsing and welcome to the forum. In my humble opinion the 1770 Potosi pillar you have posted is a fake. I will not point out specific features, I just don't like the flat/washed out look to all the detail. The coin "looks" wrong, and I have found over the years, when the coin looks wrong, it probably is.

I agree with the assessments that both coins are forgeries - but they are NOT TRANSFER images. That is the key problem I see here. Transfer images are much easier to spot by texture. Dies that are hand made with punches can be improved and errors can be removed. Striking fakes also allows the use of proper methods and materials. The forger especially in the second case could be getting close.

But I really wanted to comment on the following:



The location of the last sale is NOT A GUARANTEE that the coin was not made in China.

I understand about the comment you make about Chinese collectors having a problem with the way they are perceived. I too would not like constantly being accused of forgery.

But the greatest number of forgeries today are coming from China. That is a well attested fact.

The thing he points out in this auction is that a seller from the US (or any other country)is NO BETTER than a thief if he re-posts a forgery to TRY TO GET HIS MONEY BACK. Just because the seller got taken - there is NO JUSTIFICATION for swindling the next guy.

If you get taken - accept it. Suck it up and take your lumps. You got taken - learn from it don't scam the next guy.

True indeed, or better yet, do not resell it. Have an album to make a collection of counterfeits. But the most important of it is teach and share it with your childred the act of not passing on to others(thru reselling fakes) the experience of being hooked-up by counterfeiters. Again I hope time will come soonest that these forgers will get what they deserved in their lives afterall "they will definitely reap what they sow ! "
For us, let's just continue our every effort available to expose and share the experience for others to be familiarize with FAKE ones as what Swamperbob has been doing to this community - Knowledge Sharing.

These being said -- how about making this current situation a turning point for the hobby. As the saying goes -- 'every crisis is an opportunity'.

What if a 'grass root authentication movement' could be organized, where local clubs or groups or friends band together for authentication purposes. I'm not talking about yet another TPG, but a way of looking for cheaper authentication service WITHOUT slabbing, as these entails added cost. Photo-documentation would be a way to 'encapsulate' the coin, as each one is unique and has distinctive signature.

nicolashsing I agree with what you are saying in general. But not having the coin in hand, I can only go by what I see in the pictures.

The coin may be real and certification is the proper route to decide.

However, in the meantime, here are the issues that I think "when taken together" pose a problem for authenticity.

1. The color and appearance of the fields is "flat" or "Dead" looking. This is subjective I know, but if I encountered this coin in an inventory I would immediately be drawn to it as suspicious. I would also be concerned that it may have been chemically cleaned altering the surfaces which might make grading impossible.

2. The crown on the top of the shield is clearly double hubbed. The crown was set as a unit on real dies and this may be real, but I have NOT encountered another die with such a wide double set crown. In fact, I can not recall ever seeing doubled hubbed originals in this series from Potosi. Certainly it is a feature that causes added suspicion.





3. The outline of the shield itself seems to be engraved or punched with more than one punch. The top was clearly set independently from the sides because a clear doubling (or overlap) of the two punches occurs at the widest point on the shield. I have reason to believe that the shield outlines were the "King Punch" in the matrix for the 8R and that the outline was the pattern to which all other elements were positionally related. (The detail for this belief follows).





4. The 4 quarter elements the Castles and Lions were distinct punches and they are not correctly set - the upper left castle is on the horizontal line that crosses the shield. All photos of 1770 Potosi 8Rs I have seen - it is set above with a clear separation. That gap is typical - so this die once again is suspicious. The Lion in the upper right quadrant is positioned so low that the paw extends across the line into the castle quadrant slightly. This is poor position when compared to other 1770 coins and the general Pillar series. Again the coin may be real and the dies may have been made by a sloppy die sinker but the elements are suspicious.





4. In the fields of the obverse die I see several gouges which result in raised lumps on the coin. The largest is between the N and D in ET IND. There are other smaller lines at the two upper rosettes as well and near several other letters. These field dings should have been ground out in the final die finishing. Once again, not proof of forgery but something to make me look closer.





5. I am bothered by the way the letters fail to match in the fine details of the punch - the two S's are clearly different as if made with different S punches.




6. On the reverse dies one of the first things that drew my eye was the NON-radial denticles (or dentils) from the left mint mark to the T in VTRA. The dentils were a punch element seen on the standard punch blocks.



So when you say:




I certainly agree that the coins of Potosi were not up to Mexican standards, but your coin appears to be cruder than expected based on pictures I have.

The way I read Gilboy - the Matrix used to create the working dies for 8R coins consisted of a series of punches made from Master punch blocks prepared in Spain. These were NOT made locally. The punch elements were set one at a time in a pattern to create partial hubs. The hubs omitted lettering and some details because of the limitations of the presses. At Potosi they may NOT have used partial hubs (Gilboy does not say) but at a MINIMUM they die use punches cast from the punch blocks. Gilboy illustrates a Madrid punch block from 1770 on page 271 of "Columnarios". The key element of this illustration is that the SHIELD OUTLINE was presented as a single element. To me this makes far more sense than using TWO or MORE punches to create the shield outline. If the Crown with all of the detail could be hubbed - then the outline also could be done as ONE press.

If you set the shield first in the center of the die face - then the other elements can be punched in one at a time. The shield outline I see on all Potosi 1770 dies for which I have photos appears to bear out this theory - but yours clearly does not.

The coin may be real but I would have to accept that this one die pair included at least 7 suspicious anomalies to do so.