I Paid My Tuition, Please Someone Help Me To Learn My Lesson

I recently bought a scale on ebay that actually does measure in Grams to Hundredths (.01), but wouldn't you know it. The stupid thing doesn't work. I am still waiting on a reply about what to do. Stinks because the reason I picked that particular one, was because it did measure to that accuracy.

QS

longnine009 - the ring die obliterates almost everything on the edge.

After a coin is cast there will be three obvious features:

1 - A casting seam where the two dies meet - this seam can be anywhere on the edge including the two corners.
2 - The sprue which is the trace of the port through which the metal enters the mold cavity.
3 - The vent which is the trace of the hole through which hot gases escape the mold.

The vent and sprue are often located opposite one another but can be in other configurations as well. For a good web site on casting definitions see: http://www.wynndanzur.com/glossary.htm

Anyway, counterfeiters know that they can't leave these traces so they start by grinding the entire edge of the coin smooth. This REMOVES the 3 casting traces but in their place it leaves grinding marks. The ring die removes all trace of the grinding if it is done well.

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Originally posted by texasmick

Don't trust the color, TLS, they're silver colored, not bronze like the photos would suggest.

No more popsicle sticks for me, I bought a scale. It's a Fuzion Nitro (NTR 400) and it cost $30+tax. It's small (100 x 75 x 15 mm), digital, and weighs in g, oz, grains, and carats. No more calling gun shops asking for powder scales.

At the coin shop, I had them measured as well as weighed. Here are their vitals:

Coin__________diameter (mm)__________weight (g)
Authentic__________38.1_________________26.73
1878______________37.5_________________20.1
1886______________37.5_________________19.1
1922______________37.3_________________19.6

I repeat my call for visible defects.

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That sounds like a good scale for the price. Would that be a Radio Shack item, or Wal-mart or...somewhere else?

adobero1 - one other possibility on getting a good scale cheap. I got one of my Ohaus scales from a Sheriff's sale. These scales have the advantage of letting you do a specific gravity as well as weight. The conversion between grains and grams is easy one step so you don't need an automatic conversion just an accurate scale in good shape.

Check with your local police to see if they are having a sale of siezed property anytime soon. They sell drug dealer items taken in raids and you can get some very good prices. The 1/10th gram triple beam balances are a dime a dozen, but every once in a while some drug dealer has a 1/100th gram 4 beam balance (analytical scale). The Ohaus 311g is one of the best and EASIEST to use for SG measurements. The prices at the siezed property sales are usually in the $25 to 30 range.

You also see a ton of gold (coins in jewelry) at these sales and it sells reasonably.

Thanks Swamperbob. Saw your counterfeit pics in your album yesterday--beautiful job.

I thinking about getting one of those heavier capacity beam scales and trying some specific gravity tests just for the fun of it. Right now I using an electronic pocket scale which is good enough for weighing tokens and art bars but I think it's too small for specific gravity. And I'll probably only spill the water on it anyway. Guess that's another advantage of a beam scale.

longnine009 - Thanks for the compliment on the photos - I just got a digital camera and I am starting to fool with that. The earlier pictures - the ones in the photo gallery now - are all from an old HP scanner I had which no longer works.

I have only tried taking pictures of a few coins but so far the files seem to be too big to load here. I was trying to post a 1964 Counterfeit US quarter made of copper. I will have to try later.

Morgan Fred - I just noticed your comment on the object of the very light counterfeits.

One then wonders about the purpose of the fakes. Which then leads to the question of when they were forged. If they were made many years ago for circulation when silver dollars were relatively common on the streets, they would be immediately identified by handlers (except for those persons who were not at all familiar with dollar coins).

These all fall into a class of forgeries I refer to as "Tourist Class". These radically underweight copies were first noticed after WWII when GIs overseas (orient in particular) brought them back. They were typically sold for 25 cents to the GIs by a kid or a sweet old lady. These "down on their luck" individuals formed a new breed of pushers. The GIs felt sorry for them but at the same time the GIs also knew a Silver Dollar coin was worth a lot more than the asking price. So they got suckered. The con was used again during the Korean War but was not perfected until Vietnam. At that point the Morgan dollar was out of circulation and many of the kid GIs had no appreciation for the feel of a real dollar. So the kid pushers hit the markets in huge numbers and millions of these coins were passed at under $1.

These are the same items now appearing all over the orient in Bazaars and Flea Markets. They are the bad copies made of white metal.

They are made by the same forgery groups that make the better grade silver copies. Both types are all over ebay. The silver copies fall into a "Numismatic" counterfeit group. Typically the molds or transfer dies are finished better and of course the metal used is silver. Some forgers are using 0.999 silver rounds as the source for planchets. They grind the ounce rounds down to the correct sizes and strike them with transfer dies or spark erosion dies. They are detected by examining the die marks and by SG/weight. Being 0.999 fine silver they will be either slightly small or overweight and the SG will be too high.

This will be my last post before I head off to go camping. I am waiting for my daughter and grand daughters to finish getting ready and we are off.

I will catch up in about 10 or 11 days.

Sorry- I just now read this post, every time I try to leave for a few days I miss something!

We will take worn coin so long as it is identifiable as to what it once was. The worn coins go into the bags of coin we send in for credit. The bags are weighed, not counted, so it doesn't matter what kind of scudzy stuff is in there. However, we won't take coin that is encrusted with crud or sticky stuff because it will mess up our machine, and that thing has enough trouble already!

Worn currency is a different matter. We will take it, as long as it meets certain guidelines. One whole serial number and at least two-thirds of the second must be there. We just take it down to the bigger bank down the street and turn it in for newer bills. We could send it back to the same place we send our coin, but it has to be part of a full strap. That means we'd either have to keep it around until we got a full strap of worn out currency ($2000 in 20s, $1000 in 100s or 50s, $500 in 10s, $100 in 1s and 5s), which would take forever, or we'd send it back as a part of a "good" strap, and we don't ever have any money left over each week to send anything back!

Hope this helps!

Rachel [:p]

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Originally posted by crystalk64

They look like the real thing to me as I don't see a counterfeiter wasting his time on common date Morgans or Peace dollars.

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There was a fair amount of time (late 1870's-1960's) when silver was less valuable than the dollar coin was so it paid for counterfeiters to make fakes out of the proper composition, and a quality fake could double (or better) the faker's money when spent at face value.