Fake Or Real 1848 8 Reale

It looks real to me. I can tell you it's Mexican and not Chinese. It's also silver - probably .900 or higher. Your library may have a 19th century Standard Catalog of World Coins. If they do, you can easily look this up, see the book value and the percentage/wt. of silver, then take it to a coin dealer and have him/her tell you its value as scrap silver. If you find it in the catalog, check the value for VF. Due to the damge, that's what I would rate it.

odentheviking The coin appears to be real.

The 1848 Zacatecas coins were made using a "boring" Mexico City style eagle which was introduced in 1845. It is a far lower relief eagle which made for more complete strikes and longer die life. Breast feathers even show on worn copies. But the eagle lacks strength and personality. It replaced the "fat" eagle of 1842 to 1845 which was cut in rather high relief so that the breast details rarely show. But even then the head and facial features lack the strength and power of an eagle. The short lived series has a bird that alternately looks either funny or untrustworthy (sly or cagey). Both versions had the misfortune to follow my favorite Zs bird the spectacular 1825-1842 eagle. That eagle is the best of the series in my opinion because it is distinctive and strong looking. It may be the most common of all the eagles, but it is the one that to me defines the meaning of the Aztec symbol at least in my mind.

In another post someone commented about forgers not being able to get either the letters or the pictures correct. That is even more difficult to do in the case of the eagle's expression. That is in part because the eagle has a "personality" based on the engraver of the die or punch that produced it. The early Zs bird is very high relief and is spectacular (my opinion) on fully struck high grade coins. The Zs bird also was made with a VERY NEARLY complete KING punch that survived virtually intact for decades. Hence there is little or no change of expression. The Guanajuato eagles of the mid 1840s on the other hand were finished by die sinkers on EACH die. So the eye position tongue and beak details vary die to die resulting in numerous expressions.

Perhaps about now (like my wife says) - YOU ARE NUTS - comes to mind for those of you who do not understand this series. But I study the eagles - the fine details and they are "friends". Really bonkers!

I will tell you that it takes years to get familiar with the details but it makes spotting the ODD die rather easy.

Many times I see a coin produced from an ODD die, but then it takes a bit of time to determine exactly what the oddity is due to. You see original dies did get damaged and at times the die went BACK to the die shop for repairs. These are the TRUE rarities of the series cataloged NO WHERE.

For example, in 1834 at Guanajuato there was a serious clash of a die pair (a new pair based on wear) which resulted in very extensive damage to the cap and the rays on the left side of the cap. The die was reworked and in the process the connection between the cap and rays along the left side and some lower features were erased. The die sinker then re-engraved the rays onto the die - BUT in the process BENT the connection to the Cap. The same die also lost most of one of the s superscripts in the accident and the die sinker put it back in the WRONG place. The scarcity of this one die variety is assisted by the fact that full hubs were in use during this period 1830-1843. In all my years of hunting I have seen only ONE example.