odenthevikingQuote:
Someone tell me if I have learned anything from being/reading on this forum!
I for one will tell you that you certainly have learned a LOT.
The ability to perform SG (which proves the coin is not coin silver) and to locate the error in the edge gives you a leg up on most collectors and also on a great many dealers. It is a great first step to take to prevent being defrauded in the future. I congratulate you on your efforts and on your understanding of the core issues.
As for the age of the forgery, I am not really certain about your coin. Most of the bullion forgeries made in the late 1800's were really silver. That is why they were made. They were also primarily Bustman Dollars because that is what the customer wanted. Yours is NOT silver and NOT a portrait type so it is very unlikely to be part of that group.
So what is the likelihood it is Contemporary? First you need to decide on what Contemporary means. Usually it is reserved for counterfeit coins produced for FACE VALUE circulation during the era when the coins in question circulated openly AND IN LARGE NUMBERS. That last fact is all too often disregarded by "specialists" and novices alike. Forgers targeted common coins NOT RARE ones. A coin can be a rarity in circulation without being technically rare. Look at your change are
Buffalo nickels common in the US? Would they be a target for forgery today (72 years after production ceased)?
There are contemporary Pillar forgeries that exist BUT they are very scarce to very rare. DO NOT EXPECT TO FIND THEM IN GREAT NUMBERS. The two primary methods used to make forgeries contemporaneously with the Pillar series were (1) Casting in debased silver and (2) strikes on debased silver planchets. There are a few late Sheffield Strikes that sit in a unique place "between" series. But remember Sheffield methodologies date to about 10 years after Portrait Dollars arrived on the scene.
The problem with cast copies is that they are notoriously difficult to date accurately and the technology still is used in forgery so Modern cast copies can be easily mistaken for contemporary forgeries. Wear studies and metallic composition can provide clues but the casts are simply NOT POPULAR with forgery collectors. Because they are hard to date, cast copies
made from transfer molds are usually lumped together as a class REGARDLESS OF DATE OF MANUFACTURE and they are NOT treated as Contemporary. The EXTREMELY few exceptions are coins with undoubted age (provenance) and casts made from known period molds. These are the copies that still exist in Museums and a few very old well documented collections.
Contemporary struck copies of Pillar Dollars are also very rare especially in the earlier dates. The problem was die fabrication and the poor quality of die steel available to forgers. During most of the colonial period the technology was simply not available to make good dies and to HIDE them. The result was quickly made, CRUDE, HOME MADE dies. Usually dies were used in ROCKER Presses NOT screw presses since the apparatus was too hard to hide. Any coin that claims to be a period struck forgery needs close examination and may necessitate XRF testing to isolate known trace contaminants before they will be accepted as contemporary.
The one type of Pillar forgery that still has some level of availability are the Sheffield Plate copies made during the early Republican era up to perhaps 1820. These post colonial forgeries are seen from time to time and they represent your best chance for locating a "Contemporary Forgery" of a Pillar Dollar. These Sheffield Plate strikes can be reasonably be dated by comparison with other period Sheffield copies usually to the period AFTER 1789. The technology used and the materials involved are easily identified by people that are very familiar with the type. It can be rather subjective but XRF confirmation can be used as well for certainty. The dies used in this period were hand engraved but are far better than the colonial era dies. NO IMPACT TRANSFER DIES WERE USED IN THIS TIME FRAME. That last point is critical.
There are a few German Silver copies both struck and cast that have been called "contemporary" even by so called experts. That is difficult to support for Pillar Dollar types. GS was not produced in quantity before the late 1830s. That is roughly 60 years after the Pillar 8R went out of production and I personally question whether they would have been a target for forgers in the late 1830s when GS became available. I base this in part on a study of the counterfeit types noted by Riddell. His book was put together between 1839 and 1844 and covers the forgeries that were discovered in the melt batches at the New Orleans mint during that era. Riddell also had access to the mint coin cabinet in Philadelphia and the collection of real and counterfeit coins in that collection. The period Riddell operated within is the beginning of the GS era. Riddell notes many GS counterfeits of Cap and Ray Mexican issues but NONE of the GS forgeries are Portrait varieties let alone Pillar types. In fact, he states that
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In the present day [written in 1844], the Mexican and South American Dollars, are for obvious reasons, taking its place. [Referring to the "Spanish Dollar".]
So by Riddell's time the Spanish Dollar was on the way out. He defines the Spanish Dollar as Cob, Pillar and Portrait Types.
Riddell's book lists NO COUNTERFEIT examples of the Pillar Dollar at all. He saw NONE in a 4-5 year period of time and there were NONE in the mint collection. To me that says an awful lot. The melt numbers were VERY large. He examined not hundreds, not even thousands but 100's of thousands of dollar coins to produce his book.
Riddell created another category of Dollar Coins - the Hispano-Mexican Dollars. He goes on to say in reference to these Revolutionary War era 8R types (Spain vs Mexico 1810 to 1822) that;
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Those Dollars .... are still very abundant in this part of the world, (New Orleans) being usually admixed to the extent of 4 or 5 per cent in all large lots of Mexican dollars.
Note - admixed to 4 to 5 per cent. The rest were Cap and Ray Mexican types.
Is even that small a population a viable target for forgers? And if these 22 to 34 year old coins were only 4-5 percent of the total - how many were the 60 plus year old pillars?
When I combine these facts from 1844, I come to the inescapable conclusion that GS forgeries of Pillar Dollars were never made for circulation at all.
Remember the CRITICAL FACT I pointed to above that must be kept in mind - Circulating Counterfeits were made of COMMONLY CIRCULATING coins that were seen in LARGE NUMBERS. By 1839 the Pillar Dollar was NO LONGER in circulation in large numbers. It was no longer a target for forgery.
So what does that leave?
When I look at your coin I see a well made pair of dies that resemble a real coin. The details are a bit wider in my opinion. That could point to an impact transfer impression. But I think there is little doubt that it is a transfer impression of some sort.
Transfer impressions typically were used in the latter half of the 19th century and much of the 20th. If the coin is not silver it is not a bullion forgery.
So in my opinion, all that is left is a Modern Non-Circulating Counterfeit - a Numismatic Forgery of some type. Remember a non-silver dollar sized coin can be made for well under 50 cents even today. The price was far less in the 1950's. So a counterfeit that passed muster for an average price of $1 would be of interest to a numismatic forger. This coin because it is low grade and heavily chopped would not have been inspected closely because in the 1950's it was a low value coin worth just a dollar or two.
In the 1950's, forgeries were relatively "new" topic. Virgil Hancock in the 50's and 60's was one of the first to popularize the subject of forgeries in the hobby. So in that era it would have been readily accepted and would NOT have drawn undo attention.
A perfect match.
It might be newer - attributable to China - but I suspect it is not.
Posted 12/17/2010 11:48 am
There got to be better ways to display one's coin collection!
