marknWelcome to the world of "UN-real Reales"
I have been collecting the counterfeit versions of the Cap and Ray 8R for over 50 years and find them fascinating.
The one you have is an "Evolved" design of Chinese origin. There are numerous 1884 Zs forgeries which have changed over time. I believe they are all from China (not 100% certain) and the features (the errors) were made one at a time. This progression of accumulative errors is why I believe they represent a series of copies. The errors are passed on. The original forgery in the series is well executed but the eagle was re-engraved to strengthen the impression. I believe this was a transfer impression. This re-cutting exaggerated some of the features like the head and feathers. The next in the series blunders caused the Straight J in the assayer initials to become an I. The long serifs top and bottom came later. At this point the edge is always reeds applied with a ring die. Then the production method changed to a collared three die press and the edge became reeded but with no split tails. The upset rim and odd dentils came along with the collared press. The final error was the $ superscript on the Zs. With each new version of the 1884 Zs the dies get cruder. So now we have this very odd Eagle. At one point as a study I put together pictures of the 6 coin evolution. But that was on my old PC and those pictures are gone.
By the way, this version is sometimes marked "COPY" but the location is usually on one of the Oak Leaves on the left side of the coin - hard to spot. I have seen more than one with the identical location of the stamp so it is likely they were at one time added by the manufacturer which in turn means that the coin was likely in production AFTER 1984. There may be a newer example of this coin that I have only seen in pictures. All of the superscripts have transformed into dollar signs.
Some of these look absolutely brand new with no attempt at artificial aging so in some form they may still be in production.
The 1882 Zs is more common Chinese forgery (about 30 to 1 based on
ebay appearances over the past 3 years) but like this one NEITHER contains any silver at all.
They are Tourist Class Modern Numismatic Forgeries under my system of classification.
Posted 12/22/2010 6:35 pm
