Zs 1884 High Quality But Forgery

weinidaxiong Hello and welcome.

Do you know the actual weight of the coin?

From the photos there is virtually NOTHING that would make me overly suspicious. If I saw it posted on ebay I would likely just move on believing it was real.

However, if I noticed that the seller was from China, I MIGHT look a little closer and ask for larger pictures and the weight. But I would still be looking at the coin as real.

That bothers me and should bother every other collector as well. Forgery is becoming a very serious issue and it threatens the very heart of the hobby. If the forgeries are too good - all values will drop as copies dilute the market. Buyers will have mixes of real and fake coins sitting side by side and they will not even know the difference.

After serious examination of the pictures there are only TWO things I see as possible problems.

First the surface color looks unnatural - but many real 8Rs do look the same. Color and streaks in toning are only a WEAK clue in most cases - not enough for me to be concerned.

Second, on the eagle side (Obverse) at the edge of the coin from the upper oak leaves to the letters "REP". There could be a shadow indicating a two level rim. If that feature is clear (I can not tell based on this picture) then I would be more suspicious of forgery. It "appears" that the edge application may have created a distortion at the rim. That in turn points to a post strike edge application (which would be wrong) and it also indicates virtually NO WEAR after the edge was applied (which would also be wrong).

In person confirmation of this feature would be positive proof that we have a forgery but in a photograph it becomes a suspicion - a VERY WEAK ONE.

Since the edge looks very nice and the pattern is one that was used about 1884 and the design is correct - I would (1) based on the picture only and (2) using a preponderance of clues approach - say the coin would be REAL. But I would apparently be WRONG.

Well this second coin is EASY to spot as a forgery. The 1889 Guanajuato coins were made from standardized dies - the coin pictured uses a PRE-STANDARD eagle. It is fairly common for forgers to MULE their dies incorrectly.

Too bad they are not all this easy to spot.

But now that we know the second one is CONCLUSIVELY A FORGERY - everyone should study it and avoid ANY COIN WITH A SIMILAR APPEARANCE.

I would like to know the name of the seller - I would like to see these in person.

Thanks for locating them.

RealPeso You say:




Just to keep the record straight - the Chinese also were the recipient of Millions of COUNTERFEIT coins as well as real ones over the period from about 1793 to 1933. So they are really just returning the favor.

In a letter dated March 25, 1797 a Doctor Theramin reported to the Spanish Ambassador that:




He was referring to the factories in Birmingham, England which were manufacturing huge numbers of Portrait 8Rs for shipment to China and the orient. If you do the math - that one factory (there were several) could have produced about 650,000 8R counterfeits in ONE YEAR. The first production at Birmingham lasted for as much as 5 years so the total number made must have been enormous.

Fast forward to the late 1870's and the worldwide silver glut caused by the Nevada silver discoveries and you have a second major issuance of fakes - this time full weight silver copies made in the US. Here the one reference source I now of indicates that production by one Massachusetts firm reached 10,000 8R coins per month. That trade lasted for several years as well 1870 to 1933 roughly but highest production levels occurred before 1893.

So there were two MAJOR and who knows how many minor issues of forgeries that went to China.

In some cases, these OLD fakes may just be coming back home. Not all of the sellers of "Chinese" fakes are making them. I have purchased several OLD US made fakes from Chinese sources who apparently were unaware they were bogus. Because MILLIONS of forgeries were dumped in China it is inevitable that the pool of coins coming out of China is a great source for collectors like myself.

RealPeso I guess there may be collectors for even modern forgeries but the prices should stay in line with cost of production. But a century from now they may be of some value as collectibles.