Pillar 8 Reales, Check It Out!!

we have a member here with the nick of swamperbob who is the expert of fake coins and it may take him awhile to respond but he can give you a correct answer on your qiuestion. I know nothing about the series so I dont know where to start to even compare a real against a fake but if he says its authentic then you can pretty much take it to the bank that it is, but if he says its fake then he is usually right aboput that as well. One thing I suggest is that you take a picture of the narrow side of the coin (reeds if it has them) that is one certain way to tell if its fake or not

Thank you for removing my other post, I wrote it this morning before I knew that there was a world coin forum and I forgot to remove it. I am sorry I didnt mean to spam.
I also want to thank everyone for repsonding to this, it really is helpful when you dont have any coin experts within 500 miles to take coins to.

Of this topic, but still "on" this topic, if someone doesn't know their coin or Reale is fake and assumes its real and it gets on ebay at a high bid and the coin is shipped out, What would happen if the buyer finds out its fake after a matter of time...?

TKC!

wow I just spent 3 hours reading swamperbob talking about pillars on this board, he must be a super-expert. I cant wait till he tells me mine is a fake, hahaha. I hope it's real, **Crosses Finger**

Meiji03 - Hello and welcome to the forum.

The 1771 Mexico City is one of the most common of the pillar 8R coins and real copies are still available in high grades at reasonable prices. It was the first pillar that I secured a real copy of back when I was in High School in the early 1960s. I still have that coin in my type set.

Recently, however, the Chinese have created a very high quality die of the 1771 8R from Mexico City. I have seen, but do not yet own a copy of that date - I do have a very well executed 1770 in silver which shares some minor die and punch distinctives with your coin that makes me a bit suspicious of it. One of thise is a nick in the outline of the Atlantic coast of Brazil on the world globe. However, thus far I am not absolutely positive either way. I am leaning toward it possibly being real.

First - on the positive side - it appears that the edge was applied BEFORE the coin was struck. That is a very good sign - all of the 1771 Mo 8Rs I have seen from China were edged AFTER the strike. On your coin you can see how the dentils run straight to the edge without any distortion caused by a post strike application of the edge detail. There is also no undulation in the dentils. So, it appears that you have a coin edged correctly.

The fields and letters in general look reasonable for the dies of the period. I will continue to make die comparisons with my file photos to see if I can locate that particular die pair. So far, it looks far more like a real die than a fake. I have checked a couple dozen sets of pictures real and fake on which I base that "judgement".

At the scale that appears on the Forum the only problem I see is the patch of "yellowish" discoloration around the M on VNUM on the Globe Side. That color is often seen on artificially aged modern forgeries made in China. They use a sulphur based chemical and the residues are often yellow and it clings to protected areas of the coin around the details. In person it resembles a clay soil that adheres to the surface. It is often removed when the coin is resold in the US or elsewhere. It can be removed easily without damaging the surfaces, but on forgeries it was often applied to cover up small errors in the dies (loke the famous "black goop").

The weight you list is approximately correct for the amount of wear I observe on the coin (and the original variations present at the mint) - about 8/10ths of one percent. However, the Chinese also know the correct weight and they should be able to duplicate the original weight and dimensions rather easily. But in actual practice if anything, the Chinese tend to make their coins just a bit too heavy.

I was able to copy your picture and enlarge the details somewhat, but the details thus "created" might not be 100% true to the original. I would prefer to see a much larger picture of the coin. However, when viewing the enlargement I noticed a couple details that are not exactly correct.

The second 1 in the date which looks like an I appears to have a "hollow" at the intersection of the upright and the bottom crossbar. If this is NOT a dent (post strike damage would be perfectly OK) but a struck depression caused by a lump on the die inside the number 1 I would take that as strong evidence of a forgery.

There appears to be a "white dot" following the R in VTRAQUE which could be a piece of dirt or dust OR it could be a remnant of a cast feature - a bubble in the die surface. The nature of this spot should be closely examined.

The Crown on top of the left pillar looks out of balance to me (left side is higher) and the cross appears poorly formed (right side of the cross bar is short). If that feature is seen on the original, and is NOT due to post strike damage, I would look for evidence of engraving of the details on the crowns. These features on originals were PUNCHED into the die and the features should be complete. I am not aware of a defective punch being used for the 1771 - but it is possible.

The fine surfaces (the dentils for example) should be examined to see if they are complete or if they are "hollow" at the tops. The surface of the coin (the die fields) should be examined for small lumps, pits and scratches as seen on transfer dies. You are looking for traces of a casting procedure because the coin seems to be too close to the original matrix to be a hand made firged die.

Things I would like to see to make sure:

1. I really need to see much larger more detailed scans of all three surfaces of the coin. If they are too large to post here on the forum please send them to me by email.
2. Examine the entire coin and look for the telltale signs of a cast die - small pits and lumps caused by bubbles. They will be tiny and will be found right next to features (where they could not be polished off the die.)
3. Check the edge and look for overlaps in the pattern. Let me know what you see and take pictures of any oddities.
4. Finally, who specifically did you win the coin from and where is he/she located? Have you asked where they got the coin and how long they owned it? Any tie to China or the orient and I would be far more suspicious that this one is fake.

Sorry not to have a definitive answer - but working from scans can be very tough if the coin is a high grade numismatic quality forgery.

bobby131313 - yes and then I copied it and blew it up 5x further. Details suffer just a bit.

One more thing.. if it does turn out to me fake and I get my money back from paypal, would you sell me a pillars that is real?

Meiji03 - the majority of Modern Spanish American 8R counterfeits on the market today come from China. That is a simple and unfortunate fact. Making forgeries is not illegal in China so there are a lot of people doing it. It is treated as an ART. The fact that the coin came from China makes me VERY suspicious that it may not be real. There are some real coins coming oout of China, but there 10 fakes for every 1 coin. As soon as you get better pictures let me know. If you can photograph the edge of the coin that would help as well.

I list quite a few ebay sellers from China who handle forged items. Send me an email with the seller's name and perhaps I can give you a better idea what your chances are.