1795 Carolus IIIi...

Sebastian Gonzales-Daly Hello and welcome.

I have been away from the forum working on my book about Portrait 8R counterfeits so I have missed some posts including yours.

MathieuMa was correct the mint mark is the PTS monogram that stands for Potosi, Bolivia. The Spanish Colonial coins all used a similar pattern and only the mint and assayer initials indicated the place of origin. If you note, I didn't say country of origin because the individual countries actually existed more as states in the new world empire of Spain.

MathieuMa was also right on when he warned you about the existence of numerous counterfeits in this particular series. The following is a brief tutorial on how to avoid a fake.

First - know the person you are buying from. Buy only from people who will guarantee the coins as an original FOREVER. Next you need to know what an original coin looks like. There are many books available that show pictures and on line you can check hundreds of offerings to make sure it looks reasonably correct. You should also learn about how the coin was made so you know what to look for. In this case, Potosi used a manual OPEN SIDED screw press to strike 8R coins. You should also know what the silver content was and the exact weight of the coin when new. If possible learn the tolerances used. The open sided screw press means that a coin that is slightly out of round is OK.

Begin with a visual examination of ALL THREE SIDES. Make sure it is correct looking. The correct King for the year 1795 is Charles IV (Carolus IIII), You would be surprised how often forgers get that fact wrong. Then check the assayer initials - they get these wrong too. Remember that although die sinkers did in fact make spelling errors on dies - most such errors are VERY VALUABLE and are unlikely to appear on ebay for example. BE CAUYIOUS.

The next step is to weigh the coin with an accurate scale. An original 8R in this condition with an intact edge (not saned off) should weigh MORE than 26.5 grams. A coin that weighs less than that is suspect.

Next get a magnet - no real silver coins are magnetic.

Third look at the edge design - Bolivia used the colonial edge pattern consisting of a rectangle and circle - alternating. The edges on Bolivia were bolder than Mexico City edges and NEVER show line segments at the edges (acting like a border.) The pattern MUST be VERY UNIFORM in size and shape. The pattern should NOT wave side to side. The circles should NOT have square outer corners.

The next thing to look for the method of application of the edge and the overlaps in the edge pattern. The original edges were applied to the planchet BEFORE it was struck. The dentils at the edge of the coin should COMPRESS the edge design NOT VICE VERSA. Because the coin was struck with no restraint - small cracks can sometimes be see near the edge of original coins BUT LONG SPLITS in the planchet may mean German Silver.

Finally - the overlaps mentioned by MathieuMa. There are always 2 overlaps in the edge design. These are the starting and ending points of the application of the design. The design was applied with TWO parallel edge dies that cut the edge design into the opposite sides of the planchet at the sane time. The planchet was rolled between the dies for ONE HALF a revolution to complete the edging process. The overlaps MUST BE THE SAME LENGTH and they must occur exactly opposite one another on the edge of the coin.

If your coin passes all these tests - then you can move onto a microscopic examination of the surfaces of the coin to see if it was struck or cast. All 1795 Potosi 8R coins were struck. Look for metal flow lines - silver is malleable - German Silver for example is NOT and will show no flow lines. Also look for silver plating. Many forgeries were made using Sheffield silver plate. The outer layers of silver tend to wear off on high points exposing the worthless metal beneath. Check the coin's high points for a subtle color difference.

Look for radial flow and die erosion lines. Erosion lines that are on an angle or sweep all in one direction as they approach the edge could indicate a centrifugal casting.

The next step is to determine the Specific Gravity of the coin to establish that it is the correct assay, SG for all real Spanish silver coins of this era is 10.3 to 10.31. A deviation of as little as 0.1 outside that range could mean trouble for authenticity.

After doing all these tests you can make an educated determination of originality.

Good luck and happy hunting.

MathieuMa I am hopeful that such a table will be accepted as an appendix BUT right now cost factors are beginning to limit the scope of the production. The book's backers want only the Class 1 counterfeits included in the text. Class one consists of the "Contemporaneous Circulating Counterfeits" - The Boston Style Bullion forgeries and the Numismatic Forgeries will likely get CUT from the final production. They may not even make the cut as appendices. Time will tell.

MathieuMa The way I read your question - I presume you are trying to gauge how much of the total population of Portrait 8R coins falls into the category of FORGERY in general and what part of that group falls into each subcategory. That is the Million Dollar question and one I hope to be able to answer after we finish assembling all the data for the book. It is a statistic I have wanted to assemble for the past 20 years. We are hopefully going to have a good answer very soon.

Based on what I see at coins shows (I have been attending shows since 1956) - I estimate that nearly one fifth of all 8Rs I examined in the past year were NOT real. The number of actual contemporary counterfeits is VERY VERY small - about one in 100 or less is a counterfeit dating back to the original period of circulation. All contemporary counterfeit portrait coins are RARER than the originals by a wide margin. That is why even worn examples sell well. The largest group of Counterfeit coins by far are the class I refer to as Boston types. This is in large measure because they are full weight silver and mimic the original designs well. At some shows, particularly in the NE US the percentage of bullion forgeries reaches as high as 50% but about 10% to 20% is more typical of other areas I have visited. The Modern Numismatic forgeries are fairly scarce at Shows (dealers are usually smart enough to spot them).

On ebay it is a far different situation. The number of Modern Counterfeits appearing on ebay is VERY high at times. I have literally recorded half of ebay posts as being fakes on some nights. For those of you who may not know, I do track all ebay auctions involving Spanish American 8R coins EVERY NIGHT. I list the numbers I believe are real and forged.

The best numbers I have are for my own personal collection and even those are incomplete. Until this project came up, I never tracked my collection by type of forgery. I own 560 counterfeit portrait 8Rs and about 50 that I consider to be REAL. I do not buy very many Modern Numismatic Counterfeits - they are a real waste of money. I also do not buy every Boston style fake either - THEY ARE FAR TOO COMMON for my funds. I treat Boston types as Bullion only and most dealers will not accept bullion level offers. It would cost a fortune to buy all of the Boston types. So I concentrate on the older circulating forgeries.

But my actual love is for the Cap and Ray series. My collection of Portraits is small. I own over 3000 C&R counterfeit 8Rs.

Right now I am doing a final breakdown of the numbers in my Portrait collection for the book. As a preliminary guess I would say that I own less than 100 Modern forgeries, about 100 Boston types and the rest - about 350 or so are contemporary counterfeits of all kinds. But this is a population I assembled selectively over a period of 50 years.

There are four other collections being assembled for the book but I know very little about the size or types present in 2 of those 4 collections.

I do know somethong about two of other collections. The first contains about 170 coins and I have photos of each of those. They are all contemporary circulating types. The second collection is larger than mine and approaches 1000 coins all contemporary. It is the largest collection of counterfeit 8R portrait coins in the world as far as I know. I have seen some of that large collection but do not have access to any photos or data yet.

How many of the coins will prove to be duplicates (across the 4 collections) remains to be seen - but I would estimate that all assembled there will be 1000 or more 8R counterfeits listed WITHOUT including duplicates or any Modern or Boston types.

One key factor to consider is the number of apparent unique coins you encounter when collecting older counterfeits. In numismatics in general, there are few unique original coins BUT in the realm of counterfeits UNIQUE is used a lot.

Once all the data is assembled along with the notes maintained by some of the collectors. We should have a very reasonable estimate of actual rarity by type. So far I believe that 100 surviving examples of any one type of counterfeit coin would be a very large population indeed. If that is the case, then the number of collectors of forgeries has to remain small or prices will skyrocket.