‘Keeps me up at night,’ says counterfeit expert of fake 1872 coin dubbed ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ – 3 errors to look for | 8Z45CU8 | 2024-04-28 17:08:01
'Keeps me up at night,' says counterfeit expert of fake 1872 coin dubbed 'Frankenstein's Monster' – 3 errors to look for | 8Z45CU8 | 2024-04-28 17:08:01
A COIN expert has flagged the five most deceptive counterfeits he has ever seen that are so convincing he's had sleepless nights.
Jack Young is a coin researcher and the founder of the Facebook group "Dark Side Counterfeits and Fakes" which alerts people to new counterfeits and fakes.
Young's work has seen him consult with the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of the Treasury which may have helped bring down a counterfeit ring based in China and Texas.
One coin that was part of this ring has been dubbed by Young the "Frankenstein's Monster" of the coin world.
This is the name he has given to the 1872-S Liberty Seated Half Dollar.
Multiple counterfeits of this half-dollar have even duped "major third-party grading services," Young explained in Coin Week.
It is for this reason that it is one of the coins that Young says "kept me up at night."
The reason it is called the "Frankenstein's Monster" of counterfeit coins is that it is an amalgamation of different coins to make a convincing dupe.
Three errors identify the half-dollar as a fake and they were all found because of the dates when they started appearing on legitimate coins.
The first error is that the obverse or front of the coin was from an 1872-P by mint state, not an 1872-S.
This error was created when the obverse of a real Philadelphia Mint-struck 1872 half-dollar was used by counterfeiters to create the fake obverse die for the half-dollar.
It can be identified by a die gouge in the T in "TRUST".
<!-- End of Brightcove Player --> Secondly, on the reverse of the coin, the unique mintmark and location are from an 1875-S.
Again, this was created when the fraudsters used the reverse of an 1875-S Seated Liberty half-dollar to create the fake reverse die for the counterfeit 1872-S coin they were creating.
This can be spotted by a very high and small S mint mark which was specific to a design that did not come in until 1875.
The third error can be spotted in the reed count which was found to be from 1876.
"Counterfeiters often use genuine coins in making counterfeit dies, but unless they use the same coin in making copy dies of both sides, mismatched combinations can result, as with the counterfeit 1872 coin," Coin World explained.
"The pairing of known dies from two different Mints and two different dates were one of the apparent tip-offs that the coins were fake."
<p class="article__content--intro"> You may be holding something valuable in your wallet. Check out these articles on rare coins to see if you may have a treasure hidden deep in your pockets. </p> </div> </div> This is "a sort of 'Frankenstein's Monster' coin, with a couple of certified examples and a couple of raw ones but no documented genuine source coin," Young said.
The 1872-S Liberty Seated Half Dollar was one of around 25 counterfeit coins that the expert says were linked to just one counterfeit ring.
An individual located in China "purchased genuine examples" from eBay "and then shipped them to the 'den' in College Station, Texas, where various seller IDs sold the clones of them on eBay," Young states.
However, following his meeting with the Secret Service and the Treasury, the group vanished along with its eBay seller IDs
"I didn't see any other new varieties from them again," Young noted.
Two of the errors can be spotted by the high S mint mark and a die gouge next to the T in TRUST[/caption]
''More >> https://ift.tt/Ms8xt95 Source: MAG NEWS
No comments: