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Fakes Share Certain Surface Characteristics

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• Fakes Share Certain Surface Characteristics

If someone asks you to name some of the defects commonly found on counterfeit coins what would you say? What would you look for on a coin that you suspected to be counterfeit?

Did you say weight? One authenticator that I have worked with routinely weighed any coin he suspected might not be genuine. I cannot argue with his thoroughness, yet there were many times I had to suppress a smile or comment.

You see, most of the coins that were out of tolerance were not very good fakes to begin with. Besides, long ago, the people making deceptive fakes became more careful about the weight of their products.

Did you say color? As I have discussed here before, color gives us an important clue about the alloy composition of a particular coin.

What about its surface texture?

Let’s examine a group of recently made counterfeit coins from various countries to see what they have in common. Before looking at the illustrations, I’ll give a short description of what each looks like to the naked eye.

The coin in Figure 1 is a Danish 5 ore, KM#794.1 made of bronze. It grades MS-68 red. There are no marks on it and its surface is fully lustrous and spot free. And why not? It was probably just made to order a few weeks ago.

Figure 2 is a 30X view of a 1936 French 20 francs, KM#879. This coin would also grade very high, perhaps MS-66 because of a few dings. Its reeded edge feels very sharp to the touch and the fields of this fake are almost semi-prooflike. This would be an awesome coin if it were genuine.

Both of these coins fall into the category of “too-good to-be-true” and that alone should make one suspicious of their authenticity. The counterfeiters are not stupid. They have learned that it is easier to pass a dark, slightly circulated coin off as a genuine specimen.

The counterfeit Russian ruble, KM#19.2, in Figure 3 is an example of a coin that might have a better chance of passing undetected because it appears to have circulated. This coin is gray with dark accents around its relief.

Its “details” grade is XF/AU. However, there is virtually no actual friction wear on the coin. There are many “fresh” contact marks on its surface and there are also many depressed marks that were transferred from the original coin used to make the fake dies. These depressions have the same surface as the rest of the coin and will carry over to similar coins having a different date.

Figure 4 shows part of the reverse on a circulated Bust dime that is counterfeit.

Now let’s take a look at the micrographs to see what these coins have in common. All have small pimples on their relief. The Russian coin also has many in the field.

When two dealers get together to discuss a suspect coin you’ll often hear them mention a rough, granular surface or pimples. These characteristics are commonly found on fakes made by casting. More recently, they are seen on fakes struck using dies made by a spark erosion process. Many of the new Chinese counterfeit coins have these defects and they cannot be polished off without affecting the coin’s design. Do you see the tiny pimples in each of the micrographs?

One note of caution is in order. I have found that sooner or later, every defect seen on a counterfeit will turn up on a genuine coin and the reverse is also true. For instance, environmental damage can give a genuine coin a rough granular appearance and a few stray pimples on a coin does not prove it’s a counterfeit. In fact, one variety of 1883-CC Morgan dollar is covered with little pimples on its reverse.

Should you wish to appreciate the severity of the Chinese assault on numismatics, log on to eBay and check out what’s available under copies and replicas. For the moment, most of these coins will fool many collectors but they are easily detected by major dealers and numismatists.

Nevertheless, I have already alerted you to the fact that at least one Chinese outfit, possibly with help from the highest authorities, is producing much more dangerous fakes that the ones I illustrate here.

As always, buy from reputable dealers. If you don’t feel comfortable about your authentication skills, purchase slabs and have any suspicious coins checked by a major grading service.

By Allen Rowe

Counterfeit coins have been around almost as long as coins themselves. In the early years most coins were only worth as much as the metal they were made of, so fakes were relegated to copies made with inferior metal to the original.

Today coins are worth more than their metal value, so fakes are more lucrative to a counterfeiter.

Counterfeiters have several different ways of making fakes. They can alter the date or mint mark, splice two coins together, or just make the coin themselves. Coin grading companies have stopped a large part of these fakes, but now they are becoming targets themselves.

The reason for writing this article is that lately there has been a rash of counterfeits coming into the market. Most of these counterfeits are coming out of China and through popular online auction sites. I have just returned from the Florida United Numismatics convention in Orlando, one of the largest trade shows in the country, where I was privileged enough to look at some of the new counterfeits coming out of China.

For years the wave of fakes and forgeries has been growing and with it so are the techniques the counterfeiters are using.

At first much of what was being produced were fantasy pieces, coins that were never made with a particular date and mint mark combination. From there counterfeiters went into producing low level fakes. Wrong sized or non-precious metal planchets were dead giveaways for these pieces.

But soon the counterfeiters were using precious metals and spending extra time to make them the correct size and weight. Most of these pieces were easy for experts to detect as the die characteristics were all wrong for an authentic piece. These fooled many novices, but not many experts.

Today two new threats are reaching the market. First are die-struck counterfeits where high quality fakes are being produced from laser cut dies. It takes an expert to discern these fakes. Using knowledge of minute die characteristics is the only way to ferret out these counterfeits.

Secondly counterfeiters are now targeting the grading services themselves.

Recently a batch of counterfeited certified coins hit the market. Two genuine coins were used to make one fake coin, which was then housed in a counterfeit certified holder.

The example I saw was a 1904-S Morgan dollar in a fake PCGS MS64 holder, worth about $5000 if real. The coin was really a 1904-O dollar, a $30 dollar coin, with the back shaved off paired with a 1879-S dollar, a $35 coin, with the front shaved off. The two coins were then glued together and put in a fake PCGS holder. This would fool many collectors and lower level dealers.

If you are buying coins, especially if you are buying them through the internet, be very alert to these threats. Relying on experts in the industry will help you navigate through these potentially costly traps being laid out in this newest wave of counterfeits.

• Allen Rowe is the owner of Northern Nevada Coin in Carson City.

Seeing Genuine Coin Helps to Catch Fakes

There have been several letters published in this newspaper offering suggestions for articles. I read the letters too and one sure way to success is to give readers topics they want.

Let me answer one of the issues dealing with counterfeit coins that all authenticators have faced in their professional career: How much information to divulge to the public about specific counterfeit coins.

I became a coin authenticator in 1972. Looking back, the fakes of that time were crude compared with some of those we see today. Armed with the knowledge we possess today, nothing back then would have been deceptive; however, authentication was also in its infancy. Forty years ago, fakes were detected by measuring their weight, diameter, fineness and style. The general use of stereo microscopes for coin authentication had not caught on even though this tool, coupled with fluorescent light, was regularly used at the U.S. Mint Lab to examine coins.

When the American Numismatic Association established their Authentication Service in Washington, D.C., a stereo microscope was on the list of necessary equipment. In a relatively short time, we realized how great an authentication tool it was. Coins looked different under high power. It became obvious; why try to authenticate a coin with the naked eye or using one eye and a 10x hand lens when you could examine the fabric of its surface closely with two eyes at up to 80x?

The counterfeits of the day “fell apart” under that close scrutiny. The ANA launched a new era of counterfeit detection. We faced a dilemma each time we discovered a new fake coin at the ANA Certification Service. Some wanted to keep all diagnostics of the new fakes private so as not to help the counterfeiters. The biggest proponent of this view wrote an entertaining column featuring fake coins; yet he rarely gave readers a clue about how to detect them.

At first, I agreed with this approach; but more liberal minds, plus the need to educate dealers and collectors convinced me that the best approach was to divulge just enough diagnostic information to help collectors even though the fakers benefited too. We knew that publishing diagnostic information would definitely make our job harder as it would help the counterfeiters improved their product.

The validity of our concern was quick to come. In the ANA counterfeit detection course at the 1974 Summer Seminar, we showed slides of a newly discovered $10 Indian counterfeit and not two months later we saw the exact same fakes at the Certification Service, but missing the diagnostic markers we had revealed to the class! Today, some counterfeits are so deceptive that I should hesitate to release any diagnostics in print but then my columns would become virtually worthless.

Enough background, let me address each reader who wishes they could open a book and look up the diagnostics for a specific counterfeit coin. It has been done before and it was only useful over a short period of time. Many of the fakes had the same dies. Soon, the book became obsolete as technology changed, the fakes improved, and we became more experienced authenticators. Remember, I’ve experienced first hand that the stereo- microscope allowed us to quickly surpass all the reference books available to us in the 1970s.

Let me suggest a better approach based on my experiences. In 1972, the Certification Service blindly followed the spurious opinion of a respected numismatic authority concerning the authentication of a foreign coin. When we learned of our error, I voiced what should have been plainly obvious at the time: “The most important requirement for coin authentication is to know what a genuine specimen looks like. That is why a book or collection of columns showing the defects of a specific counterfeit coin is less important than your own study of the characteristics found on genuine coins while using a stereo microscope. With study, you may not know for sure if a specimen is counterfeit; but you will be positive that it looks different than any genuine coin you have seen.

With that for you to think about, here is this month’s fake. Micrographs 1 shows a genuine Cuban 1915 5-peso gold coin. The piece shown in Figure 2 is a counterfeit. Both coins are virtually uncirculated. The counterfeit is a tenth of a gram light and its edge reeding does not match that of the genuine coin. Neither of these characteristics is alarming by itself. In fact, the different edge reeding became apparent only after I obtained a genuine comparison coin.

Now, let’s compare the micrographs. The digits on the counterfeit look fine until we compare them to those on the genuine coin. The genuine coin also shows radial metal flow near the edge and between the letters. Note that the shape of the denticals is different on the fake. In the shield design, there are many subtle design differences between the two coins. The key, sun, and scene are different and the horizontal lines on the fake are crude. The color of the gold is correct so the composition of the fake is good. Thus, anyone not familiar with the appearance of a genuine specimen could easily overlook this fake. If you fall into this group, it is best to purchase coins certified by a major grading service.

 Tungsten and its use in making fake gold

 By Mike Hewitt

In early 2008 it was reported that at least some of the gold bars in the vaults at the National Bank of Ethiopia were fake. The discovery was made when bars shipped from Ethiopia to South Africa were returned after they were identified as being gilded steel.

Gilded steel is a very unconvincing form of fake gold because the density of the iron alloy is significantly less. A steel bar identical in volume to the standard 400 troy ounce gold bars commonly used in bank-to-bank trades would weigh only 162.5 troy ounces (about sixty percent lighter). Anyone familiar with handling gold bars would easily identify them as counterfeit.

Even lead, a common heavy metal, is a poor substitute as it is only 59% the density of gold. One of the things that historically made gold so attractive to be used as money was its unmistakable density.

Nowadays we know of several metals that have similar densities to gold, such as the heavier platinum-group metals. However, using these metals to produce fake gold is unprofitable due to their high cost.

There are two metals that are suitable, from both a density and economic perspective, for manufacturing fake gold – uranium and tungsten.

These metals aren’t without their give-aways either. Different chemical and electro-magnetic properties exist. Uranium is of course radioactive. Tungsten is extremely brittle – the exact opposite of gold. Additionally, tungsten has the highest known melting point of any non-alloyed metal at 3422 degrees Celsius, making it difficult to work with. However, it appears that at least one high-temperature furnace is producing gilded tungsten products.

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A Chinese company called Chinatungsten is advertising imitation gold merchandise on its website. The following quote is taken directly from their Tungsten Alloy for Gold Substitution page:

“a coin with a tungsten center and gold all around it could not be detected as counterfeit by density measurement alone … We are well accustomed to exploit more innovative applications of tungsten products. Gold-plated tungsten is one of our main products.”

This raises a few (somewhat rhetorical) questions. What kind of customer is this company looking to sell its imitation gold products to and for what purposes are they intended? Furthermore, what exactly are the “more innovative applications of tungsten products” that this company is hinting at

Mike Hewitt is the editor of DollarDaze.org, a website pertaining to commentary on the instability of the global fiat monetary system and investment strategies on mining companies. His website also provides a no-cost market data feed service with up-to-date quotes on currency exchange rates, commodity prices and major indices. Mike can be emailed at mikehewitt@hotmail.com..

China Battles Domestic Counterfeiters

By Richard Giedroyc, World Coin News

October 19, 2009

The Peoples’ Republic of China has been in the numismatic hobby news in recent months due to coin replicas originating from China that are being sold elsewhere in the world as genuine coins. This includes coins of Canada, Russia and the United States.

Since the Hobby Protection Act in the United States is unenforceable outside U.S. borders, this lack of enforcement overseas almost invites the export of replica coins to places where the replica coins can be sold by third parties to unsuspecting collectors as being genuine. In an article appearing in this column last month coin collector Mike Marshall of Trenton, Ontario, was acknowledged as saying there are six companies in China that make replica coins. The Chinese replica products are produced and sold legitimately – in China.

Well, it appears China may be having problems of its own regarding locally produced counterfeit or replica coins. In fact, since China has been one of several countries that in recent years has suffered from a shortage of circulating coinage it appears at least one enterprising organization working outside the government has decided to take advantage of the shortage by making its own coins.

According to the Aug. 6 Guangzhou Daily newspaper, police in Foshan in south China’s Guangdong province arrested seven people a day earlier, seizing more than 220,000 counterfeit 1-yuan coins reported to weigh a total of about 1.5 tons.

The 1-yuan denomination, which is the workhorse coin of the Chinese economy, is a nickel-plated steel coin with a diameter of 24.9 millimeters. The obverse depicts the denomination and date, while a chrysanthemum appears on the reverse. The lettered edge repeats RMB three times.

RMB is an abbreviation for renmimbi or “people’s currency,” which is issued exclusively by the People’s Bank of China. The official abbreviation is CNY, but it does not appear on circulating coinage.

According to the Guangzhou Daily newspaper article, “A woman named Liu and her driver were stopped by police when they were seen behaving suspiciously around a Foshan bus station on June 26. The police then seized 18,000 counterfeit 1-yuan coins at the scene and captured a buyer with 1,100 such counterfeit coins. Following the seizure, the police raided Liu’s home in Guangzhou and found 200,000 more counterfeit 1-yuan coins wrapped in packages.”

The newspaper reported the fake coins originated in Loudi in Hunan province (central China). The counterfeiting operation does not appear to be an isolated incident. According to the newspaper, more than 20 people possessing 1.17 million counterfeit 1-yuan coins were arrested in Loudi in July. In addition “five fake coin plants” were raided in Loudi.

This isn’t the only recent incident suggesting China is having internal problems with counterfeit coins. The Aug. 10 issue of the publication China View reported, “China’s Public Security Ministry Monday warned the public to beware of fake commemorative coins purportedly issued to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.”

Specifically, a set of 100- and 150-yuan gold coins and four 10-yuan .999 fine silver coins being advertised as having been issued by the People’s Bank of China and distributed by China Gold Coin Inc. are fakes since neither organization has issued any such coins.

China View reported the unauthorized commemorative coins being sold for 550 yuan or $80 US on the Web site www.taobao.com originating in Hebei Province.

Sounding very much like what you might expect to hear from the U.S. government if a similar situation happened in the United States the Chinese ministry warned, “Precious metal commemorative coins should only be purchased through formal channels

Millions Lost From Coin Fakes, Hobby Leaders Warn

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By Professional Numismatists Guild on Monday, October 12, 2009
Filed Under: Clubs & Associations, Coin Crime Alert, Counterfeits & Fraud, Featured, Press Releases