Articles

Counterfeit GSA Found at Summer FUN in Orlando, FL

From 1972 to 1980 the General Services Administration (GSA) sold a group of Uncirculated Carson City Morgan dollars that was discovered in Treasury vaults. Each coin was sealed in a special slab-like plastic case. A thin black & silver cardboard box held the slab and contained a numbered certificate. Many of the original boxes and cases have been destroyed as coins were sent to grading services; nevertheless, these GSA coins in original holders can still be found with a little searching. Read More

Please try these grading tips at home

I’m beginning to think that a majority of dealers and collectors do not know how to examine their coins. That’s because the most common question I get at the Independent Coin Grading booth during coin shows deals with cleaning.

“Is this cleaned?” My usual response is: “What do you think?” It is one way to draw them out, make them think, and possibly educate them. Most don’t even have a hand lens to use when they come to the table. Often, I feel my instruction does no good; yet once in a while some see the light and it is all worth the effort. So with this column, I want to scold some of you into action so you start to look at coins in a different way. Please read on and try some of my advice. Read More

Evolution of Surface Alterations

Early in my career as a professional numismatist specializing in authentication and grading, I made the determination that I didn’t care to know how a counterfeit coin was made or what method or concoction was used to alter a coin’s surface. I just wanted to be able to detect these spurious specimens. It became obvious that to reach my goal, the most important requirement was to know what genuine coins in their natural, original condition should look like. Almost thirty-eight years later, the fakes, altered, and enhanced coins have become much more deceptive but that basic requirements for authenticating and grading has not changed. Read More

The Fabric of Coins

(Originally published in the “Making the Grade” column of Numismatic News)

The characteristics of a coin’s surface – its color and “fabric” – can provide important clues to its authenticity. While color is an easy term to grasp, many readers may not have heard the term “fabric” used to describe a coin. I first discovered the word as used by collectors of ancient coins to describe the surface texture found on various specimens. Imagine a coin’s surface as a piece of cloth. The “fabric” of a genuine coin has a specific “look” when its surface is in original condition as minted. One coin might have the silkiness of satin while another, the roughness of corduroy. Charles Hoskins, my mentor, described this appearance as “Mint Quality.” Read More

Counterfeit Slabs and Coins

Our hobby is under attack in a way that calls for some drastic changes in order to protect the marketplace from a new plague of deceptive counterfeits. In two columns, I’ll trace earlier generations of bogus coins, explore some of the new fakes from China, and suggest some possible ways to remedy the problem of these counterfeits.

Counterfeiting is probably older than the first coins; while alterations made to items considered as money may have preceded that. Nevertheless, let’s begin well after this period and consider the era of struck coinage. One common form of alteration was “clipping” where by small amounts of metal was cut from the edges of coins. This led governments to add various edge ornamentation to coins in order that someone could see the piece was intact and of full weight. Read More

Some Characteristics of Counterfeits

Recently, I wrote a brief synopsis covering the evolution of counterfeit coins that I have witnessed since becoming a professional authenticator in 1972. To continue along this tract, let’s roll back the clock a few years and review some of the characteristics commonly seen on older struck counterfeits. One was the lack of relief and the “style” of the letters in the legend. During the transfer process used to prepare many fake dies, the shape of the original coin’s parts was spread out and became slightly rounded. Hence, the counterfeit did not appear to be as sharply defined as the genuine specimen. Another characteristic was the presence of tiny tooling marks left when the faker tried to improve on his die work or conceal defects on the fake die. Since he was working on the die face itself, anything he did that left a mark on that die’s surface would become a raised mark on the fake. Over thirty years ago, the back and forth, digging motion used to fix a die produced an overlapping pattern of scratches resembling a few intertwined worms – hence I named them “wormy tool marks.” An example of these can be seen in the field behind the head on an “Omega” three dollar gold coin. This fake got its nickname from the tiny Greek letter inside the “R” of “Liberty. I discovered this counterfeit shortly after finding the counterfeit High Relief coins from the same maker. Read More

Knowing What The Genuine Looks Like

A recent trip to a jewelry supply center in Sarasota, FL opened my eyes to the equipment available to a modern day counterfeiter on a very modest budget. Jewelry casting supplies filed an entire section of the store. There were furnaces, molds, tools, grinders, and “how-to” books. As a result of this visit, I’m going to reveal many of the defects found on cast counterfeit coins so that hobbyists can improve their product while at the same time collectors can avoid purchasing fakes. Best of all, this information is available to anyone who cares to search the Internet. Read More

Knowledge of Authenticators Ever Expanding

Have you ever heard some form of the expression “History repeats itself?” Did you see the movie Ground Hog Day where much of the action is repetitive? Well, sometimes I feel the same thing is going on in my professional life – only the coin types have changed.

During the early 70’s the numismatic community was dealing with what was believed to be an influx of counterfeit Mexican Pillar dollar coins into the market. A large group of these pieces with various dates was sent into the authentication service to be certified. An authentication expert, who was a consultant, ran x-ray tests on many coins in the group and declared them to be cast copies. When his coins were returned as fakes, the submitter, a dealer in foreign coins who was quite the gentleman, suggested that we take another look at the group. After several months of testing and study, without any outside consultation with the aforementioned authentication “expert”, we determined that the entire batch of coins was authentic except for one or two pieces which we could not determine one way or another with one hundred percent certainty. The story of these coins is related in back issues of the Numismatist and in the ANA Centennial History book. Read More

Grading Services: Targets for Counterfeiters

his year will mark the fortieth anniversary of coin authentication services in the United States. My fortieth will come later this year in September. Things were simpler in the “old days.” There was no pressure to return coins quickly, no special tiers and one price for all. A coin did not get certified unless we could prove to our satisfaction that it was genuine. Some unusual coins took months to authenticate as we would hold them until we had enough “problem” coins to justify a trip up to the American Numismatic Society in NYC to examine a comparison specimen. The Smithsonian Institution Collection was a much shorter trip. Any newly discovered counterfeits were confirmed at the Bureau of the Mint’s Lab. That’s also where we authenticated any unusual mint errors that had us stumped. Read More

A Coin’s Luster Affects Grade and Eye Appeal

I enjoy teaching and passing on knowledge to seminar students or to collectors who stop at the ICG table at coin shows. After a pleasant interaction with a novice dealer at the Clearwater Coin Show I feel it’s time to dust off an old topic for the benefit of new readers and beginning collectors. The topic of “luster” came up when the dealer asked me to look at some of the coins he had just packaged up to sell. We discovered that some were slightly over graded (possibly due to the bright overhead lighting in the bourse room); but most were under graded because the dealer had no clue about the amount of luster on his foreign coins. Read More

Identifying Doubled Dies

Have you ever experienced the anticipation of meeting one of your child’s friends for the first time? Then, when the time came, only to discover you had some feeling based on their appearance or mannerism that gave you pause for concern. Does the speech about how we can be influenced by bad companions or how we are judged by the friends we keep rig a bell?

Every day in the grading room, I have the anticipation of opening boxes with a new group of coins. What will they be? Will I see foreign or U.S.; tokens; errors or varieties; gems or culls, or counterfeit and genuine coins? Read More

How to Get a Quick Turnaround Time on Economy Submissions

Everyone likes a bargain. In the coin grading business, economy level submissions offer collectors and dealers the lowest prices available for the encapsulation of their coins.

Turnaround time can vary greatly on economy level submissions. Right after a major coin convention, turnaround may take four to six weeks. Conversely, during the slower summer months, turnaround might drop to three weeks or less on U.S. coins that do not require attribution.

There are things you can do to make sure you get the fastest turnaround time possible for your order. First, make sure the information in the return shipping section of the form is correct and legible. Wrong addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses will all slow the return of your order. Poor, illegible handwriting will also slow the return process as we work to verify the information listed. Read More

The Perfect MS70

I went in search for the perfect MS-70 coin today among the boxes of coins scheduled to be graded. I concentrated my search to boxes of predominantly “modern” coins – say those minted after 1980 – containing Proofs, commemoratives, or gold and silver Eagle bullion. I don’t believe any coin reached the MS-70 grade at a major service before the end of the last century because the services were reluctant to say that a perfect coin existed. In reality, the Mint had been producing many thousands of microscopically perfect coins years before most of the major grading services were a glint in their founder’s eyes. Nevertheless, the perfect grade remained elusive until one of the “majors” broke the ice and others reluctantly followed. I believe the high quality of twentieth century bullion and commemorative coins produced at the Mint caused this change that finally expanded the Mint State system to its fullest. Perhaps one day, as grading “evolves” further, a vintage type coin will be given that elusive “perfect grade 70” but so far, to the best of my knowledge, the highest graded vintage coins have been MS-69’s. Read More

Thoughts on Grading

I have heard that a teacher or writer needs to explain a concept at least three times before it can be comprehended so please bear with me while I start this New Year by reviewing some well hashed-out thoughts on grading as expressed by me and others. The title of my November grading column was “How do you account for non-wear?” I’ll confess that I don’t pick these headings – the Editor of this paper does; and it’s a task I could never do as well. The subjects of that column were “detail” grading of problem coins and more importantly the evolution of the interpretation of “Uncirculated” for coins that definitely circulated. That message inspired one reader, Joseph Reakes, to write a follow-up letter to the Editor. I’m going to reply to his letter here rather than send him a personal note. Read More

On Writing in Books

I just read an excerpt from an article written by numismatic bookseller Charles Davis that was published in the Journal of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society. The article explained how one famous professional numismatist, George Clapp, made disparaging comments in the margin of an auction catalogue of an equally famous coin dealer, Max Mehl. For example, the coin in Lot#86 is listed as being Unique and Clapp’s comment was “Bunk! I have three of them and know of three others.” Some would say the written comments lower the value of the catalogue from that of a pristine example. I can understand this; yet I also understand Clapp’s need to comment. Read More

Grading by Photos?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, that is not always the case when grading and authenticating coins. Years ago, I remember seeing a very large photo of a 1913 Liberty nickel in another publication and thinking “That coin cannot possibly be genuine.” Due to the graininess of the photo, the coin looked like a crude die-struck counterfeit. The coin was a genuine specimen and that’s one reason we never authenticated coins by photographs. That was years ago when digital imaging was in its infancy. I remember showing an associate the photo as I told him that a digital camera would never be useful for capturing the microscopic details on a coin needed for my diagnostic files. Read More

Lots of Chinese Fakes Out There

At the American Numismatic Association Summer Seminar in Colorado Springs, Colo., I had the opportunity to look in on a class dealing with the Chinese counterfeiting threat taught by Dr. Gregory Dubay and Beth Deisher. I could only stay about 20 minutes but it was a real eye-opener.”
Dubay has divided the fake coins into several categories based on how deceptive each is. Although I returned the class handout after adding some comments and suggestions, I’ll try to recall some of the general points it contained. I recommend that readers attend this presentation if you get the chance.
In a previous column, based on the quality of the counterfeits from China that I have seen, I made the contention that there are several different “shops” producing the fakes. This has proved to be true.
I also believe that the most deceptive coins are made with some actual involvement of the Chinese government. As yet, this cannot be proven; however, I did learn from Dubay that the amount of money you are willing to pay to have a particular specimen produced will determine its quality and thus its deceptiveness. Read More

The Attack of the Counterfeits

Our hobby is under attack in a way that calls for some drastic changes in order to protect the marketplace from a new plague of deceptive counterfeits. Let’s trace earlier generations of bogus coins and explore some of the new fakes from China.

Counterfeiting is probably older than the first coins; while alterations made to items considered as money may have preceded that. Nevertheless, let’s begin well after this period and consider the era of struck coinage. One common form of alteration was “clipping” where by small amounts of metal was cut from the edges of coins. This led governments to add various edge ornamentation to coins in order that someone could see the piece was intact and of full weight. Eventually, entire coins were faked such as the contemporary counterfeit English pennies and American bust halves that are eagerly collected today. In most cases, the style of the design used on these fakes and others left much to be desired. However, we know that these fakes were deceptive enough to circulate as they are usually found only in worn condition. Collectors of ancient coins must deal with much more dangerous and artful counterfeits than these. Read More

The Surface of a Counterfeit

Early in my career as a professional numismatist specializing in authentication and grading, I made the determination that I didn’t care to know how a counterfeit coin was made or what method or concoction was used to alter a coin’s surface. I just wanted to be able to detect these spurious specimens. It became obvious that to reach my goal, the most important requirement was to know what genuine coins in their natural, original condition should look like. Almost forty-three years later, the fakes, altered, and enhanced coins have become much more deceptive but that basic requirements for authenticating and grading has not changed. Read More