Fakes & counterfeits: a tentative taxonomy

Started by davidrj, March 03, 2014, 05:18:41 PM

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Figleaf

Not sure Readers Digest wanted to educate anyone, since they relied on stupidity, but indeed, the line between intention to deceive and no intention to deceive is blurred. Medals with COPY or the initials of the maker (like WR) are in my mind free of suspicion, but when Chinese manufacturers fill whole web sites with fakes that do not have any indication of their status, it doesn't matter if they sell them for fakes. They sell them mostly to people who have bad intentions. Institutions and people like Northwich Auctions that knowingly sell fakes are fraudsters and should be punished, but where would they be without the fraudulent coin/medal? They don't have the skill to make it themselves and may even find that too risky.

So yes, kick the Northwiches where it hurts whenever you can and as hard as you can, but don't forget that under current trade laws, they can buy as many fakes as they want from equally repulsive, but legal producers. Laws need to change.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Andromeda

Could anyone elucidate what exactly are tooled copies/forgeries?

I came across a few Kushan silver coins of Kanishka I acquired by a collector from Pakistan and they looked fake but there is some specimens at the Guimet Museum in Paris and at the British Museum as far as I know. The museum collection seems to be genuine silver coins.

brandm24

This coin is hard to classify because it was apparently altered to fool collectors. At the same time no Large Cents were minted in 1815 simply because the mint had run out of copper planchets. That would classify it as a fantasy.

Whatever the case, it's an odd coin that would, or should, fool no one. Not only is an 1815 dated Large Cent impossible, but the design of the altered 1845 cent is completely different. The imsges below show a denuine 1845 and the design of what was current starting in 1816. These are called matron heads.

The alteration is old and unsophisticated. The damage on the coin may have been artifically applied to cover up the poor workmanship. It's interesting that someone came along and scratched "not an" before the date to alert others to the alteration. Likely it was done by someone who had been duped already. The crude engraving looks very old too.

Bruce
Always Faithful

Figleaf

Yes, I can see the problem. With the date 1815 it is a fantasy, with date 1845 it is a fake and with the added inscription it doesn't have the intention to deceive.

There was a period, decades ago, when collectors, especially in the US, got upset with "filler" copies of expensive coins. At this time, after extensive lobbying of ANS and ANA the US put a law on the books that required that imitations be marked COPY. I suspect that the piece you are presenting got its additional text at this time, as US coin newspapers were full of tall stories of collectors marking copies as fakes. The whole flap was a bit less urgent on the other side of the Atlantic, where people collected by type. The emotions died down after a while, to be directed against silver dipping.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

brandm24

Yes, they're fairly strict here about marking reproductions "copy" or even some other word that says its not authentic....fake, counterfeit, etc. This one was marked "not an" long before those laws went into effect by the looks of it. A really interesting coin that has many potential possibilities.

Bruce
Always Faithful