Category Archives: Counterfeit Coins

Counterfeit Coins, Counterfeits, Flying Eagle Cents, US Coins, US copper coins

1857 Flying Eagle Cent “Varieties” – Jack Young’s Fun With Fakes

December 20, 2023 Jack D. Young Leave a comment

By Jack D. Young, Early American Coppers (EAC), and the Dark Side Group ……
A new installment of my CoinWeek exclusive series documents three different counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cents, all with their own unique telling markers. I’ll start with this example that a friend posted to the Dark Side Group. He asked members which one they liked better:

Above: Counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cent. Below: Genuine 1857 Flying Eagle cent.

After review, the best answer in my opinion was “the not counterfeit one”!

One of the best “tells” for this variety of fake is the reverse “chip” as circled in red:

This particular type has been around for a while, as evidenced by this 2017 “Bay” sale and an article by NGC that documented it.

Counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cents.

To read that article on counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cents, click here

NGC Screenshot of an 1857 Flying Eagle cent counterfeit diagnostics article. — Image: NGC.

But the research doesn’t stop, as there are others also in the marketplace currently. The following examples have an apparently shared reverse; I nicknamed them the “Notched T” counterfeits.

I sent a note to Flying Eagle and Indian Head cent expert Richard Snow and received the following information about the “T”: “it’s a defect in the transfer process” (for making the false dies).

Defect found on the reverse of a family of counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cents.

And an example submitted and returned body-bagged by NGC:

NGC body bagged this counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cent.

Continuing down the proverbial rabbit hole leads to the latest fake of the family, one I nicknamed the “Bad T” (of UNITED).

Counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cent listed on eBay.

A fairly decent looking example until you examine it more closely; there are lots of depressions and surface irregularities, as well as the odd “T”:

Left: counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cent. Right: genuine 1857 Flying Eagle cent.

Didn’t take much looking to find others after this one was reported!

Here’s an example from Ecrater.com:

Counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cent listing on ecrater. — Image: ecrater.

This counterfeit matches the eBay listed one exactly.

Pick up points from this family of Counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cents.

And another “Bay” example, this one showing some of the attribution marks even better:

A counterfeit and a marked copy 1857 Flying Eagle cent share obvious markers.

And let’s not leave Etsy out! More fun there with an 1856 and an 1858 thrown in for good measure!

Three counterfeit 1857 Flying Eagle cents listed on Etsy.com.

And one major “twist”: this “PCGS” certed 1856 example:

Counterfeit 1856 Flying Eagle cent in fake PCGS slab.

Poor images of this one won’t allow positive attribution by type, but the “6” is a pretty clear sign that it’s really bad…

Again, hopefully the information in this article information will help reduce the opportunity for fraudsters to sting collectors with these fakes, as it continues to be a real jungle out there!

Best as always,

—Jack

1798 Small Eagle Draped Bust Dollar – Jack Young’s Fun With Fakes

November 27, 2023 Jack D. Young Leave a comment

By Jack D. Young, Early American Coppers (EAC), and the Dark Side Group ……
In a past CoinWeek article, I reviewed a “family” of counterfeits based on a 1799 variety of the Draped Bust silver dollar, Large Eagle reverse, with various dated obverses. I have also previously discussed the “mix and match” approach employed by counterfeiters of using various dies for their fakes. And along those lines, we now have the combination featured in this installment of “Fun with Fakes”!

As in my previous articles, this one will start with a recent “Bay” listing:

An eBay listing of a counterfeit 1798 Draped Bust Dollar coin.

Running through the attribution of this coin resulted in NO matches; there are only two varieties of the 1798 Small Eagle reverse and this one isn’t either.

Collecting Notes snippet from PCGS.com. Image: Google.

The obverse looked familiar when I saw it, but it didn’t match with this reverse. And the reverse looked familiar, but not with this obverse!

Enlarged photograph of a counterfeit 1798 Draped Bust Dollar coin from an eBay listing.

The obverse is the same as used in this “1798” example from the previously mentioned article, mated to the counterfeit 1799 Large Eagle reverse with common marks.

Previous 1798 large eagle Internet example (image from the Coin Week article).

A little digging yielded the source of the Small Eagle reverse, also actually from another of my CoinWeek articles; this reverse is from the 1795 off-center bust dollar.

Subject “1798” on left, counterfeit 1795 reverse on right (image from the Coin Week article).

So, the first “twist” in this story is the swapping of dies from my two CoinWeek articles on counterfeit early dollars to create this new “variety”.

Searching the usual suspects on the internet yielded this same obverse, but the Large Eagle reverse example on eCRATER:

Continued searching resulted in finding this example on DHgate:

Looks like a direct match to the subject example for quite a bit less money than the eBay listing price! Fortunately, that listing was removed before a possible sale.

The next “twist” will be in finding differently dated examples with the same counterfeit combination as this 1798 Small Eagle Draped Bust dollar – I appreciate all the help I can get in finding and documenting them as the next fake “family”.

Obverse and reverse of counterfeit 1799 Draped Bust dollar coin. Image: eBay.

And then I found this “1799”: a different obverse but the same reverse.

Most collectors with a little experience in early U.S. dollars and a Red Book should know that the Small Eagle design was used only from 1795 through 1798 with the Draped Bust obverse, not 1799. So, this “coin” is in reality another “numismatic anomaly” – my neologism for some of these finds! Wouldn’t you know it, the seller states “1795-1798″…

Best as always,

—Jack

1794 Half Dollar and Relatives – Jack Young’s Fun With Fakes

November 9, 2023 Jack D. Young Leave a comment

By Jack D. Young, Early American Coppers (EAC), and the Dark Side Group ……
My latest installment of this CoinWeek exclusive series will initially focus on a bad 1794 half dollar, starting with this popular listing:

An eBay listing of a Counterfeit 1794 Half Dollar.

Attribution is always my starting point for any subject example, and I looked to compare this suspect coin with a known genuine one. The subject doesn’t match any known genuine example, so I picked the closest match (O-105) for a comparison image. A couple of differences initially stood out as circled:

Counterfeit and Genuine 1794 Half Dollars — Subject example, known genuine one, highlighting 2 key differences

I also took notice of two possible attribution marks on the reverse:

Subject Reverse of a counterfeit 1794 Half Dollar; interesting marks in red — Subject Reverse; interesting marks in red

These highlighted marks may be used to identify various dated fakes in this series. As luck would have it, someone in another forum had posted a similar example, claiming it was a “dug find”.

Purported “Dig Find” 1794 Flowing Hair Half Dollar.

The images were well done, showing that the details match up – including the two reverse marks. Not bad for a rare 1794 non-variety!

Suspect example reverse and “dug” example

With two matching examples, the effort turned to attributing the possible source example used to make the dies to strike these fakes. That went pretty quickly, as there are only two dates of Flowing Hair half dollars; focusing on the 1795 O-119 variety resulted in an unexpected match. The green-circled attributes of this die variety both match the subject 1794, which cannot be…

Genuine 1795 O-119 Flowing Hair Half Dollar. Image: PCGS.

The second highlighted reverse mark, the “scratch” by the left ribbon, is not common to this variety.

And, of course, there are “replica” 1795s with matching marks to the subject 1794 half dollar:

Matching scratches on two fake Flowing hair half dollars.

Replica Flowing Hair Half Dollar Shared Reverses. AliExpress example on the right.

Here’s a listing on AliExpress, where the “coin” is a little cheaper and can be had without that pesky “COPY”!

Ali Express listing of a counterfeit 1794 Flowing Hair Half Dollar.

And a twist, if you thought it couldn’t get worse: counterfeit 1795s in fake holders!

Counterfeit 1795 Flowing Hair Half Dollar.

Ali Express Listing for a 1795 Half Dollar.

But for a final twist, I ran into this:

Counterfeit 1795 half dollar currently listed on eBay.

And the common reverse:

Counterfeit 1795 half dollar reverse. Image: eBay.

Stay thirsty, my friends!

Best,

—Jack

Fun With Fake Coins – 1824 Capped Bust Half Dollar

October 16, 2023 Jack D. Young Leave a comment

By Jack D. Young, Early American Coppers (EAC), and the Dark Side Group …… My latest installment of this CoinWeek exclusive series concerning the more “affordable” varieties of fake coins will follow the same format as my previous ones as I present a group of counterfeit Capped Bust half dollars, starting with a listing for […]

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