When you can’t see the coins you buy, sooner or later it is inevitable to buy a fake. One of the most frequent questions I get from people is how do I know if a coin is real or fake. The short answer is, I don’t. But there is much more to it,.
Obviously, nobody wants to pay for fake coins, unless that’s what they collect, but it can happen to anyone. In my case, most likely I wouldn’t even know. Mostly, because I can’t just go online and compare it with a picture. In a way, I will have to trust who is selling a coin to me that it is real.
Given the type of coins I buy, chances are that nobody would bother making a fake of those. When I buy anything more expensive, I get it from dealers who would be hurt more by knowingly selling a fake than me unknowingly buying it. As I understand most fake old coins sell for a price that’s worth the trouble of trying to create a fake. But let’s assume for a second I got something that’s a fake, and I would not find that out. It would still have the value of being able to understand what a coin feels like, assuming the fake is very close to the real one.
For that matter, I have bought a few replicas of coins which I will never have the money for, but I would like to know what they look like. I have to admit, I don’t enjoy those too much, just the idea of having a replica doesn’t appeal to me, and after having handled those once or twice, I would be willing to give those away.
The only exception is the large size US coins, which you can often find at street vendors in Washington DC. There is an entire series of the US coins, at least from before 2000, and those can be very interesting, because the coins are so large that one can feel all the small details which would be impossible to feel on a regular coin. But those are not in the fake, rather, in the replica category.
The only time I knowingly bought a fake was at an auction, where a fake Morgan Dollar was sold, I think I paid $2 for it, I was simply curious what does one feel like. The coin is so worn that I couldn’t even tell that it was a fake Morgan, and also when I dropped it on the table, I could immediately hear that it doesn’t have any silver in it.
The other fake I know I have is from Mexico. When I worked there, I went to a coin store, and to fill a hole in my collection, I bought an 1894 8 Reales coin. I thought it was a nice quality one, it even sounded like silver. I couldn’t wait to post about it, I wanted this one for a long time. My happyness lasted for about 5 minutes, when somebody responded that it was clearly a fake. For my defense, I have never touched an original one before, and I wouldn’t know the difference. I showed it to a couple of people, and it quickly became obvious that I made the wrong purchase that time.
There is one coin which may also be a fake, it is a 1920 1 Florin from British East Africa. Most of these coins were melted and only a few have survived. Given what they sell for in general, I bought it for way too cheap, for about 20 percent of the average price. I decided I didn’t want to know if this one was a fake, but since I have a particular interest for East Africa, if this one is like the original, the experience was worth it.
I can only hope that I don’t have many more.
