Straits Settlements and British Trade Dollars Counterfeit Silver Coins
Few days ago, a good friend of my brought me two pieces of silver crown size coins to me for authentication. He got them from a coin dealer in Penang island.
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| Straits Settlements,1907 One Dollar Counterfeit Silver Coin. Obverse. |
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| Straits Settlements,1907 One Dollar Counterfeit Silver Coin. Reverse. |
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Weight:16.48gm (Normal Weight :20.21gm)
When I looked at the coins,the first impression made me feel uncomfortable on their pale silver color.When I hold them in my hand,both were much lighter then the normal Straits Settlements and British Trade Dollar (BTD). The finishing of the rim and edge also looked awkward, major part of the rim were bevel finished.
There were the
counterfeit silver coins.
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| BTD. 1911.One Dollar Counterfeit Silver Coin.Obverse. |
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| BTD. 1911.One Dollar Counterfeit Silver Coin.Reverse. |
Weight:23.78gm (Normal Weight :26.96gm)
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| Bevelled Edge. |
According to my experience,the best way to detect a counterfeit coin is by the weight.
Hi Dickson,
ReplyDeleteYes, these are quite commonly seen in the market.
It is not uncommon to find some of these fakes being passed on as genuine coins too.
This is most obvious among the Chinese coins.
We have come across some Chinese silver fakes which weighed more than their originals e.g the Chinese Sun- Yat-Sen Memento silver coins.
Not only the silver coins, even well faked Chinese cash coins are abundantly sold.
Suppose these scams will persist when greed or unscrupulous moral among the collectors or dealers exist.
Suppose collectors will have to live with the fact that with the increasing demand for these popular coins, there will always be unscrupulous people who are always trying their best to cheat and deceive us.
Guess its better to hold firm to the principle that if in doubt, don't buy.
Only buy or collect those which one is familiar with.
Haha, just our two cents.
Nice article, Dickson :)
The simplest way is to test silver coin at shop is put a piece of tissue paper on top of it. 0.900 silver coins always appears white under the tissue paper, fake coins will be dull like CU-Ni coin. But you cannot test toned silver coin by this method as it has lost the reflective capacity by oxidation
ReplyDeleteDear whycollect,
ReplyDeleteIf they use the normal casting method to make the forgery coins,they are still easy to detect by naked eye,but if they start to use the pressure casting method where the finishing are much refine,then we really need to be extra careful!
Hi Kg,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your useful tips.
But how to tell if the unscrupulous people using the same composition of silver and make those rare and key dates silver coins?
So always be careful of too new and too cheap coins!
Just to add... these coins are very common in ebay as well... the straits settlements King Edward counterfeit are very difficult to spot based on pics on your ebay screen.
ReplyDeleteChallenge Coins
ReplyDeleteI have seen a lot of coins on internet but have not sen like this i hope you will share more coins like this.Thanks
very interesting coins collection. i loved your coins.
ReplyDeletecoins collection is very interesting hobby
It's glad to see good information being convey. Its a very nice written, and I really like this blog. Thank you for sharing this info.
ReplyDelete