I found this recently amongst a cup of small change. Look at this shoddy forgery and as if it wasn't hard to spot the weight and sound is completely different.
Same reason people fake $1 notes in the US. Have you ever seen a gas station attendant check a dollar with their pen? Noone pays attention to smaller, less valuable peices. More importantly in my mind. What would you do if you found one? If you inform the police, they will take it and it will end up in a drawer at the local station. If you spend it, it will stay in circulation for others to deal with. Or would you keep it as a curiousity like a token?
I think in Canada it's still illegal to own counterfeited coins, and I guess that's the same with bank notes. It is not illegal to have a copy of a coin ( I mean those made in order to own a "rare" coin and identified as such), but as long it's a forgery intended to fool people and placed in circulation we can't own it.
Si tu cognes ta tête contre une cruche et que ça sonne creux, ce n'est pas forcément la cruche... lollll mon proverbe préféré !
The same applys in the US. but short of having a box full of them or a set-up to make them, I doubt much would come of keeping one. At most a fine, but likely, they just take it. a $100 note or a rare coin of great value would be a different matter, of course.
The Big Tree Coin Factory in a-country-which-may-not-be-named has acquired the original printing presses used by the US mint in the past. They were donated by the US to the then government of the unamed country and subsequently sold to Big Tree.
The are using them to produce fakes which are undetecable except to a very experienced and well trained eye through a powerful microscope. Previous forgeries, even high grade ones produced by laser cut dies and using the correct silver alloy content, could be spotted by the average collector due to the way they were made. Unlike genuine coins which are produced under high pressure in a single strike, fakes were struck in a three step process - each side, followed by stamping the edge pattern. No more. Even buying certified coins won't help, they are counterfeiting NGC and PCGS slabs too.
By comparison, the fake 5 pence is a harmless oddity.
I see the writing on the wall for coin collecting as a widespread hobby. It's supposed to be enjoyable, not an exercise in advanced forensics. If even experienced collectors, or more alarmingly dealers, can't be confident about spotting fakes then what possible incentive can there be for new collectors to move beyond the collecting pocket change phase?
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
Very true. It may one day, come down to buying and selling just on metal weight, because noone knows what is real and what is fake. Some would argue that this is a great reason not to clean a coin. It is possible that it will become more difficult to fake years of tarnish than it is to fake the coin.
Quote: ctuckerVery true. It may one day, come down to buying and selling just on metal weight, because noone knows what is real and what is fake. Some would argue that this is a great reason not to clean a coin. It is possible that it will become more difficult to fake years of tarnish than it is to fake the coin.
Its not difficult. It happens in the antiques trade all the time.
Mint state coins purporting to be 100 years old are always going to be viewed with suspicion so a steadily refined series of ageing techniques have been developed.
I'm not real sure of the exact process but it seems to be some type of boulder washing drum finishing with an oiling procedure which apparently produces a worn coin with the right degree of patina.
I gave up trying to put together a set of US dollars a few years ago once the higher quality fakes started to arrive. These were shown to dealers at the F.U.N. convention who were invited to spot the fakes. The success rate was about 50%, right about the "blind luck" mark. That's when I knew it was pointless.
The people are destroying a hobby I love and I'm damned angry about it.
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
I can understand making fakes at a low value so that cashiers wont really bother to check for authenticity as the value is so low but the forger still needs to make a profit. I think that if their is any profit in forging 5p's it would pay less than working at Mac donalds. The coin im guessing from how worn it is is underweight, it looks to me as though it has been passed through a fragging machine at a scrap yard. a friend of mine used to work a place where they would frag cars and his job was to sort the metals out off a convener belt. any change that was lost in the cars would take a hell of a beating and end up looking like your 5p, my friend was allowed to keep the change which would pay for the bus to and from work much to the annoyance of the bus driver.
