I know that many eBay bidders condemn all coin auctions from China, but many novice bidders do buy these coins and I think they need to know how to begin to examine their purchases. This guide is for that purpose.

 

One of the most difficult "sides" of a coin to replicate is often the edge. Most coin authenticators will look at the edge first. It often makes looking at the obverse and reverse of the coin unnecessary.

There are numerous methods used to place reeds or any other design on the edge of a coin but there is only ONE correct way for each type of coin. First and foremost, it is necessary to know what the edge of the coin you have purchased is supposed to look like. If you don't know this rudimentary information you should probably not be buying yet.  Once you are armed with that information, it is often rather easy to determine that you are in possession of a forgery.

 

Since many if not most of the forgeries on eBay right now are US Trade Dollars, I will start with them. A real Trade Dollar was made with a reeded edge. The number of reeds is nice to know, but personally I always lose count on my way around so I will not be going there.  

 

The reeds were applied with a collar die that forms the outer perimeter of the striking (or coining) chamber of the press. When the planchet entered the space between the dies a collar die rose to enclose the planchet and the force of the strike extruded the coin metal into the reeds forming the edge at the same instant the rest of the coin was made. This made the edge distinctive and means that only certain kinds of "errors" should be seen on the edge or real coins.

Counterfeits on the other hand have the edges applied in many different ways. I will list a few of the most often seen ways.

1. A collar die - Yes, unfortunately some of the best made forgeries do actually use a collar die but they are in the minority.

2. No edge at all - This does happen more than you would think so check. It often displays a seam line from the casting process. This seam may be partially or completely ground off so look for filing marks.

3. Hand cut reeds - Some earlier counterfeits were edged with a file and the reeds were cut in one at a time. They are often triangular in cross section and are very irregular in spacing and orientation to the faces of the coin. Since this is a time consuming process, this points to an early forgery where labor costs were minimal versus the value of the coin.

4. Rolled on edge - The counterfeiter rolls a reeded die against the edge of the coin or the planchet (in the case of a strike) either before or after the coin is produced. In the case of a casting, this allows the counterfeiter to hide the seam line or the file marks made by the seam removal. With a struck coin, there is a secondary step that provides clues for detection. A real coin has a continuous struck surface on all three sides, if they are made in two steps there can be a discontinuity at the junction. This happens in two primary ways. When the edge is applied AFTER the coin is made - the edge reeds will often cause a distortion of the surfaces at the intersection. (You have to watch for ejection damage on originals but that is seen primarily on one side not both). A pre-edged planchet will have a reversed distortion of the reeded edge by the strike. The rolled on edge will also have one or more OVERLAPS in the reeding. This is the easiest counterfeit feature to spot. ANY COIN WITH AN OVERLAP IN THE REEDS IS FAKE.
There may be one or more overlaps depending on the technology used to edge the coin.

 

5. Ring die - This is the most common technique used in the mass production of counterfeits - especially the Chinese Injection Molded copies. The completed coin is taken from the mold and the edge is ground down to remove the seam, sprue and vent traces. Once it is smoothed it is forced - usually in a stack along with several other coins) through a grooved ring die. This methods means there may be no overlap (unless they have a poor ring die) but invariably the pressure is not perfectly uniform around the entire perimeter. Wherever the pressure is lowest - the metal may not push all the way to the bottom of the die groves - leaving a reed that has a concave top which sometimes actually shows metal curving inward toward the center of the top of the reed. Also at the ends of the reed, where pressure drops rapidly this often makes the reed look like it SPLITS right near the end. (That is called a split tail reed). Also some small amount of metal tends to be dragged out toward the face of the coin on the "upstream" side of the coin as it leaves the ring die. This is often ground off by a final finishing step which rounds off the sharp corner of the coin. ROUNDED CORNERS ARE ALWAYS SUSPECT.

6. Cast reeding - Some forgers making copies have tried to add reeds to the molds used to make the copies. This technique is ALWAYS easy to spot unless the forger tumble polishes the coin to a rather low grade. As you can visualize it requires a very specialized mold and very fine quality control not to be VERY obvious on the finished product.

Those are the main edge technologies used. There are many variables and this list could be expanded by "what ifs" to a very long length. But you should get the idea.

The next step is to weigh the coin and have someone perform a Specific Gravity analysis. That is very helpful to quickly identify the off metal forgeries and the coin is not damaged by this process.

 

There are full weight silver forgeries, however. These modern fakes are made for collectors and the value of the silver is minimal compared to the value as a coin - so real silver does not mean a real coin necessarily.

swamperbob - Bob Gurney