Fake Liberty Dime

Got this dime in my change the other and it felt a bit heavy. I looked at it and saw the back had the old style bundle and thought I struck silver. Unfortunately I flipped it over and saw a smooth back and glue. If that was not a big clue it also had scratches revealing a copper core.

It is likely a button or some other kind of jewelry piece. If you are not convinced it is a fake I also weighed it and it is 3.21 grams unlike a normal 2.50 gram silver dime.

Also there is no reeded edge and his thicker than a normal dime. There are subtle differences in the font that most collectors will quickly notice. Do  not forget that it is virtually impossible to print a U.S. coin with a smooth flat blank side.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: Fake reverse side only liberty dime / Unknown
Year: (No date)
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Nickel plated copper??
Value: Less than $0.02

Do you have an odd coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Holographic Quarter

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Found this rainbow hologram quarter in my change and at first I thought it was laser etched. On closer inspection I saw it was flaking and realized it was enameled. This is a fake collectible sold outside the U.S. mint.

 Every angle shines like the rainbow giving it a false hologram look. Reminds me of the rainbow seen in oil slicks.

Notice the peeling enamel coating on the highest points of the design.

 The front is normal and unaltered.

The technique used to make these is simple. A thin layer of clear enamel, like nail polish, is applied to the design of the coin. Like most iridescent or opalescent nail polish the initial look is spectaular in hand but begins to chip after a while.

Currently you can get these from third party collectible sites for about $4.00 each, the more you buy the cheaper they become. Of course I strongly advise against it. They have no value and are considered damage even if the paint is removed. The chemicals tends to leave microscopic damage on the coins surface that will reveal over time.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: 25 Cents-Olympic / United States
Year: 2011-D
Mintage: 30,600,000
Metal: 91.67% Copper 8.33% Nickel
Value: $0.25 in F-12

Do you have a coin from America and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Aluminum Slug

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Got this as a quarter in a bunch of quarters from a store that just cracked open a roll of quarters. the problem is that it is not a quarter. It is lightweight (2.00 grams) and although the size is right everything else is just wrong.

I would have complained but I never featured an aluminum slug before so, tada! These can be made at any metal shop and is often the byproduct of punching out holes in fuse boxes. Many bad people often put some in quarter rolls to cheat the system.

That said there are some U.S. quarter size foreign coins that use aluminum but I doubt this is one of them. While at the moment I cannot be 100% sure the interest in blank aluminum coins is so low that it really does not matter.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: Aluminum Blank / Unknown
Year: (No date)
Mintage: Any one with an electric drill.
Metal: Aluminum (estimate)
Value: Less than $0.01

Do you have an odd coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Novelty 1981 $100 Bill

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Back in the early 1980s I was at South Street Seaport and they had a vendor at the mall selling fake money of all types. I saw the giant $100 bill and knew it should be part of my small and collection. About thirty years later I still have it. I cannot recall how much it cost at the time but I am sure it was way under $5.00.

 

 Do you see the difference? It is12.5" x 5.5" compared to the normal 6.1" x 2.6".

Some of you may ask if this is legal. Well it is because the normal bill has had the same dimensions for such a long time and the previous notes were only slightly bigger that it is legal to assume these will never pass as real.

The law is iffy and kind of vague but basically you so not have to put the word COPY on a fake note if it is "significantly" different from the original. A yellow, blue, or pink, copy of a normal bill was enough to be considered legal until the introduction of colorized. So now stickers are placed on top of real notes when these novelty notes are sold. It is cheaper and more legal than trying to make a copy.

I am sure the giants notes are still sold but I have been to South Street Seaport many times and have yet to see them sold again. The one above is double-sided, has no COPY, and is exact in every way to a real 1981 note except for the paper and size. Today the fakes are usually one-sided, has COPY or something similar, and are never exact.

Here's the stats for this bill...
Type/Federal Bank: Novelty $100 Note / Philadelphia
Year: 1981
Printings: Unknown
Printed: Unknown
Run: Not applicable.
Value: $1.00 in VF(the one above is kind of stained)

Do you have currency and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

50/50 Fooled Half the Time

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During tax season fly-by-night tax prepares opened shops around my fair town and were handing out these clever flyers. The flyers are shaped, designed, and folded to look like a lost fifty dollar bill. Knowing that most people throw flyers away after a few minutes these ingenious flyers are bound to get picked up again. Most people would not pass by a lost buck even if it dirty or in the gutter.

This type of advertising is not illegal since it is not meant to deceive anyone into thinking it is a genuine note. Instead it hits on that scavenging gene that little piece everyone has that wants to find something for nothing. The ad is for Liberty Tax. The company gives you $50 cash when you go in and let them do your taxes. They are famous for doing taxes with your final year's pay-stub.

Oh they are also infamous for taking back the $50 and an additional $350 to do simple taxes, they have caused franchise owners to go broke, and have done funny business with social security numbers, tax-day loans, and refund checks.

I redacted the address for privacy concerns.

I have been fooled to pick up these but never been fooled to enter one of their temporary shops.

Value?
None. This is not even close to being a exonumia piece even though it is a coupon. Ad and certain money collectors have shown interest older versions of these like wooden nickels. Still older funny money/ads rarely hold any high values. The old adage "Don't take any wooden nickels." is very appropriate for this particularly piece.

Do you have an odd bill and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Mermaids & Pirates

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I went to Coney Island on Saturday to the 28th Annual Mermaid Parade and while most of pictures I took are not proper for this venue I did get a neat souvenir.

One group of marchers were dressed as pirates and were throwing out pirate coins. I wanted to get some but there was a little kid next to me running out and grabbing them by the fistful. I manage to get one that got run over by several cars, so it is not uncirculated.

The only difference between each side is one has an added CHINA after the AVAG CO BEPSIG. The picture is some generic roman guy, I assume it may be Neptune. The edge is reeded but I saw a few that were not. As for the AVAG CO BEPSIG it means nothing officially but again I think it is some sort of anagram.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: AVAG CO BEPSIG / Pirate Fake Gold Coin
Year: (No date)
Mintage: Millions upon Millions
Metal: Plastic of some type.
Value: $0.06

I could not find the specific retailer but they seem pretty common.

Do you have an odd coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Funnier Money

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At this point I can no longer guess what people are thinking when giving and taking change. Sure I'll accept any type of coins or currencies but even these two stretch my tolerance.

The first is a thick 5 Baht from Thailand it is a clad coin so the edge has that copper sandwich we are familiar with in U.S. coins.

The second is just ridiculous. A plastic cent from those kids play money set. Why this was accepted as a real cent is difficult to imagine, maybe it was some kid trying to make a purchase and some nice cashier let this one pass. Then why did they pass it on.

Oddly enough the average retail price for the plastic cent is $0.03, although I'm sure a teachers discount can bring to $0.015. The design is very true to the original and the color is that of older cents not the red of new pennies. There is no need for the word COPY mandated by law since the intent is to educate not to deceive, plus it is plastic with no date.

As for the 5 Baht this one is a commemorative coin to honor the King's 50th year of reign. The normal 5 Baht has a different design on both sides but of the same subjects.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: 5 Baht / Thailand
Year: 1996
Mintage: 2,500,000
Metal: Copper-Nickel Clad
Value: $0.75 in XF

Type/Country: 1 Cent / School Money Fake
Year: = (No date)
Mintage: Millions upon Millions
Metal: Plastic of some type.
Value: $0.03


Do you have a coin from Thailand and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Tiny

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Small change means just nickels and pennies but this piece I found on a seat at a store is something completely different. It looks like a buffalo nickel, it's metallic, and stamped 1938 but the size is way off.

A little investigation helped me find out what I really had.

Using my caliper I measured it to be 3/8 inches or 9.525 millimeters compare that to the
normal buffalo at 21.20 mm. The dateless buffalo I found, pictured above,is 21.03 mm which is slightly smaller because it is very worn.

It weighs 0.85 grams compared to a normal 5.00 gram buffalo nickel.
It is not magnetic but made of some type of metal.

Looking at the back it has old glue. A very clear and flaky glue. That confirmed my theory that it was part of some jewelry. It could not be a button because it was too small. A quick Google search of all the parameters of this fake coin I found this seller of earrings.

At $7.00 a pair you can get tiny coin earrings from all major circulating U.S. issues from tellmewhereonearth. com.

A bit odd is for $4.00 you can get the tiny coin itself, so why not buy the earrings rip off the post and have two tiny coins.

The fake coin is very well done for its size and made of a metal that is not aluminum which is not bad.

I estimate a retail value of $3.00 since I can easily scrape the rest of the glue off with out any damage. No numismatic value since this is at least art at most exonumia. Even though at bizarrefun.com they sell miniature, or as they spell it minature, coins as low as $0.50 each. They don't have any Indian heads but even at wholesale the value is still worth more than a nickel.

Do you have a weird coin and want to find out its value? Leave a comment and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Museum Quality: Part 1

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My lack of updates are a sign of a lack of finds. I was trying to steer all my college work to coin related items I was even going to make a coin sorter but I was out voted. So while at a recent art course in The Metropolitan Museum Of Art I took a side trip to find historical coins.

In numismatics ancient coins are not my strong point. I never got into them since they aren't found in change (normally) and the nice ones are expensive.

A collection of Visigoth coins meant to mimic Byzantine coins (images of Byzantine coins were too blurry to post) eventually they took on a style of there own.

Top to bottom, left to right...
Type/Country: Justinian & Maurice Tiberius Tremissis / Constantinople
Year: 527-602
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Gold
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)

Type/Country: Imitating Valentinian Solidus / Toulouse, France
Year: 450-460
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Gold
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)

Type/Country: Imitating Justinian Solidus / ?
Year: Mid-500s
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Gold
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)

Type/Country: Imitating Imperial Tremissis / ?
Year: Mid-500s
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Gold
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)

Type/Country: King Reccared Tremissis / Mérida, Spain
Year: 586-601
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Gold
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)



Fake coins have always been all the rage especially in Egypt around 308-320. Real coins were pressed in clay then the after they dried you have these terracotta molds. Next coins were cast with molten/soften metal of equal or lower quality. Not all forgeries were intended to scam instead it was for the lack of circulating money throughout the Roman empire.


The case was full of coins but the reflection and my camera skills made shooting difficult. The coins were in a corner next to the elevator showing a complete lack of respect.


Type/Country: Augustus/Capricorn Silver Cistophorus / Ephesus (Turkey)
Year: 25 B.C.
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Silver
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)

I'll show a few more at a later date and maybe do a little more research on what I saw and the museum experience altogether. I will post some more images on my other blog as soon as possible.

Do you have old coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

I've found gold...wait, what?

Do you have a weird coin and want to find out its value? Leave a comment and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

I'm sometimes asked about a gold quarter that someone has found. Even a silver dime that is from the 1980's. They want to know is it real or fake. Well most likely both. Here's some examples

The two pennies are covered in a layer of gold the dime is covered in a layer of silver but the copper dime in the holder is not.

The copper dime is genuinely a copper error, what type I don't know yet because I haven't weighed it.

The 1966 and 1968 gold pennies and the 1986P silvered dime were altered outside the mint. THE MINT DOES NOT MAKE GOLD PENNIES! They do make silver dimes and quarters but they are in proof condition and can be seen from from as a brilliant above normal coin.

These coins were made legally as a "collectors" piece or "art" piece by certain coin sellers. It is the same as bronzing your babies shoes, people still do that right. They are so often made that they end up in circulation.

If it was pure gold or silver it would weigh more than a normal penny. I found these three fakes about ten or more years ago.

Value: If it is gold and silver maybe just above face but if done badly then just face. Also altered coins can be rejected by store owners. They have no ¢ or $ value for true collectors.


QVC often sells colorized, plated and hologramed coins. They are real coins that are legally altered for fun. THE U.S. MINT DOES NOT MAKE COLORIZED MONEY, NOT YET.

How to tell if the your coin is plated, easy it doesn't have sharp details, the layer maybe peeling or it is an error that just doesn't make sense and can't be found in coin books.

So gold quarters or dimes, silver pennies and pink half dollars all exist but not from any American mint. Other countries like Hong Kong have done colorized coins and There were some Sacagawea Dollars made in gold but those are exclusive coins.

Update: The copper dime weighed the same as a normal dime. This indicates it may be a sintered coin. Sintered coins are errors of various meanings that must be confirmed by experts.

Do you have a weird coin and want to find out its value? Leave a comment and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.