Hundreds of highly deceptive U.S. Trade dollars surfaced at the Hong Kong International Coin Convention in August that could have made it to the United States had it not been for the alertness of a number of U.S. coin dealers who scrutinized and uncovered the fakes. Despite the quick action, however, some of the counterfeits eventually could make it into American numismatic channels because of the amount of business transacted in the Trade dollars at the Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 Hong Kong show.
Santa Barbara, Calif., coin dealer Ronald J. Gillio said the counterfeits, believed to be die-struck, were mixed in with genuine Trade dollars and had to be painstakingly separated from genuine coins. The counterfeits represented a number of dates and Mint marks, with a predominance in CC and S Mint Trade dollars indicating their purported production at the Carson City and San Francisco Mints, respectively.
"They were very well done," Gillio said. "You really had to examine them." Gillio said most of the pieces he examined would grade from Extremely Fine to About Uncirculated.
The Philadelphia, Carson City and San Francisco Mints produced Trade dollars between 1873 and 1878, mainly for use in trade in the Orient. Many of the coins were subsequently chopmarked with a merchant's personal stamp to attest to the coin's fineness and acceptance in trade. Gillio said dealers attending the Hong Kong show every year see genuine Trade dollars that have had the chopmarks filled in and evidence of the alteration buffed out.
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COUNTERFEIT TRADE DOLLARS show two discernible holes, arrows, separating looped hair in the bun of Liberty's hair where the metal was removed from the die. On genuine coins, the upper part of the eagle's eyeball is incuse, while on the counterfeit, the entire eyeball is solidly visible. The spaces between the reeds on the edge are also significantly wider on the fake Trade dollars than on genuine coins.
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Grants Pass, Ore., dealer Gary Burton said he examined a wide range of dates and Mint marks represented among the hundreds of Trade dollars being offered by a number of foreign dealers. He said the counterfeits, rumored to have been produced in one of the nearby provinces just outside Hong Kong, were weighed, with most of them weighing the standard 24.49 grams. The counterfeits also had a "coin ring" when tapped (a common test on silver coins), indicative of their silver composition. Genuine Trade dollars are composed of 90 percent silver, 10 percent copper.
Because of the low price of silver and the possibility that hundreds of dollars can be made on each date and Mint mark, the counterfeiting problem has become an annual occurrence at the Hong Kong show. Dealers who examined the coins at the show bought a number of them and then subsequently returned them for full reimbursement after identifying their bogus manufacture. They said the quality of the recent fakes was much superior than previous ones that were easier to identify.
"They were so good it was scary," said Burton, who returned most of the pieces he originally bought. He retained a few just for reference purposes.
Another Santa Barbara coin dealer, Paul Brombal, said the counterfeits were "struck really well" with the correct styles of fonts in the legends. The dates and Mint marks represented seemed to correspond to their rarity based on the mintages and survival rates of genuine specimens, he said. He believes the planchets for the counterfeit are probably cast silver, although the fakes were likely produced on a modern coinage press.
Fort Worth, Texas, dealer Mike Dunigan estimated that 30 percent of the fakes represented Carson City Mint coinage, whose genuine specimens garner multiples of the prices paid for most genuine S Mint coins and those from the Philadelphia Mint (which carry no Mint marks). He said a cursory inspection of the counterfeits gave the impression they had identical appearances of being cleaned with a chemical solution, but once examined under magnification, there was no evidence of any cleaning whatsoever.
Dunigan said he returned all the U.S. Trade dollars he had purchased from three different sources at the show.
"I returned mine except for a few samples," he said. "I wanted to keep them as reference." To him, the surfaces of the counterfeits exhibited a somewhat watery appearance.
He said what appeared to be contact marks from the pieces coming in contact with others inside a storage bag were most likely marks intentionally produced on the planchets before striking, because the marks looked like they were smoothed out from the striking.
"There was such a high diversity in the range of dates and Mints that they wouldn't initiate any suspicion," he said.
Dunigan said there is a strong business in genuine Trade dollars with repaired chopmarks and re-engraved details that are sold with the repairs and alterations identified.
Rocky Lertchit from Mikell International, North Arlington, N.J., said although the counterfeits are well made, they can be identified if the buyer knows what diagnostics to pinpoint. While the obverse is often the starting point to examine for flaws, the most recent counterfeit Trade dollars exhibit many of the telltale signs of their clandestine nature on the reverse and edge, he said.
On the reverse of genuine Trade dollars, the upper part of the eagle's eyeball is incuse, while on the counterfeit, the entire eyeball is visible.
The A in AMERICA is not uniform and the M not straight on the counterfeit.
All lettering appears to have a somewhat ragged appearance on the counterfeits. The surfaces, especially in the fields of the counterfeit, are too uniform, he said.
The spaces between the reeds on the edge are also significantly wider on the fake Trade dollars, Lertchit said.
"They are very good struck pieces," Lertchit said. "The obverse is made so good that it's difficult to detect." \On the genuine coins, the bun of hair at the back of Liberty's hair shows fine detail, while on the counterfeit, there are two discernible holes separating looped hair where the metal was removed from the die.
The overall color of the counterfeits is also off, Lertchit said. The fakes have a dull, steel white finish rather than the milky white finish silver should have.
