A contemporary counterfeit mold used to cast bogus 1830 Capped Bust half dollars recently surfaced at an auction house in upper Michigan, according to Winston Zack researcher and author on contemporary counterfeit United States coins.

In the May issue of his email newsletter Bad Metal News, Zack explains:

“From my records, no example of this cast counterfeit has been documented in the modern era; and the current owner has no plans of casting pieces in this mold.

“Overall, I have only seen or heard of maybe 5-8 complete examples of a Capped Bust half dollar mold surviving to the modern day.”

The auction lot description for the mold did not include a provenance, Zack states, but he was able to provide the following about the casting mold:

“It is approximately 16 inches long, weighs 2 lbs 9.3 ozs, and is nearly pure iron with traces of zinc, copper, and molybdenum,” Zack notes.

Confirmative die attribution is ongoing, but the obverse die has been preliminarily associated with 1830 Overton 108/109/110 (as cataloged in United States Early Half Dollar Varieties 1794-1836 by Al C. Overton and Donald Parsley).

The reverse die is a little harder to attribute, but has tentatively been identified as reflecting attributes of an 1833 O-114/115.

Additional research on the mold is ongoing, Zack said, with results to be released later.

Zack’s “Bad Metal Coin” website at badmetalcoin.com provides updates and revisions to ongoing research dedicated to counterfeit U.S. coins that were struck at the same time the United States Mint was producing genuine issues for circulation release.