USA Silver Eagle Fakes

eadgar

eadgar

Member
Silver Stacker
I bought some 1oz silver eagles a while back and a few of them turned out to be fakes.
In the image the fake is on the left.
The main, easiest differences to spot are the design of the shield, and the finish is a lot coarser on the fake.
The genuine item on the right has a lot more finer detail, easily visible in the feathers.
It was late in the afternoon (in a rush) there were about 30 x 1oz coins, I did a spot test on them but missed the few fakes.
Lesson learned :)

If someone else is saved by these images then balance is restored!

fake eagle.jpg
 
You should buy a mixed bag of different coins from a place like PerthBullion. Get yourself familiar with coins, that way you will know what to look for in the future. If you had a real eagle to compare too, you would laugh at how bad this fake is.
 
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I currently have 92kg of mixed silver including 1050 x 1oz items from around the world. Over the past several years I've probably bought and sold another 250-300kg of mixed items and bought 28kg of coins and had them melted into kilo bars. I bought the 3 items mentioned above in a lot, due only to inattention, not lack of knowledge. I put the images up as a reference to help anyone interested, not so I could be told I'm dumb.
Ed
 
Sorry I didn’t mean what I said to be insulting. I thought you might have been new and give what I thought was good advice to prevent this scenario from happening again.

I guess let this be a lesson to people that buy mixed bags. visualy check each coin and don’t assume they will all be legit.
 
Yeah i think that this happens a lot where most people who inhert coins from parents or grandparent, and have no idea real from fake but chose to sell them mixed in cause look the same, i guess its buyer beware.
 
This is a bummer! Are there any dealers online that really should be avoided? I am in the process of growing my silver collection and am still pretty new to the coin world. Any and all tips would be really helpful!
 
I don't think there would any worries with known / established dealers, either online or bricks and mortar. There are scammers in every situation though.
I personally am more wary of private sellers, I consider them to lack the experience to know whether what they have is real or not (says me who has bought fakes).
 
Was the garage seller the actual collector?

I’ve been to one garage sale in local Mosman, I wasn’t even looking for silver and told the seller to pack away a display as it worth was likely 100 times what he was asking.

Talking to the seller, the collection was his late fathers, he knew very little about it.
Basically he was selling a bucket full of US silver coins for face value swap for Aussie coins.

I doubt he needed the money, he just wanted to decluster, so I told him about few local Sydney cbd dealers,
 
Weight is 30.65. At the time I didn't have a glass or a scale with me. I have them in the car now along with a Sigma Metalytics tester.
 
Would love to sit down with someone with a Sigma tester or an XRF and test some of the coins I have. There are few I bought cheaply knowing they were fakes (chinese coins) but liking the designs and I am curious to see if they have any silver in them at all. There are a few other 'deals' I have had along the way that I wanted to verify were real. For instance I have one or two of these coins https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces5505.html which I picked up for under spot, which pass visual, weight and size inspection but I am suspicious of.
 
During an Oct. 17 Numismatic Forum, U.S. Mint officials were surprised that most of the more than 100 individuals invited had seen an example of a counterfeit United States bullion coin.

A three-member presentation panel on counterfeits featured Ron Harrigal, the Mint’s manager of design and engraving; Beth Deisher, former Coin World editor who is now director of the Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force under the Industry Council for Tangible Assets; and Walter Douglas, a senior industrial engineer in the Mint’s Quality Assurance Division.

Deisher was the only non-Mint representative to deliver remarks during the day-long forum, the third annual event staged by the Mint to address hobby and industry concerns.

Harrigal said Mint officials have been not directly exposed to counterfeit U.S. bullion coin products, made aware only through what they have read in the numismatic press. When he asked how many of those in attendance had seen a counterfeit U.S. bullion coin, nearly all hands were raised.

Harrigal chairs an internal 15-member Mint task force reportedly responsible for addressing counterfeiting issues.

Deisher provided the background on the formation of the Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force less than two years ago and the efforts to combat the secondary market proliferation of fakes and assist law enforcement in developing criminal cases against the persons responsible.

Deisher says the problem does not involve genuine products shipped out of the Mint, but fakes introduced into the market that replicate those products.

The most common counterfeited U.S. bullion coin encountered in the market, she said, is the American Eagle 1-ounce .9167 fine gold $50 coin. The counterfeits are struck on tungsten planchets that are plated first with copper and then plated with gold.

The fakes will exhibit proper weight and specific gravity and only be detectable using special diagnostic equipment designed to detect fakes.
Click to expand...

https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-c...erfeiting-panel-at-mint-numismatic-forum.html
 
Ipv6Ready said:
Was the garage seller the actual collector?

I’ve been to one garage sale in local Mosman, I wasn’t even looking for silver and told the seller to pack away a display as it worth was likely 100 times what he was asking.

Talking to the seller, the collection was his late fathers, he knew very little about it.
Basically he was selling a bucket full of US silver coins for face value swap for Aussie coins.

I doubt he needed the money, he just wanted to decluster, so I told him about few local Sydney cbd dealers,
Click to expand...
o_Oo_Oo_O plenty of 1 oz Ton and 1 oz Perth Mint bars ???, they are super CUTE, say what...give you double you asked for :D:D:D
 
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