Good morning!
Okay, so this post is about a year overdue, haha, but I still thought it was worth sharing! I found the process of discovering that I had fake coins and then figuring out what to do with them really fascinating. Hopefully, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, this will give you some ideas on how to handle it!
Here’s a quick rundown of what got us here:
So, what happened next? Let me finally fill you in!
First, I had to break the unfortunate news to my client that she had a stash of counterfeit coins, which isn’t easy to hear—especially when your trusted coin advisor initially suggests they might be worth “at least $500 of silver”! (Oops). I finally bit the bullet and blurted it out at our next meeting. Thankfully, the rest of her collection was worth about $2,500, so it wasn’t a total disaster.
Here’s how the conversation went:
Me: “I have good news and bad news, lol. Which one do you want first?”
Her: “Bad news, please!”
Me: (straight to the point) “I found 28 fake silver dollars in your collection. They’re pretty much worthless.”
**Awkward silence**
Her: (laughing hysterically) “Oh, this doesn’t surprise me at all—my dad was always dabbling in unusual deals and probably couldn’t pass up this one!” Haha… What a relief! (We were liquidating her dad’s collection.)
After that, we moved on with the rest of the collection as if nothing had happened. Best possible outcome!
Then we had to decide what to do with the forgeries. Should we try selling them as is? Trash them to prevent anyone else from being fooled? Or maybe get them analyzed to see if we could at least salvage any silver bullion value?
I laid out some options for her:
And which option did she choose?
Option #4 – which made my heart happy 🙂 At the next coin club meeting, I gave an impromptu presentation about how I discovered the coins were fake. I passed them around for everyone to see. Half of the club could tell right away they were counterfeit, while the other half were shocked by their inauthenticity.
Here’s a photo of some of them, so you can judge for yourself:
I also wrote an original article detailing how I identified the fakes, including the telltale markings, errors, and general tips to keep in mind when evaluating coins:
[Title of the Article]
They were actually pretty convincing fakes, aside from some sloppy markings and an incorrect date. It’s funny how you rarely go into a collection looking for fakes—they just pop up when something seems “off.” This was a good lesson for me as well: always remember that fakes exist! Maybe even create a checklist for checking future collections, hmm…
And there you have it! Several things you can do if you end up with forgeries. It’s not all bad! At least you can learn from them and get them out of circulation.
When I showed the coins to a couple of dealers in our club, they shared how they handle fakes, which confirmed our decision:
Dealer #1 keeps all his fakes in a binder for educational purposes and to keep them off the street. He recalled a time he turned down a fake only to be duped by the same coin years later when he was in a hurry! He was not happy! Haha…
Dealer #2 uses them for window displays at his shop, which I think is genius! You don’t have to worry about someone smashing the window to steal them, and they make great advertising pieces since Morgans are so beautiful and popular. Plus, you don’t have to worry about sun damage! I bet fakes don’t tone the same way and might look “pretty” permanently, lol.
In any case, I hope this helps with your own collecting adventures! If you have stories about stumbling across fakes in your collection or research, I’d love to hear about them 🙂 We can all learn from each experience!
Your friend in collecting,
P.S. Over the past few months, I’ve given away almost all of the fake coins to members of our club to use as references. But I kept the 1895 for myself and made sure to label it 😉 That post-it alone will save hours of frustration for whoever inherits it! (And of course, I’ve documented it in my trusty spreadsheet too—much more lasting…)
