Counterfeit Susan B Anthony Dollars

don129

Hey Gang, I mentioned these in the other thread about counterfeit quarters, so here they are.

I'm guessing I came across these 2 coins in the mid-1990's while searching dollar coin rolls I got from 2 separate banks on Staten Island, NY. Both coins appear to be cast copies made of some sort of white metal (they sound funny when you drop 'em). They are both thicker on one side vs the other. I sent one of them in to either ANACS or PCGS a the time and it came back as a fake weighing 8.042 grams.

So.. what do you think? Has anyone run across these as well?

JBK

They're great. They even have reeded edges.

Never seen a fake SBA in the wild. In the subsequent years there have been a lot of machines that were/are set up to take $ coins, so I assume the fakes get weeded out pretty quickly.

LindeDad

Was there chocolate inside both seem to be magician’s coins.

TommyType

I seem to recall hearing....(or I mentally made it up?)….that SBA's circulate(d) widely in some countries in South or Central America. So, while (badly) faking $1 coins in the U.S. might seem like folly, it might have been profitable there? And somehow, they made the trek back to the U.S.?

Interesting pieces, anyway.

Added:
After a little searching, I found this:
"Despite their unpopularity in the United States, the coins have proven popular for commerce in El Salvador and Ecuador, nations that use the United States dollar."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea_dollar

(That was more to check my checkered memory, than to prove my point).

Added again:
As noted below, I plucked this from a Sac page, and NOT an SBA page. Memory still suspect.

Added yet AGAIN!:
https://cuencahighlife.com/central-bank-reminds-ecuadorians-that-the-u-s-susan-b-anthony-dollar-is-legal-tender/

Indicates that the SBA's are in Ecuador as well....but even they need to be reminded that they are real money?

SaorAlba

@TommyType said:
I seem to recall hearing....(or I mentally made it up?)….that SBA's circulate(d) widely in some countries in South or Central America. So, while (badly) faking $1 coins in the U.S. might seem like folly, it might have been profitable there? And somehow, they made the trek back to the U.S.?

Interesting pieces, anyway.

SBA's don't but Sacagawea dollars do circulate in Ecuador - and Colombian cartels make Sackiefakes for the Ecuadorian market.

As for the SBA dollars I wonder that they were made to use in toll booths? I know they were using SBA dollars as tokens in Chicago years ago - the reason the 1999 dated coins were minted.

philographer

Thanks for posting!

I don’t think the SBAs circulated enough for someone to have a good idea of what a real one looked like. Looks good enough to pass!

Also, neither one was slabbed as fake? Did they come back bodybagged?

don129

Bodybagged, not slabbed.

CaptHenway

See www.smalldollars.com

AlexinPA

A very interesting thread, thanks.

Cougar1978

I can see somebody passing those at fast food place.

JBK

I can hardly "pass" a real half dollar or golden dollar. A friend of mine handed a drive-thru cashier a half dollar, said it was a half dollar, and still got change as if it were a dollar.

I am not sure I'd want to try to pass an SBA of any kind these days. The teller at the bank had three in his coin tray last week and I bought them to save him the trouble of trying to get rid of them.

I do enjoy using odd money when I can, though. I usually leave it as part of the tip so they can't complain.

Timbuk3

Interesting, I've never seen one before, thanks for sharing !!!

MWallace

@CaptHenway said:
See www.smalldollars.com

Thanks Tom. Here is the exact page.

smalldollars.com/dollar/add014.html

thebeav

Those are great.
If someone just 'said' they had a couple of counterfeit SBA's, I may not have believed it......

don129

Same here actually. The weird thing though is how I received them both from two separate banks around the same time. Makes me wonder if someone was unloading a significant amount of them locally.

BillJones

It is amazing that someone or a company to go to the trouble to make these pieces. The real thing does not have that much buying power, and it has never been popular. It’s sort of like the counterfeit nickels that were made without the large mint mark.

ricko

Indeed strange.. .if they would not work in the vending machines I am not sure how they could be exchanged in any volume to make it worth while...They do not even look like good fakes.... Cheers, RickO

asheland

Interesting.

bobsr

Cummings Allison in Chicago used to make coin rollers and slot mechanisms for vending years ago. The technology has dramatically improved in the last 20 years but in the 1980's/1990s, coin mechanisms were nowhere near as smart as they are today. It's highly possible they would accept any of those as real. It was very popular around universities during that era to freeze water into round tubes and cut them to use in vending machines which would melt and leave no trace of theft. Slots are mechanical now coins are weighed as well as digital eye scan, with a lot more sophistication.
Bob Sr CEO Fieldtechs

LanceNewmanOCC

odd i missed this the first time around?!

rooksmith

Is there an after-market for counterfieghts of very unvaluable things?

HoneyMarket

@bobsr said:
...It was very popular around universities during that era to freeze water into round tubes and cut them to use in vending machines which would melt and leave no trace of theft.

Wait...so that was real??

Does anyone remember Val Kilmer doing this in "Real Genius"??