1877 $3 Gold: Real or Fake?

skier07

These are the only pictures I have.

amwldcoin

While I can't say for certain from the pictures...my counterfeit alarm is ringing.

davewesen

it does not look like a bad fake - I would never buy a raw key date from a picture, or even in hand unless I really knew the series. It looks like it could have been cleaned. Whenever you have a chance to make a good rip on something you do not know about, usually you are the one getting ripped. If it is someone you know, or local send it in to get graded and have pre-decided buy prices depending on grade.

There should be roughly 1/7 ounce of gold in that $3. That is roughly $225 melt value today.

291fifth

$3 gold is a coin that you just don't buy raw. These were extensively faked in the 1970's and early 1980's.

Insider2

Counterfeit. Old dies with the "round" berries rather than the rough ones on genuine coins.

PerryHall

It looked off at first glance.

jwitten

I don't like the bumps on the rim area. Fake is my guess.

Smudge

Raw for a reason.

kaz

rounded letters on the reverse don't look right.

lkenefic

Insider nailed it... I thought something was "off" so I looked at Coinfacts

https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1877-3/7999

No way I'd give up five figures on a raw coin...

davewesen

the following is one from COINFacts - where are the berries? the strawberries directly to the left and right to the top part of the 3?

skier07, the following is a link to another thread of yours about a $3 that has some good point

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1001803/omega-3-gold

kaz

I think the "berries" are actually cotton bolls.

CRH4LIFE

The lines inside outer rim at 5 o clock of obverse and lines on reverse would indicate a casted counterfeit? ** Edited for spelling

asheland

Looked off to me, too.

ricko

Compared to an authentic piece (as shown above), it is not authentic....Raw gold is a dangerous area to deal in...Cheers, RickO

skier07

I thought the coin was fake before I posted it. The coin looks off to me and when I compare it to the 1877’s on CoinFacts it looks different.

Thanks for the replies.

Insider2

The "berries" are at the tips of the wreath on the reverse. Students can understand tiny round "berries" rather than a ""cotton ball" that looks nothing like cotton. I guess I should start calling them the bunches of "cotton SEEDS."

CaptHenway

I thought that the two things at the top ends of the wreath were tobacco leaves. If you look at my Longacre article in the October, 1985 Numismatist where I illustrate Longacre's original wax models for the $3 gold piece, the features had long, stringy veins that did not survive the transfer process to the master die. They were replaced with rows of dots.
TD

davewesen

I got this from Wikipedia on reverse ->

The reverse originates Longacre's "agricultural wreath" of corn, tobacco, cotton, and wheat which would also appear on the gold dollar, Flying Eagle cent, and his revised reverse for the Seated Liberty dime and half dime.[15] This blended the produce of the South and North at a time of intersectional tension

Insider2

@CaptHenway said:
I thought that the two things at the top ends of the wreath were tobacco leaves. If you look at my Longacre article in the October, 1985 Numismatist where I illustrate Longacre's original wax models for the $3 gold piece, the features had long, stringy veins that did not survive the transfer process to the master die. They were replaced with rows of dots.
TD

IMO, they are definitely not leaves.

Insider2

They are cotton seeds. The large leaf w/three points above the strawberry is a cotton leaf. Cotton seed pods have the shape that is at the wreath end and the two small projections that have popped open at the base of the seeds.

Cameonut

@Insider2 said:
They are cotton seeds. The large leaf w/three points above the strawberry is a cotton leaf. Cotton seed pods have the shape that is at the wreath end and the two small projections that have popped open at the base of the seeds.

I think you are close. The cotton seed pods (more commonly called a boll) are football shaped, but as they start to open, you can plainly see the cotton fibers. Perhaps this is just artistic license.
I do think that the ends of the wreaths could be corn. Why? Because in the old days before all the hybridization, corn ears were much shorter than they are now. But they typically weren't football shaped. Again, maybe artistic license.

One thing for sure is that the ends of the wreaths are not tobacco flowers. Here is a photo I took of a flowering tobacco plant - I used it as a brain teaser for my friends up north.

Insider2

@Cameonut said:

I do think that the ends of the wreaths could be corn. Why? Because in the old days before all the hybridization, corn ears were much shorter than they are now. But they typically weren't football shaped. Again, maybe artistic license.

Disagree, the corn is at 3 and 9 o'clock.

Insider2

What looks like cotton is at the bottom of the wreath on both sides, so maybe we are looking at strawberries in a different view, because all the leaves at the top are from that plant.

My personal opinion NOW because of this thread is they represent NOTHING but are there for an artistic wreath tip.

blitzdude

You should be ok if you only paid spot or less. More than likely real .900 AU.

kaz

what I see, starting at the bottom of the wreath, are: tobacco, corn, cotton (leaves and unopened round boll), then the seedy/beady things at the tips; I agree with Insider that these are an artistic accent that create interesting diamond shaped negative spaces above the 3, as well as a point of visual tension where the tips almost but don't quite meet. (whew, one sentence!)

Insider2

@kaz said:
what I see, starting at the bottom of the wreath, are: tobacco, corn, cotton (leaves and unopened round boll), then the seedy/beady things at the tips; I agree with Insider that these are an artistic accent that create interesting diamond shaped negative spaces above the 3, as well as a point of visual tension where the tips almost but don't quite meet. (whew, one sentence!)

You forgot the wheat ears near the bottom.

Insider2

Cotton, corn, wheat, and tobacco are what is suppose to be on the coin. So try this from the bottom up. Tobacco, wheat, corn, and cotton. So it is not a strawberry after all. The design at the tip is still UNK. The leaves above the corn don't resemble cotton leaves.

kaz

on the other thread that you started, the mysterious beady things were ID'd as sorghum.. that makes sense to me as molasses was the chief sweetener throughout the south. Sugar was still small scale at best outside the Caribbean.

Cameonut

@Insider2 said:
@Cameonut said:

I do think that the ends of the wreaths could be corn. Why? Because in the old days before all the hybridization, corn ears were much shorter than they are now. But they typically weren't football shaped. Again, maybe artistic license.

Disagree, the corn is at 3 and 9 o'clock.

Thanks for pointing that out - I agree.

P0CKETCHANGE

@blitzdude said:
You should be ok if you only paid spot or less. More than likely real .900 AU.

Any $3 that is being sold at spot is a guaranteed fake. These only have 0.145 oz of gold, so a bit over $225 worth at current spot.

Kliao

@P0CKETCHANGE said:

@blitzdude said:
You should be ok if you only paid spot or less. More than likely real .900 AU.

Any $3 that is being sold at spot is a guaranteed fake. These only have 0.145 oz of gold, so a bit over $225 worth at current spot.

The 2x2 is marked for $1200

lkenefic

@Kliao said:

@P0CKETCHANGE said:

@blitzdude said:
You should be ok if you only paid spot or less. More than likely real .900 AU.

Any $3 that is being sold at spot is a guaranteed fake. These only have 0.145 oz of gold, so a bit over $225 worth at current spot.

The 2x2 is marked for $1200

Yes... the 2x2 is marked $1200 and looks old. Recent auctions have these pieces hammering in the $10-12k range at mid-AU grades...

291fifth

@blitzdude said:
You should be ok if you only paid spot or less. More than likely real .900 AU.

Many of the fakes from the 1970's and early 1980's were apparently produced by melting down common date Eagles or Double Eagles. This means that the gold content will likely be .900 fine gold. They should also be the correct weight for the coins. The coins that were faked were the low denomination gold coins that had significant numismatic premiums over the value of the gold.

abcde12345

Rims tell the story. Too sharp.

Insider2

@291fifth said:

@blitzdude said:
You should be ok if you only paid spot or less. More than likely real .900 AU.

Many of the fakes from the 1970's and early 1980's wereapparently produced by melting down common date Eagles or Double Eagles. This means that the gold content will likely be .900 fine gold. They should also be the correct weight for the coins. The coins that were faked were the low denomination gold coins that had significant numismatic premiums over the value of the gold.

Will you please cite your source for this nonsense! Did you read this in a Numismatist authentication column?

PerryHall

@abcde12345 said:
Rims tell the story. Too sharp.

That was the first thing that raised a red flag with me. The juncture between the rim and edge is too sharp and looks like a fine saw blade. Some of the cast counterfeits had the reeding applied by forcing the coin through a broaching die in a separate operation after the coin is created thus causing the sharp edge.

291fifth

@Insider2 said:

@291fifth said:

@blitzdude said:
You should be ok if you only paid spot or less. More than likely real .900 AU.

Many of the fakes from the 1970's and early 1980's wereapparently produced by melting down common date Eagles or Double Eagles. This means that the gold content will likely be .900 fine gold. They should also be the correct weight for the coins. The coins that were faked were the low denomination gold coins that had significant numismatic premiums over the value of the gold.

Will you please cite your source for this nonsense! Did you read this in a Numismatist authentication column?

The actual source is long forgotten as it was from the early 80's. It makes sense, however, as eagles and double eagles were plentiful from overseas sources. I recall seeing Double Eagles at Earl Schill's coin store in Downtown Detroit coin store during this time which had been put thru a roller and been marked by a Swiss bank. These would have been an excellent source for the gold in these fakes. Many were reportedly being made in Lebanon. We will never know for sure since counterfeiters of this type of thing don't reveal their sources. The "Omega" counterfeiter, for example, remains unknown to this day and he was just one who was active during this period.