NEWP: 1783-Mo FF 8 Reales NOT from El Cazador! PCGS XF-40
Senator32
Posts: 407 ✭✭✭✭✭
Senator32
Posts: 407 ✭✭✭✭✭
Senator32
Posts: 407 ✭✭✭✭✭
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Very nice. I would pay good money to banish all El Cazador listings from eBay. Clogging up my searches!
Latin American Collection
Nice.
AND I'd say more than 50% of the non-Cazador 1783 pieces are chopmark jobs (which would be fine if not for the typical crud and/or ham-handed cleaning).
Nice honest piece - I call it a strong VF. I peeked at it, but went too strong for my taste (then again, all better Charles III pieces seem to be doing that more and more the past year... AUs pushing $500?!)
Here's one I picked up some years back out of Europe - bit scruffy, some slight accretion, but mid AU, legit luster, generally unscrubbed:
Oh, and here's a twinkly UNC... except that it's an apparent Chinese superfake. Cheers!!
(see updated pic below)
That is a really good fake
Latin American Collection
Yeah it is... Same ring that was doing all the really good German/Swiss thaler types, etc. about 3-4 years back.
Only ever saw a SINGLE listing for the 1783 (as opposed to certain others where multiple examples appeared). Some late date UNC Cap & Rays did pop up more than once.
That fake is scary.
To echo @realeswatcher - nice honest piece with VF30-35 obverse and XF40 reverse. These come-up in problem free AU a few times a year. Mostly raw, though. Here's my example I picked-up from Dan last year. I think he got it in one of the Kunker auctions around 2014.
8 Reales Madness Collection
This sounds anecdotal. Did Brad Yonaka include El Cazador items in his recent book, because his "abundance of dates within series" does not show a drop-off for 1783?
Here's one of my examples
I'm sure Brad included Cazador pieces in his number of dies observed and total availability for this year/assayer. As far as the date goes, it's obviously common with non-corroded and chopmarked examples often available and nicer examples coming up for sale a few times a year. I think what makes it feel like it's difficult to find is the sheer overwhelming number of Cazador pieces available at any given moment.
8 Reales Madness Collection
It's anecdotal - but absolutely true.
While it's reasonable to suppose that the fact that there's SOOOOO much 1783 El Caz out there could play a mental trick and skew one's perception of relative vs. ABSOLUTE numbers... I have seen enough over the past 10 years hawking eBay to say that there is DEFINITELY a shortage of non-salvaged 1783 Mex 8R out there vs. the surrounding dates.
When you consider just HOW much the El Caz contained (and I don't know the specific numbers, but I know it's more than they'll ever know what to do with)... it only makes sense that the wreck had to take to take out a statistically significant amount of the 1783 mintage. But aside from that educated guess, my observation says it's actually true.
I'll also point out that the careful observer will also notice that there's NO shortage of non-salvage 1783 Mex 1/2R and 2R out there. Despite the fact that there were of course large numbers of those denoms. (1783 dated) on the Cazador, it clearly wasn't AS big a bite of the overall mintage.
Here's a contemporary counterfeit that somebody chopped in half to expose a copper core. Sorry I don't have a photo of either edge.
American Numismatic Society, 0000.999.55884.
Jesse C. Kraft, Ph.D.
Resolute Americana Curator of American Numismatics
American Numismatic Society
New York City
Member of the American Numismatic Association (ANA), British Numismatic Society (BNS), New York Numismatic Club (NYNC), Early American Copper (EAC), the Colonial Coin Collectors Club (C4), U.S. Mexican Numismatic Association (USMNA), Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC), Token and Medal Society (TAMS), and life member of the Atlantic County Numismatic Society (ACNS).
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Heh... that cut CC piece doesn't look to be shown in "Swamperbob" Gurney's book, and I haven't seen one among the several of that date I've come across (that smooshed together "ET IND" is an easy diagnostic).
Doing some searching related to the chops thread... came across this. Several specific tone spots do not match, but lots of other incuse marks/"scratches" do. So, definitively, two different specimens (aka twins) of the same fake:
Look at the impression right above Charles forehead.
Latin American Collection
Wow, good eye @realeswatcher . The fakes these days are getting scary, but I do wonder how they would hold up to in-hand inspection. This is another good reason to be cautiously skeptical if you run across a very high grade 1783-Mo FF.
You can see why the counterfeiters would choose this date though - they saw the market flooded with the El Caz coins when they searched for 'pirate treasure' or the like to produce...figured with all those listings that date is popular (not knowing that the amount of high grade survivors of the date are scarce). Supposition, I grant you...but I would wager not far from the truth. I'll be sure to report back on this thread of I run across any more fakes of this date...I think @Boosibri may be correct and there is a marker above Charles head to keep an eye out for.
Those 1783s actually BOTH showed up about 4-5 years ago when a China "superfake" peddler ring was running rampant on eBay. This involved a multiple selling IDs, often using U.S. address locations, which were also used to swap feedback and shill bids. I had the pic of the initial example saved from back then. However, I actually JUST discovered this 2nd piece the other day after I got to digging through eBay archives on Worthpoint out of curiosity related to the chopped 8R thread. That ring listed a LOT of sometimes decent-looking chopped 8R... many of which weren't "familiar-looking", so can't be CONCLUSIVELY proven from just a photo, but some are indeed confirmed twin fakes to other observed specimens.
I had sort of wishfully hoped that the coin I had saved the pic of years back was perhaps a genuine specimen which was used as the example model to make their fakes and then as a bait-and-switch example pic - and then you got a much less convincing fake sent to you. That, of course, didn't seem terribly likely... but I had read some forum posts indicating that maybe this ring did that on occasion. Alas, this proves those (2) pieces are the fakes as they look.
In hand under a good loupe or a scope, a trained eye can or will maybe spot things. But these are pretty GOOD fakes - same ring offered Morgans and Cap & Rays also (genuine pieces thereof typically being high luster coins and as such they're GREAT targets) plus all those German and Swiss thaler types, etc.
I recall around that time (2015ish) at the NYINC, some dealer (might have been one of Steve Album's guys?) was doing show and tell to another dealer and myself as I was sitting there with three Swiss shooting thalers of the same type. Told us two are fake... which is which?? One of those was "good"... but had a sort of telltale surface texture that I could pick out pretty easily. The other had convincing enough texture/luster to not be able to say for certain - and I was already well-aware of the superfakes. They can be very believable, particularly for the German 19th century stuff, which was well-executed such that genuine material has excellent "modern-style" booming luster.
I guess this all points to the appeal of better-grade circ pieces like those shown above as opposed to chasing the allure of Mint White!