Illuminating visit with a dozen counterfeit sovereigns

Weiss

I'd asked in a previous thread about counterfeit sovereigns a friend inherited from their grandfather, a holocaust survivor and from what I'm told an austere individual likely shaped by the events of the early 20th century.

I had the opportunity to visit with the heir today to evaluate the sovereigns, numbering 15 or so.

I took my digital scale, my loupe, and also the Sigma Metalytics precious metals verifier. For those unfamiliar, the Sigma works something like a metal detector, where very specific alloys are pre-set into the unit. The Sigma doesn't tell you what the item you're testing is made of. Instead, it will tell you if the item falls within an acceptable range for the % purity pre-set you've chosen for what the item is supposed to be. That's an important distinction but one that actually works quite well. It's very fast--essentially instantaneous--and you can burn through a handful of coins or other precious metal items quickly and confidently.

For a baseline, here is what the Sigma looks like with an authentic gold sovereign on the device. Note the rectangular cursor on the display is within the brackets, indicating the item is within a tight parameter for the Sigma's crown gold preset (91.7% pure or 22K):

Counterfeit sovereigns were so ubiquitous in the UK that most shop keepers had a simple tester to avoid getting the bad penny of an under-pure or underweight sovereign. It's my understanding that most "counterfeit" sovereigns encountered in the US today were made in the middle east between 1950 and 1970 and weren't meant to deceive numismatically--but were rather a recognizable way for Americans and others forbidden from owning gold bullion to acquire gold likely to be overlooked by authorities, in part because a small amount of gold coinage was allowed. These counterfeits were made of actual gold in varying purity approaching the authentic 91.7%, the small difference in purity representing the profit for the maker. Interestingly, some of the early counterfeit sovereigns were made of gold plated platinum--a dense metal less valuable than gold.

The heir's sovereigns were a dazzling array of counterfeits, from quite close to radically wrong, some with raised alphanumeric sequences, some with incuse design elements resembling chop marks. Again for those unfamiliar: Authentic sovereigns tend to be very crisp, with all of the elements from denticals to dragons very, very clear and sharp. That's why the details and devices are there in the first place. "Mushy" is the favorite descriptor for how fake sovereigns look.

Here are some of the more interesting varieties, with the corresponding Sigma readings. Note that I opted to change the preset to 90% gold in an effort to capture lower gold purity after almost none read within the proper crown gold parameters. Most measured pretty close to the 7.98 gram weight they should have.

Below was one of the 2 or 3 with the incuse "chopmark" hallmark. See the small oval impression at the bottom of the obverse bust. It certainly looks as struck, but this mark was in slightly different locations:

This one is my favorite. I explained to my friend that there were barbarian tribes who tried to imitate Roman coinage without really understanding the allegories, emperors, or devices they were intending to mimic, instead creating abstract impressions of the authentic coinage. And that some of these pieces are more interesting to collectors than the authentic pieces:

Weiss

Sapyx

Most of them are "Dubai sovereigns", made, as you said, as a convenient form of gold for trading and not to deceive a coin collector - though, perhaps, if the gold merchant is lucky, they might fool a tourist into paying full sovereign price.

These have little markings on them to indicate their fineness, in compliance with laws in Dubai (where making counterfeit gold coins is legal, so long as the counterfeits are clearly branded with their correct fineness). All but the last are branded as 21 karat gold, which ought to come up on your machine as 87.5% gold.

Coins #1 and #3: "G21" to the right of the king's portrait.

Coin #2: "P21" underneath the king's portrait.

Coin #4: "M21M" tot he right of the portrait, with the "21" written in Arabic rather than Western numerals,

I can't read what the countermark on #5 is supposed to be, but it is presumably also a fineness mark. It might be "21" in Arabic numerals.

Which leaves us with coin #6, the rather crude copy. If you just showed me pictures of it, without telling me it had passed a gold test, I would have said I would assume it to be a "Vasilopita coin". In Greece, a traditional new years day cake is the Vasiloipita (St Basil's Bread). Traditionally, a gold coin is baked into the cake, and the finder of the piece of cake with the coin in it got to keep the coin (not entirely unlike the British tradition of baking a threepence into the Christmas pudding). For poorer families who can't afford to go around giving away gold coins every year, a substitute-coin is made (usually out of brass), with the gift of cash given to the finder afterwards.

From the mid-1800s, gold sovereigns were the traditional coin of choice for Vasilopita, and the substitute-coins are usually roughly sovereign-like in design, though sometimes with Greek legends substituting for the original Latin. The ones I have seen have been rather crude copies, almost cartoonish.

Weiss

Excellent, @Sapyx . Hopefully my images and your info will shed some light on these for others. I could find very little online.
I wish the Sigma had settings for each karat. But so specific are the characteristics of certain alloys that the Sigma actually has 3 different settings for 90% silver: US pre 1900, US pre 1945, and coin 1960. Settings for hand made bullion would probably be prohibitive, and also shows the limitations of the Sigma vs. an XRF gun.

I'll pass the info about the Vasilopita coins to my friend. Might very well be what it is.

Exbrit

In the 1950s there were two centers for counterfeits - Italy and Syria. The Italian counterfeits were of better quality and were distributed around the world, mainly through Switzerland. Most were sent to Beirut for the middle-east market. The Syrian counterfeits were considered much lower in quality and were mainly for the middle-east and India.

The Italian counterfeits usually contained between 91.2 to 91.7% gold. The lesser quality Syrian counterfeits usually contained 88.0 to 91.5% gold. I believe that the Dubai angle may have come later and adds to the story. Interesting!

This is not to say counterfeits were not produced elsewhere or more recently.

There are reasons why so many counterfeits were made in the 1950s which I will not cover in this post. the the British finally decided to fight counterfeiting by minting sovereigns in great numbers in Britain, starting in 1957. Large scale minting of British sovereigns ended in 1917, but they were minted in again in 1925 (with some dated 1925 that were minted later). British branch mints minted sovereigns until 1932 (Australian until 1931 and South African until 1932).

Weiss

It's my understanding that these pieces were acquired beginning in the 1970s through the early 1980s. The group included a restrike Mexican 50 peso restrike (1947 date, struck through the 1970s and beyond) and the Frank Lloyd Wright American Art 1/2 ounce gold medallion, which was struck in 1982.

Exbrit

A couple of pertinent questions include - where and whom were they acquired from. Some of these pop up from time to time - even still. I recently had two Italian counterfeits that were very good (a 1916 and a 1917). They both fooled different dealers who were selling them. I should of kept them as nice examples, but off to the smelter they went.