From the Grading Room: Where’s My Date? The Importance of Date Placement

PCGS_SocialMedia

In the inaugural installment of a column directly written by the experts from the PCGS Grading Room, the focus is on a seemingly dull, but ultimately highly potent diagnostic point: date placement. Consider the following recently-submitted 1901-S Barber Quarter. The famously tough key to the series saw a mintage of just 72,664 (compared to five to 10 million for the most plentiful issues).

Though close examination would reveal no tooling or alteration in the date or mint mark areas, note the position of the leading “1” relative to the left edge of the bust. The date is much farther left than that of a genuine 1901-S; PCGS experts need not even turn the coin over to identify it as a counterfeit! In this case, two genuine coins were planed down and bonded together to create a “sandwich fake.” A genuine example is below for comparison.

Full article: https://www.pcgs.com/news/from-the-grading-room-wheres-my-date

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ricko

Interesting.... Just the smallest of details... Thank you for the links. Cheers, RickO

1630Boston

Thanks for that information @PCGS_SocialMedia
Very helpful

asheland

Excellent information!

Type2

Very cool, thank you for sharing this info. 😳

burfle23

@PCGS_SocialMedia Very interested if you recorded any observations of the edge of the "1901-S"? Would love to see what the edge looked like! There has also been discussion of another possible "put together" example with the wrong obverse and reverse type for a genuine 1901-S, this one actually certified as genuine.
Thanks,
Jack.

WAYNEAS

Thanks for sharing.
Another educational moment for one and all.
Wayne

Catbert

Glad to see these informational articles contributing to hobby learning. Thanks!