1909-s Indian forgery

bloodhound1

My laugh of the day was to get back a 1909-S Indian penny (forgery) from NGC. They said the mintmark was not genuine. Argghhh. Take a peak at the scan... This came from my dad's collection - wonder where he picked these coins up?

sinin1

Did he have a small shop? Maybe made them - just kidding.

Does the "S" look like it is glued on? or did they drill a small hole from the rim edge and refill it after punching up the "S" ?

Coqui

I could not tell from the pic.... but how exactly does the "S" looks?

bloodhound1

No hole in the rim, cannot see where it was glued on either. Here a X200 scan...

Cam40

The color of the S looks a couple shades lighter than the rest of the coin.
Not that thats the sure sign in this case.Just an observation.
That would be the size ,shape,and placement of the mint-mark for the real diagnostics.

mr1931S

looks like the 'S' was lifted from a 1909 SVDB and glued on .........................just kidding..........

it would have been helpful of NGC to say WHY they think the mintmark is not genuine....i haven't seen very many '09-S Indians but i think every one i've seen has the mintmark well-centered under the bow with no obvious tilt and i recall that the style of 'S' used on the 1909 San Francisco issue Indian cent looks very different from the 'S' on the early Lincolns.

bloodhound,your coin looks like the 'S' is not centered and it has some downward tilt...can't really tell from the image if the 'S' is "too big"...the 'S' on 1909,and 1908, Indians i've seen looks tinier to me than the 'S' used on the early Lincolns.

hole drilled in the side and mintmark pushed up is a possibility i suppose...A few years ago,ANAAB detected some high-grade Philly Buffalo nickels that this had been done to...would be very difficult for the collector to detect the forgery if the pushed up mintmark of the right size and shape was exactly positioned.Seems to me that anyone who would go to the trouble to do this delicate forgery on the thinner-than-a-nickel cent piece would get the mintmark position and tilt right,however.

Merc

The S looks slightly high. Most of these fakes have a glued on S. 30-50X power will show you the seam between the mintmark and the surface. Some were die struck counterfeits, but NGC would have told you that if that were the case.

shylock

Tough to tell much from the small image, but as Merc said the mintmark looks high. When you resize a genuine 09-S to the same size, overlay it and then magnify both a bit, they look like this:



The reason it comes too close to the ribbon is it's taller than a genuine S, and it's style is a bit off as well. Here's the two side by side:

IrishMike

Great photo work. You can see the difference in the placement. Unfortunately there are a lot of fakes out their for the 09-S.

toothpuller

That is some fine photography Paul. Thanks for the lesson. One can easily see the difference in the s mint marks with your juxtapositioning.

bloodhound1

Shylock.... one your side by side comparison, the entire wreath area looks different from my 09S to yours. It appears as though the 'space' between the wreath and the edge is bigger (larger, more spaceous) on your 09S than on my 09S. Mine appears smaller, more cramped.

Also, the bottom curve on the 'S' appears identical, although you are correct in that the 'S' on the forgery appears too close to the wreath. Any chance that multiple dies were used on the 09S Indians causing a different space probelm and a different positioning of the 'S'?

shylock

Bloodhound1 - there's no die count record for Indian cents from 1904 on. According to Snow (paraphrasing): Only one obverse die is assumed used for 09-S's since the mintage was only 309,000 and the average die life was 400-500,000. Plus, all known examples show light doubling on the upper left of the last 9. It's possible 2 reverses were used since the mint mark can be found in two positions: over the center of a denticle and over the right edge of a denticle.

There were no reverse design changes after 1859 other than the shallow/bold N types of early years. However, because the design was sunk more deeply on some dies than others, the shield and lowest olive leaf appear connected to the denticles on some reverses and separated on others. The example I used from Heritage and yours are both "shield connected" reverse types. The gap you see may be an illusion caused by the different S's, the wider lower rim your coin has, and the crisper strike of the Heritage coin I used -- I noticed it too. Here's another example (your coin on bottom):



side-by-side


It would be interesting to see a micro close-up of your coin's S compared to one considered original. Forum member Lakesammman takes some incredible micros with his scope adapter and can provide a PCGS 65RD for comparison. You should PM him. It would make for an interesting conclusion to this thread and give you a second opinion from someone who really knows this series. He's trustworthy and one of those collectors who enjoys this sort of detective work.

BillJones

The photo is not perfectly clear but it looks like the serifs on the rejected piece are not in line with the style of mint mark that appeared on the genuine 1909 cents. I'd say that the style of the letter and the place are wrong on the suspect piece.

bloodhound1

I'll see if I can get a much better image later tonight and PM...

birddog

Here is one that is authenic. You can compare.

bd