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Chop marks, test cuts & scrapes, or: how many different ways can you skin a cat?

At the philly show I was very close to buying an 8 reales that had numerous chop marks and test cuts... beyond that, it had a few marks which I'd never seen before and ultimately kept me from buying it... it had deep "abrasions" in the face which the dealer said were another form of test cut to confirm the coin was silver below the surface, and/or to get the coin to match local silver content standards...

With this many deviations it'd be tough to 'casually' authenticate the piece (weight) so I passed...

my question to the forum: how many different forms of "Authentications" we can come up with for silver coins? Images would be cool for the "visual learners" in the grou....

Comments

  • TwoKopeikiTwoKopeiki Posts: 9,528 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Parallel striations on the surface often indicate adjustment of the weight of the blanks before striking the coin. Testing the authenticity was often done by making a cut near the edge, biting the coin, chop-marking or making a deep scratch on the surface. Pretty much any method was used that would expose the "core".

    This counterfeit, for example, was not only holed, but also had an edge cut which shows porous, non-silver inner core. You can see the plating very well in the magnified image of the cut below.

    image

    image

    Here's another counterfeit that went through quite a lot of "testing":

    image

    Another holed counterfeit:

    image






  • coinpicturescoinpictures Posts: 5,345 ✭✭✭


    << <i>Parallel striations on the surface often indicate adjustment of the weight of the blanks before striking the coin. >>



    Bingo. They are called "adjustment marks" and are done pre-strike.

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