Fake Sovereigns pictorial

Weiss

Been picking up sovereigns locally when I find them. They're neat, historic, have little premium, and at about 1/4 of an ounce, they're what I think is the ideal size for buying and selling as funds permit or are needed.
Like the American $2.5 and $5 Indian gold pieces, they've got a long history of being counterfeited. Luckily fakes are often very close to AGW if not spot on. They can also be spotted pretty easily with some practice.
About a month ago, one local dealer had 5 pieces. I'd agreed to buy them all when I decided to put my own research into practice. I asked to borrow a loupe. The first 4 looked perfect. But the 5th piece had a mushiness to it that I'd learned was an indicator of fakes. The more I looked, especially compared to the other pieces, the more convinced I was the piece was fake. I delicately shared my concerns with the dealer. They carefully considered what I said, then agreed this piece was "off". Next time I visited, they said they'd tested the piece with a spectrum analyzer and the piece had read closer to 18k than the 22k of authentic sovereigns. Last week they sent the piece to their smelter for better analysis, it was returned 18k.

I'd asked the dealer to set it aside for me and they did. I picked it up today.

Unfortunately, the smelter took it upon themselves to graffiti the obverse. But I thought some images of the fake along side a real piece would be interesting to some.

PerryHall

That counterfeit is extremely crude and appears to be one of the fakes that came out of Lebanon in the 1950's. The vast majority of counterfeit gold coins are far better quality and extremely difficult to detect.

ADG

Weiss, thanks for the post. Just bought a sovereign, but Australian in a PCGS holder. Another reason I don't look at raw gold.

Weiss

I wouldn't say extremely crude. Certainly fooled the dealer and if I hadn't examined it with a loupe, I might have gotten...duped.

The tip off for me was first the weakness of the edges of the cape on the reverse. Remember the "wart" over the king's forehead and the filled die breaks in the letters are magnified to be as big as dinner plates. In real life these coins are the size of a nickel. Once you start seeing one thing, though, other things come into focus. Look at the detail in the horse's lower front leg in the real coin on the left, then compare it to the fake on the right. "Mushy" really is the best word for it.

They've made sovereign scales for over 100 years that are designed to test the weight, diameter, and thickness of these pieces. The idea being gold is dense and particular, so you can't have a fake weigh the same and still be the same diameter and/or thickness. Those scales worked very well and just about every shop owner had one. This fake is slightly larger and slightly lighter that the real one. But we're only talking a few grains heavier. Interestingly, I was able to create my own test by stacking the counterfeit on top of the real sovereign, then trying to pick them both up with thumb and pointer finger. Your fingers are held just slightly too far apart by the fake to be able to easily pick up both coins. That's not the case if you put the real one on top of the fake one.

But as @PerryHall said, I would also wager this fake was made mid-century in the middle-east. It's my understanding the creators weren't necessarily trying to fool numismatic collectors. They were just trying to provide their buyers what they wanted--easily recognized and accepted smaller gold coins: Sovereigns and $2.5 and $5 Indians. I've seen images of other fakes that are actually signed by their creators with what amounts to a chopmark in the obverse fields.

Weiss

@ADG said:
Weiss, thanks for the post. Just bought a sovereign, but Australian in a PCGS holder. Another reason I don't look at raw gold.

I understand that reasoning. Believe me: I'm not trying to diminish the concern all of us have with fakes no matter what they are. But of the 50 or 60 of these I've handled in the last decade, this was the only one that concerned me.

FWIW: I paid melt value. Actually a little less, since it tested at 18.6-something karat and I paid 18k.
Also this piece is brilliant uncirculated, for lack of a better term. While most full sovereigns didn't circulate much, even Apmex sells "average circulated" sovereigns--grading EF give or take. The difference between BU and EF might not make up the distance between 82% and 92% gold, but it gets you closer. No slabbing fees and little if any premium gets you the rest of the way there. For me, I enjoy sovereigns immensely. My favorite gold coin right now. Learning about historically important coins--even its counterfeiting history--just adds to my fascination with them. I'd have paid a premium for this fake.

PerryHall

Most counterfeit gold coins have the full gold content because they know the fist thing a buyer will do is to weight the coin although a few counterfeiters will cheat a little on the gold content.

asheland

Very interesting write up.

ricko

Interesting... and thanks for the pictures.... quite informative. Cheers, RickO