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Help Please...life long diplomat was in asia during 60s and 70s.....
Verno
Posts: 325 ✭✭✭
Hi all, these came in the shop, not sure if anyone can help identify, or at least let me know if they need further review and better pictures/more research.....the british trade dollar on the sheet was nice and original...so my thoughts are others are like coins from region?
Thoughts?
Thanks for the help!
RJ
1
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Most of the coins look like they are Afghanistan 5 rupee coins from the (AD) 1890's.
Some look like this:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces129952.html
The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
Coins in Movies
Coins on Television
According to link they are very rare....? Any value info?
Btw, thank you!
Google sez Zabulistan is now part of modern Afghanistan. Adds a little consistency to the grouping.
The coin in the white 2 by 2 with lady (the coin is Catty-corner from the British trade dollar) seems to be Russian, Empress Anna, c. 1735-1750.
First thing I would do is put a magnet on all of those.
https://www.pcgs.com/SetRegistry/collectors-showcase/world-coins/one-coin-per-year-1600-2017/2422
Passed magnet test
Most of us have learned to be wary of large groupings of raw coins of this size and supposed composition.
I'd be thrilled if they were all authentic. The large images (thank you) make me suspicious.
The British trade dollar doesn't look right to me. It should weigh 26.95 grams. The coin immediately below it looks like a Japanese trade dollar. But it says "One Dollar" rather than "Trade Dollar". I'm no expert, but I think that is a big red flag. I'm sure others who are more familiar with these pieces will chime in.
Gun to my head, based only on the images? They're all fake.
--Severian the Lame
Weiss is wrong about the wording on the obverse of the British Trade Dollar. Genuine coins should say "One Dollar". Nowhere does the phrase "Trade Dollar" appear in English on the British coin.
I would feel pretty good about this group if I were in Verno's shoes. Old groups like this DO turn up occasionally. The only bad thing is that the old-timers/ casual accumulators were not as condition conscious as today's picky collectors.
Don't let them shake you out of this Group, Verno! Most of it looks good!
.> @Weiss said:
I think you missed the part where I said "The one immediate below it", @BillDugan1959 . Below the British trade dollar. That one is supposed to be a Japanese trade dollar. The verbiage on that piece should read "trade dollar" rather than "one dollar". Though, as I said, I'm not an expert in Japanese coinage.
--Severian the Lame
@Weiss The Japanese coin says 'One Yen" and the reverse of the One Yen is seriously different than the Japanese Trade Dollar (the Japanese Trade Dollar has a much longer inscription on the Reverse than the simple inscription on the reverse of the One Yen). The inscriotions on the obverse of Japanese Trade Dollar are longer and more crowded than those found on the One Yen coin.
I...can't be any more specific than I've been. One of us has clearly been drinking, and it's likely me
--Severian the Lame
I hope they are real. Magnet test is a good way to start. After that, weighing them is a good next step. As far as the Afghan pieces, the vast majority of these look like worn out circulated pieces, but they are probably higher grade than most people would believe. It’s hard to tell anything from a group shot, but it looks like there are a couple of really nice pieces that would draw interest from collectors of such material.
https://www.pcgs.com/SetRegistry/collectors-showcase/world-coins/one-coin-per-year-1600-2017/2422
@Weiss You have don't have the coins correctly paired.with each other. The two coins you want to pair with each other are showing are one above the other on the same side of the plastic sheet and a photograph cannot show both sides of the same coin side by side next to each other in a single plastic.
This is one plastic sheet, two sides photographed separately.
If you look at the Russian Coin, the obverse is on the front side, and Verno has the second side of the same plastic sheet arranged so the reverse of the Russian coin is just below the obverse.
You aren't pairing the coins correctly.
Me drunk kicks you sober, although I'm sober at the moment.
.> @Weiss said:
The second one is Japan Yen
The first one is great Britain trade dollar. The second one is China 1911 dollar Y-31.
Weiss doesn't understand the front and back orientations of the same plastic sheet, photographed separately front and back.
Use the Russian coin (in the white 2 by 2) as a reference point.
This thread is cracking me up. Don't drink and authenticate... only bad things can happen.
I saved Verno's images to my own computer several hours ago so I could enlarge the photos on my machine.
Only then did I realize that the plastic sheet was two photos, front and back of the same plastic sheet.
Once you see it, it's hard to unsee, but I myself didn't catch it at first look.
For the several coins that I specifically checked, if you go the number of spaces/slots from the Russian coin (in the white 2x 2), the obverses and reverses match up. A lot of glare on the obverse of the Japanese One Yen photo, but it matches with its reverse shown just below it.
I love how quickly this thread went off the rails!
My confusion wasn't that it was two image of the same page--I got that immediately.
It was that I while I was trying to study one of the coins I thought was most suspect (the Japanese trade dollar Y14) I was using the same coin to orient myself (the British trade dollar). I should have looked above the British trade in the first image, below it in the second image.
Thus the Japanese trade dollar, (which has the chrysanthemum at the top), appeared to have the wrong verbiage. Where the Japanese trade dollar says "Trade Dollar" at 6:00 on the reverse, this one appeared to say "One Dollar" at 6:00. This is the type of mistake that fakes can sometimes exhibit.
But what I mistook for the Japanese trade's reverse was actually supposed to be a Chinese trade dollar (Y31), which does in fact say "One Dollar" on the reverse at 6:00:
Despite my confusion, I maintain these all look suspect. The color, the type of coins, the cast-looking fields in the British piece. The uniform size, the uniform color. All of it raises red flags. Again: I hope I'm wrong.
--Severian the Lame
Somebody off the rails:
You continue to be wrong. Do you even own a copy of Krause?
Japanese Trade Dollar Coin and Japanese One Yen are two different things.
The piece shown in Verno's photo might be a little newer than the photo I have ripped below (inscriptions might be slightly different and a little different Krause number) but not too much:
I'd be happy to come across this lot, although maybe no big market for the Afghanistan stuff.
What I'm saying is that last night I was looking at them like this, where the Japanese coin appeared to have the verbiage of the Chinese trade dollar because I was using the British dollar as my reference point and thought I was seeing the front and back of the same coin below the British coin:
--Severian the Lame
@Weiss And you knee-jerkingly called Verno's coins fakes AND you called me a drunk.
There was no knee-jerking to it, friend. I'm a 40-year numismatist who buys and sells this type of material on a regular basis.
I'm literally sitting here with a pile of it as I type. I've seen several "older collections" in the last 5 years, with this type of assortment, and every piece is a recent Chinese fake.
I admitted I'd made a mistake in looking at one coin in particular, but also said I based my opinion on age, color, size, surfaces, type and the fact that they're all average circulated and raw coins.
And I wasn't calling anyone a drunk. If you look back at what I wrote, I said "One of us has clearly been drinking, and it's likely me"
--Severian the Lame
I know exactly who you are, we are occasionally at the same coin shows.
I've never lingered long over your showcase.
Apparently you don't. I've only ever been to my local show (2 or 3 times in my life, for a total of about 30 minutes). And I've never exhibited anywhere.
But let's not let a silly late-night disagreement taint this forum. All I'm saying to the OP is to use caution as I think anyone in this situation should.
You're welcome to disagree with me, and I respect your opinion.
--Severian the Lame
Have you ever met K6AZ? You guys would hit it off.
The OP coins look good to me.
Sorry guys, I should have done a better job of laying out the sheets and matching the orientation. In my opinion, the coins looked legit...the owner was a diplomatic aid in Afghanistan and then later the far east around end of 70's. The US coins were all good, including the gold, etc..
If you have any doubts, use a scale and that should help. Nothing is screaming out that they are fake.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.