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Why isn't the 1913 Liberty Nickel considered a counterfeit?
jmlanzaf
Posts: 32,069 ✭✭✭✭✭
Never authorized, no record of it being struck...
0
jmlanzaf
Posts: 32,069 ✭✭✭✭✭
jmlanzaf
Posts: 32,069 ✭✭✭✭✭
jmlanzaf
Posts: 32,069 ✭✭✭✭✭
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I have always wondered why the coins were not seized by the government at coin conventions. Not authorized in any way and should not be legal
a.k.a "The BUFFINATOR"
Money talks, bullmess walks. Is it possible someone got some form of payoff? Oh heaven forbid that bribes were offered at some point ... and accepted.
After all, we are all God fearing honest people aren't we? We aren't the ISA ( Incompetent States of America ) are we ?
A reasonable question.... seems if a 'coin' is not gold, they are not interested. There are other anomalies out there that seem to be ignored. Though I am sure a '64D Peace Dollar would garner attention. Cheers, RickO
There is just a really obvious inconsistency in the way "counterfeit" coins are viewed by the collecting public, as well as the Feds. Almost every day, someone is up in arms on this board trying to get a "fake Morgan" taken down from eBay because of those "Chinese counterfeits". But, older fakes are embraced as "educational", the Omega coins are openly collected, and the 1913 Liberty Nickel is one of the most famous, sought-after coins of all time.
I wish we could be consistent.
I would almost buy this except they'd have to bribe every generation. LOL.
"Precedence is a contract" as someone once told me. Once the feds accepted/overlooked the 1913 V nickels in the early years, they had established the precedent for those coins.
This is the basis for the defense of the 1933 double eagle that became the only legal one to own. In the 1940s the U.S. gov't recognized it as legal by virtue of issuing an export license for it, and faced with that argument the gov't decided to settle the court case.
https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/impossible-chemistry
I agree and I'll just YAWN...
In my thinking a counterfeit would be produced by someone other than the US mint. I do understand unauthorized as in this instance, since dies had been prepared. Then a flurry of "wanted to buy" ads.
My War Nickels https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/nickels/jefferson-nickels-specialty-sets/jefferson-nickels-fs-basic-war-set-circulation-strikes-1942-1945/publishedset/94452
Great answer to the OP's question. The coins are NOT COUNTERFEITS and probably were never considered to be at any time! Rather than posting a yawn, I wish I had given the question an "educated" response as you have done. Well done and shame on me!
Well, I dont think we really want to open Pandora's box on this issue. There are plenty of "coins" that could be treated the same as the '33 Gaudens DE. Should the 1913 Nickel be confiscated, too? Do we want Uncle Sam to come after every pattern in private hands??
Put me squarely in the "NO" camp!
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
The 1913 V nickels were probably safe once they came into the hands of Col. E.H.R. Green. He was an incredibly wealthy man who cultivated good relations with politicians, office holders and policemen. He was almost untouchably rich in a way that is difficult to imagine today. He had lots of nice coins and banknotes.
Perhaps "counterfeit" is the wrong term. However, they should at least be as illegal as the 1933 DEs, should they not? Even if they were made at the Mint, they were done without authorization (unlike the DEs) and then released somehow into the public (like the DEs).
I still think the term "counterfeit" could well apply as a Mint employee using Mint equipment against policy and for personal gain should not somehow ex post facto legitimize the operation. IMHO
What we think (you or me) makes no difference. I cringe when I read that the 1913 nickels are "counterfeit" or illegal to own as you might cringe if I wrote the fluorine was a solid!
Illegal perhaps, but not counterfeit. Seems to me that the difference between the 1913 nickel and the 33 saints was Executive Order 6102. There was an official and legal declaration made regarding 1933 gold coinage, while there was nothing in regard to the 1913 nickel.
Plus, it was a little crappy nickel, not a beautiful chunk of gold.
Tyler
I would "unauthorized issue" would be a better description of them. They were made with government dies at the mint.
Were they? How do we know?
Fluorine is a sold...at the correct temperature
There was an alternative theory that they were a private issue, but I thought that had been dispelled.
counterfeit: fraudulent imitation of something else
Kind of fits, no?
That will teach me to argue with a chemist about things I'm ignorant about. I forgot all about extremes of temperature and pressure. So please tell me so I don't need to look it up. Under what conditions does fluorine change from a gas into:
Thank you.
Physical evidence supports the 5 pieces having been made from official dies. 1913-dated five cent Liberty design dies are known through Mint documents as having existed prior to the date the new design was adopted. 1913-dated Liberty design dies were not destroyed until April, 1913. No dies left the Philadelphia Mint.
Therefore it is most probable these 5 coins were made at the Philadelphia Mint by person/persons unknown, at a time that cannot be determined. By default, they are legal U.S. coins, although of uncertain origin. The same applies to certain Trade dollar proofs, mint-made reproductions and restrikes.