1700s counterfeit, old American, and double Swiss coins

TrpnBils

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I'm on some kind of token streak this year. I'm up to 35 or so, mostly from orchards and canneries in the county. Luckily I found some coins to go with the 15 orchard tokens I dug on Monday. At the same site I pulled a 1900 V nickel, 14 wheats, and 50 Centimes and 1/2 Franc coins (Swiss). The Swiss coins came in super low at about 12-06 on the CTX (foil range, about half as high as a nickel would be. Also found both in the same hole - always recheck! I put my plug back before I checked again so I would have missed it had I just moved on!

The first find of the day was also the oldest... a 1775 counterfeit King George III halfpenny. The obverse of this is basically obliterated, but the reverse isn't terrible. Two New Jersey coppers were pulled off of this site along with a couple of more modern silvers last year but there is a huge gap of about 100 years that we haven't found anything from yet! Lots of land to cover, so we're still hopeful!
 

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Really cool finds. How did you know the King George was counterfeit?
 
I'm on some kind of token streak this year. I'm up to 35 or so, mostly from orchards and canneries in the county. Luckily I found some coins to go with the 15 orchard tokens I dug on Monday. At the same site I pulled a 1900 V nickel, 14 wheats, and 50 Centimes and 1/2 Franc coins (Swiss). The Swiss coins came in super low at about 12-06 on the CTX (foil range, about half as high as a nickel would be. Also found both in the same hole - always recheck! I put my plug back before I checked again so I would have missed it had I just moved on!

The first find of the day was also the oldest... a 1775 counterfeit King George III halfpenny. The obverse of this is basically obliterated, but the reverse isn't terrible. Two New Jersey coppers were pulled off of this site along with a coupof more modern silvers last year but there is a huge gap of about 100 years that we haven't found anything from yet! Lots of land to cover, so we're still hopeful.
I found one three months ago what year were the counterfeit ones made?
 
Really cool finds. How did you know the King George was counterfeit?

Awesome! How old do you think the counterfeit is?

I'm on some kind of token streak this year. I'm up to 35 or so, mostly from orchards and canneries in the county. Luckily I found some coins to go with the 15 orchard tokens I dug on Monday. At the same site I pulled a 1900 V nickel, 14 wheats, and 50 Centimes and 1/2 Franc coins (Swiss). The Swiss coins came in super low at about 12-06 on the CTX (foil range, about half as high as a nickel would be. Also found both in the same hole - always recheck! I put my plug back before I checked again so I would have missed it had I just moved on!

The first find of the day was also the oldest... a 1775 counterfeit King George III halfpenny. The obverse of this is basically obliterated, but the reverse isn't terrible. Two New Jersey coppers were pulled off of this site along with a coupof more modern silvers last year but there is a huge gap of about 100 years that we haven't found anything from yet! Lots of land to cover, so we're still hopeful.
I found one three months ago what year were the counterfeit ones made?

There was a major problem of counterfeiting this and other similar types of coins for years around this time and it's considered likely that there were more counterfeits in circulation than genuine. One resource I found said that out of 567 cataloged varieties of this denomination dated between 1770 and 1775, about 515 of them were known to be counterfeit (and of course there would have been many of each of those varieties made and circulated). In the case of this particular coin, it weighs less (counterfeiters used different compositions of metal or just plain less copper to keep costs down), is off-set to the left as you can see in the picture (the 1 in 1775 is almost off the coin, as are the BRI visible in BRITTANIA), the obverse and reverse are angled from each other (vertically flipping the coin the way it sits in my hand there leaves the other side at about a 30 degree angle when it should be perfectly upright), and it came in lower on my detector than it should have which would lend more evidence to it being of a different composition).

1770-1775 seem to be the most talked about years for counterfeiting the KGIIIs, but it definitely wasn't the only time period that this was a problem. The original counterfeiting laws went into effect over there in the 1720s I think because it was becoming an issue. I don't know that a counterfeit 1775 like this would have been made in 1775 necessarily, but it would be close. It's not a modern day reproduction or anything - this would have been in circulation and used as actual coinage back then.
 
There was a major problem of counterfeiting this and other similar types of coins for years around this time and it's considered likely that there were more counterfeits in circulation than genuine. One resource I found said that out of 567 cataloged varieties of this denomination dated between 1770 and 1775, about 515 of them were known to be counterfeit (and of course there would have been many of each of those varieties made and circulated). In the case of this particular coin, it weighs less (counterfeiters used different compositions of metal or just plain less copper to keep costs down), is off-set to the left as you can see in the picture (the 1 in 1775 is almost off the coin, as are the BRI visible in BRITTANIA), the obverse and reverse are angled from each other (vertically flipping the coin the way it sits in my hand there leaves the other side at about a 30 degree angle when it should be perfectly upright), and it came in lower on my detector than it should have which would lend more evidence to it being of a different composition).

1770-1775 seem to be the most talked about years for counterfeiting the KGIIIs, but it definitely wasn't the only time period that this was a problem. The original counterfeiting laws went into effect over there in the 1720s I think because it was becoming an issue. I don't know that a counterfeit 1775 like this would have been made in 1775 necessarily, but it would be close. It's not a modern day reproduction or anything - this would have been in circulation and used as actual coinage back then.

Great information...thanks for taking the time to explain. Wonderful find!
 
The George coin looks normal to me, modern farming methods (chemicals) and in some case low grade metals in the coins means they soon deteriorate.

It is just possible the smoothness of the head side was deliberate and was done in times gone by.

These 'bad' coins are all from this week and are the results of the wide spread use of modern day chemicals.

I seen the local farmer out spraying his crops with liquid nitrogen today this is the first summer he will have used this method.

"The use of liquid nitrogen fertiliser is soaring in the UK thanks to its superior performance and competitive cost."

...Doug.

 
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