21st

This is my 21st letter as president.

Another summer of coin fun ahead… can’t wait for the ANA Money Show in San Francisco. I love the “City by the Bay”. I remember visiting in-laws there about ten years ago. It was in July or August and they lived over on the Oakland side in El Cerrito. It was a scorching hot day, easily in the 90’s. They were talking of having a cookout later on when someone said, “Chris, why don’t you and David (an in-law) go to the Giants Game at Candlestick? They aren’t sold out and you’ll have no trouble finding tickets.”

“Let’s do it,” I said.

So I went inside, cooled off a bit, cleaned up and grabbed my wallet and keys and yelled at David “Get in the car!” and headed to the street where the car was parked. Just as we were getting ready to leave Aunt Juel came out with a coat and a fat wool blanket and handed them to me.

“What’s this for?” I asked perplexed.

“You may need it for the game. It might get cold.” I just laughed and humored her by throwing it in the back.

Man, that might have been the best decision of my life, because by the time the sun set and the cold mist rolled in off the Pacific the temperature must have dropped into the 40’s. It was brutally cold. I remember staring out over leftfield and just seeing this frosty mist wafting over the stadium like a meat locker. About the 7th inning I headed to the Refreshment stand.

“Sorry, sir, we can’t serve beer after the 7th inning.”

“I don’t want a beer. I need a smokin’ hot coffee.”

I don’t even remember who won the game, but I remember late in the game there were so few people left that when a home run was hit into left field, some guy sitting behind third base was the closest to it. He reluctantly got up, and wandered over to pick it up. The whole adventure certainly reminded me of Mark Twain’s old saying, “The coldest winter of my life was the summer I spent in San Francisco.”

On the numismatic front, it seems like I have encountered a number of Indian cent counterfeits lately. I am not quite sure why, but I will say they do seem to show up in spurts. I have concluded that they will always present an issue to the collector. Perhaps its time to start sharing more information on them with Club members. There are really three main populations of counterfeit Indian cents. First there are the ones made by spark erosion dies—this may constitute the largest number. Then there are those made by transfer dies—these are easily the best quality. And then there are the ubiquitous altered coins, mainly affecting 1877, 1908-S and 1909-S pieces.

Most of the Spark erosion counterfeits originated in the New York City area and started turning up at dealer’s shops around the city and Connecticut in the 1970’s. They are plentiful and encompass even the more common dates, such as 1898 and 1899. They are characterized by bumps or pimples on their surfaces, a result of the sparking process.

Before this the market was flooded by a large number of very deceptive Indian cent counterfeits, made on the West coast, specifically San Francisco. Thus they were dubbed “Bay Area” counterfeits. This were made by a transfer process using a genuine coin as the donor. As a result final quality was very high, and extremely difficult to detect, even for advanced collectors. Attached is a photo of a very well made 1868 Bay Area counterfeit. The Bay Area counterfeiter, known as The Bandit, focused only on the key dates of the 1860’s and 1870’s.

In addition I have attached a chart with diagnostics of all the Indian Cent counterfeits I have been able to observe. One of the keys to counterfeit detection in our series is keen knowledge of the genuine attributes of the pieces. The primary key to this is knowledge of reverse diagnostics. Mainly Type I vs. Type II reverses. Type I reverses have the “Shallow N” and Type II reverses have the “Bold N”.

Photos of each are shown here. Type I reverses with a tapered or “Shallow N” and squared middle serifs of the E’s. This reverse hub was used until 1870, and then Type II reverses were commissioned after this except for all 1877 business strikes and a few rare 1871 and 1872 issues. These have “Bold N’s” and trumpet-shaped middle serifs of the E’s. As you can see by studying the chart, counterfeiters often employed the wrong reverse for their fabrication, obviously unaware of the differences.

If you are planning to attend the ANA Money Show in San Francisco please stop by the Fly-In Club Table and visit. We will also be hosting a Club meeting, where perhaps a topic of interest will be this very same field—counterfeit Indian Cents.

Fly-In Club Editor
Frank Leone
P.O. Box 170
Glen Oaks, NY 11004 email: flrc@aol.com

If you would like to share any thoughts, my new email address is: cpilliod@msn.com