From the Dark Corner: An Authenticated Counterfeit 1921 Walking Liberty Half Dollar

By Jack D. Young and the Dark Side Group ……
 

While my previous Dark Corner CoinWeek article featured a contemporary counterfeit Buffalo Nickel, this review features an example from another classic series – a 1921 Walking Liberty Half Dollar.

“Contemporary counterfeits” are a subset of the hobby, with the focus on fakes made in the period they circulated to pass as genuine in normal commerce. These are avidly collected and cataloged by various collectors and experts, with some worth considerably more than “face value”.

As I mention in the Buffalo article, my main go-to for information on contemporaries is my friend Winston Zack and his book Bad Metal. He is the one who brought my attention to the “authenticated” Walker.

As in all my previous Dark Corner articles, I will start with the certified genuine example as listed on eBay.

The same Third-Party Grader (TPG) certified this one genuine as the buff, so what’s going on? In my humble opinion, ATTRIBUTION, ATTRIBUTION, ATTRIBUTION (as I regularly say)… or lack thereof. Winston offered up his attribution images (from another example in his collection) and I added a genuine example as a reference.

Winston refers to this specimen as the “Fat Motto family”, for rather obvious reasons. And on the reverse, he notes that “the pine stem ends under the middle of B in PLURIBUS whereas on the genuine the pine stem ends on the right side of the B.”

He stated that he has “studied 10 examples. The average weight is 11.5 grams, planchet diameter is 30.55 to 30.6 mm, and planchet thickness is 1.7 mm. These are silver planchets – not sure of exact fineness, but it was high and potentially sterling silver”.

Here’s an obverse image comparison for reference:

Winston also added these images of another known example, and if I had reviewed the offerings on his website, I would have seen one!

I missed the opportunity for this one, but after discussions for this article he found another example in his collection!

And my Dark Side collection example:

One thing I noticed between my new example and the subject certified one are the various “pock marks” on both reverses. More investigation is required.

And, as there often is in my Fun with Fakes articles, this one has a twist!

This 1917-dated “fat motto” example shares the same reverse as the subject 1921.

Thanks again to Winston and all who helped with this research article; it was, as always, a team effort. And to my wife Laura, who has put up with me for 44 years this week!

And on a final note, we encourage collectors to be on the lookout for other examples of these 1917- and 1921-dated Walking Liberty Half Dollar counterfeit varieties – and there may be others with different dates that are related to this counterfeiter which have not yet been reported.

Best, as Always,

—Jack

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