By Jack D. Young, Early American Coppers (EAC), and the Dark Side Group ……
This article presents two more recent listings–purported 1883-CC Morgan dollars–from a Chinese bad seller of counterfeit “coins” in fake “PCGS” slabs. The first example has some of the best seller images I have seen for these, but things go sideways pretty quickly upon further review!
Those familiar with genuine PCGS slabs will notice at least one thing missing:
And then there is the barcode:
But, most importantly, there is the “coin”.
Attributing it (always my first step) to known genuine specimens (“VAMS”) shows a unique example for this date’s Carson City mint mark location/placement:
And comparing it to the known common reverse used for all years of these counterfeits (like the 1881-CC), you see common features:
Unfortunately, the online cert used for this one is no help, as there are no images of the genuine example.
Looking through the PCGS auction archive, however, turns up another example with a different cert.
Clicking “original lot” shows this example:
And this one does have an online cert image:
Comparing this bad example to the genuine one (on the right) yields these images:
Swing and another miss!
Comparing both counterfeit Morgan reverses, we see the same bad mintmark location and major flaw:
And the “punch line”…
Remember, it’s a continual GROWING jungle out there!
Best,
–Jack
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