fake pound coins

[HSBCrusher]

I always keep an eye out for fake pounds (I'm a bit of a numismatist) and had noticed that finally someone had started to remove them from circulation. At one time, several years ago, if I had 4 or 5 pound coins in my pocket, one would be fake.

The poorer copies are not difficult to spot if you know what you are looking for.

the obverse (the face side) is often a bit "soapy" looking, ie the detail isn't quite right. The difference is really quite easy to see when compared with a real coin. They mix up obverse and reverse types, mating the reverse design with the wrong date.

However, as these coins have started to disappear, I noticed one in my change that was really rather good. I'm not sure what technology they are now using, but the quality of the dies (the metal "stamps" that make the coin) was very good indeed, resulting in a coin that on the face of it was virtually indistinguishable from the original.

However, they still made some of the old mistakes.

 

1) only coins that are very very worn start to lose the edge milling- the words (decus et tutamen or whatever) are usually very deep. If a coin looks fairly new and has poor edge milling (very faint or uneven), then its likely to be a fake. If words are very faint, again be suspicious. Very often the fakers will go for a "bridge" design coin as the edge design is a couple of wavy lines which is easier to copy- however even these tend to have a poor edge design.

 

2) real pound coins always have perfect die alignment, meaning that the obverse and reverse line up perfectly. Fake coins don't. hold the coin looking at the queen, with the point of the bust at 6 o'clock. this is the bottom of the coin. rotate the coin in your fingers through 180 degrees with your fingers exactly at the top and bottom. A fake coin will not have a reverse that lines up with the other side, and so the reverse will be on an angle.

 

3) the size. If you have good eyesight, you will notice that if you compare a real one for a fake, the fake is often, (but not always) ever so slightly bigger.

 

check your pound coins, see if you have a dodgy one in your purse or pocket.

don't accept them from shops- and they often get passed out at night in pubs and clubs.

 

where do the profits from making and passing on these coins go? Difficult to say but you can bet your bottom pound coin that its not to a children's ward or hospice bed.

[labrat]

or people using trolly tokens in those kids pound machines, apparently there just the right size to trip the mechanism on the turn handle

 

and yes ive got several fakes hanging around, i ussually find its easyer to keep the queens nose at 3ish when rotating tho

[HSBCrusher]

of course it depends on what head the coin has, the latest one terminates in a point that points downward to nearly exactly the bottom of the coin.

[gerson]

you could always try the sound or score test

 

fakes 'sound' different

use another coin to 'score' across the face - older fakes will change color (the base metal will show trhu) and produce a 'groove'

[Grotesque]

They were bloody handy for winning 'double or quits' onthe spin though.

Edited August 31, 2013 by Grotesque

[HSBCrusher]

the new generation of fakes sound the same and are the same colour as they are made from the same alloy.

you could always try the sound or score test

 

fakes 'sound' different

use another coin to 'score' across the face - older fakes will change color (the base metal will show trhu) and produce a 'groove'

[Consumer dude]

Doesn't the bank of England just produce money at will anyway. Isn't that a bit fake..

[Grotesque]

Yeah, Consumer Dude! Let's smash those Laws of Bi-metalism!!! LOL

[HSBCrusher]

we have had a "token" currency since the reign of George III, when the coins were minted with a precious metal content that was lower than the face value.

Hen VIII had a go at that too- in the end his "silver" coins had so much copper in them that it soon wore through. The shillings (testoons) had a full face portrait, and the nose became a copper colour, hence his knickname "old coppernose"

[ploddertom]

I bank up to £500 in £1 coin every week and used to sort them all out but as there were so many fakes I gave up and just bagged them up, the exception being the "bendy" ones.

 

In a different life I worked for BT and had responsibility for coin boxes, in one area we had a spate of washers - 10p size - removed from the boxes and upon examination they were the exact size & weight and someone had even milled the edges to fool the mask within the mechanism. Eventually traced the culprit to a machine operator at the local Royal Ordnance Factory and he was subsequently dismissed. Part of of my responsibilities was also checking meter complaints from customers who thought their bills were too high - this was in the days of unit billing. The local Jewish school reckoned they were being ripped off on a royal scale so was sent to investigate their equipment and that in the exchange. Their own was spot on but the meter equipment in the exchange transpired to be at fault and I don't know what happened but they were not being charged enough - strangely they never complained again.

[HSBCrusher]

That reminds me of a woman I knew a very long time ago that complained when someone dug a trench along the road outside her house as it stopped the well she had in her garden- which of course meant that she didn't pay any water rates.

It turned out that her "well" was being fed by a leak from the water main that also ran down the road- southwest water then billed her for the water that she had been using and not paying for.

 

Sometimes it's better to keep your gob shut I suppose.