Fake News

It seems appropriate on the almost-a year-ago anniversary of the Capitol Hill riots to speak of things that are not what they seem.

Over the years us dealers accumulate forged coins, usually spotting them in a timely fashion but sometimes getting caught out (particularly in our early years when learning the trade); so here is a photo of some of the pieces I’ve ended up with over time.

If they were all genuine the value would be around £8K, but as forgeries they are worth just a few pounds to a group of collectors who like to own these things out of interest.

The most intriguing ones are the two large ingots - these are high quality copies of Chinese sycee, which were silver trading ingots used for commerce from around 1200AD until the late 1800’s. Different sizes were cast, generally of standard weight, so that they could be readily accepted as a form of “currency” and they were given the denomination of ‘taels’.

My two are modern copies, made of steel I think, intended to fool collectors. If real, their value would be over a thousand pounds.