Real but fake coins (but real)

[Bimetallic]

Hi all – I've been reading a memoir by one of your countrymen, Charles Black. It's called Counterfeiter: The Story of a British Master Forger (1989).

He was a banknote forger, probably the best around in the 1970s, mostly of USD, but ultimately also some British pounds when he says he reminded himself that he was an Englishman after all. How he faked the watermarks was pure brilliance.

But he dropped something in passing that shocked me. He said his boss had a side hustle of selling fake Sovereigns to the finest bullion dealers in London. But, they weren't fake in terms of metal content. They were true Crown gold alloy coins, 91.67% fine, balance copper, just like real Sovereigns. The boss had them made in Switzerland with the help of some Lebanese forgers (Black says the Lebanese were the best overall forgers in the world). Black said this was profitable because of the markup, i.e. the premium.

That's hard to imagine today, since the premiums before the pandemic were only 5-6%. And that's over spot, which doesn't account for any fabrication costs. Were the premiums on Sovereigns much higher in the 1970s? Were they mostly proofs or something back then? He doesn't mention anything about proofs vs. normal bullion, special editions, etc. @LawrenceChardHave you ever discovered fake Sovereigns that were made of Crown gold? Any other fakes made of the real stuff? This type of forgery is fascinating, almost like an unauthorized minting more than true fakery.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Bimetallic

[LawrenceChard]

10 hours ago, Bimetallic said:

But he dropped something in passing that shocked me. He said his boss had a side hustle of selling fake Sovereigns to the finest bullion dealers in London. But, they weren't fake in terms of metal content. They were true Crown gold alloy coins, 91.67% fine, balance copper, just like real Sovereigns. The boss had them made in Switzerland with the help of some Lebanese forgers (Black says the Lebanese were the best overall forgers in the world). Black said this was profitable because of the markup, i.e. the premium.

That's hard to imagine today, since the premiums before the pandemic were only 5-6%. And that's over spot, which doesn't account for any fabrication costs. Were the premiums on Sovereigns much higher in the 1970s? Were they mostly proofs or something back then? He doesn't mention anything about proofs vs. normal bullion, special editions, etc. @LawrenceChardHave you ever discovered fake Sovereigns that were made of Crown gold? Any other fakes made of the real stuff? This type of forgery is fascinating, almost like an unauthorized minting more than true fakery.

It would be interesting to know who his boss was, and the dates he was active.

The "finest bullion dealers in London" at the time would have been Johnson Matthey Bankers Limited, Sharps Pixley (not the current reincarnation), and possibly N.M. Rothschilds. We regularly used to deal with the first two of these.

I like to think he would never have fooled the finest bullion dealers in Blackpool, and am sure he never did.

When you say "But, they weren't fake in terms of metal content.", I understand what you arre saying, but is it quite common for fake sovereigns to have the correct gold content, and sometimes too high. It is a common misunderstanding that all fake gold coins contain less gold than they should.

"They were true Crown gold alloy coins, 91.67% fine, balance copper, just like real Sovereigns."

Do you know an original, historic, source which states that Crown Gold is "91.67% fine, balance copper". I have looked for one, but failed to find one, which leads me to suspect that this was never part of the original specification.

Sure, Crown Gold is 22ct, so 91.66% gold, but if anyone tests older Crown Gold coins, there is almost invariably some silver content, and often traces of other metals.

I just looked at what Wikipedia says about Crown Gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_gold

Typically, it contains errors. I have found this to be quite common on Wikipedia, possibly because almost anyone can contribute, no matter how vestigial their level of knowledge or expertise. I used to correct Wikipedia errors, but have ceased to do so.

Wikipedia states "The alloying metal in England was, and is, traditionally restricted to copper. This is still used for the current British gold sovereign."

There is no source cited for this assertation, although I believe that because Wikipedia retains page change history, it may be possible to discover which ignoramus contributed this particular piece of disinformation. 

On a purely logical basis, to say "and is, traditionally restricted to copper", which is of course an oxymoron. 

One definition of "tradition" is "the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way." While something can be done or made in the present using traditional methods, the fact that it is being done presently does not make it traditional, not until some time in the future. 

There does seem to be a firm belief at the British Royal Mint that Crown Gold traditionally contains only gold and copper, with no silver, but this is not borne out by any evidence in the form of the metal content of British gold coins, at least not those before 1957. Because many collectors, dealers, numismatists, journalists, and others tend to believe that the Royal Mint is an absolute and expert authority on British Coinage, the misconception persists. I have presented these facts to the Royal Mint, but have not yet managed to convince them that they are wrong, and they remain reluctant to change their current specifications for the gold sovereign family of coins. Public opinion may persuade them to change, but possibly only if the RM discover that the majority of potential customers prefer yellow (gold-coloured) sovereigns rather than red (copper-coloured) ones. 

I have noted other errors on the same Wikipedia page, but these would probably be best dealt with as a separate topic of its own.

It is known or believed that counterfeit gold sovereigns were made in Switzerland, although I suspect that some of this production might have happened in Italy. If so, they were probably smuggled into Switzerland via the Ticino region. I was not aware the any Lebanese were employed in the Swiss (or Italian) production of counterfeit coins, although many of the 1970s fake coins were believed to have been made in Lebanon.

Mark-up is not the same as premium, but many people do conflate these terms.

I have said, on our websites, and on TSF, that gold sovereigns typically traded at around 40% to 42% premium in the 1960s, and poossibly 1970s. I have no direct experience of thier premiums before this, but the main reason the Mint restarted prooduction of sovereigns in 1957 was to counter forgery because of the high premiums at the time. 

"Were they mostly proofs or something back then?"

No, we, and your sources, were referring to ordinary "bullion" sovereigns.

"Have you ever discovered fake Sovereigns that were made of Crown gold?"

Yes, I come across them almost every day of my life.

Most of the fake sovereigns we encounter are pre-QE2, but here is a blog page from our website about 1958 fake sovereigns:

https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/suspect-sovereigns/927

You may wish to note our XRF test results:

	Genuine Coin	Fake Coin
Gold (Au)	916/917	912 (+/-4)
Copper (Cu)	80	79 (+/-1)
Silver (Ag)	3	9 (+/-1)

Here, you can see that there was a silver content in the genuine 1958 sovereign.

The fake was too yellow because of its higher silver content.

"Any other fakes made of the real stuff?"

Yes.

Most of the 1970s Lebanese fakes were made with approximately correct gold content.

These fooled many of the world's major coin dealers and auction houses at the time, which is possibly why there is not more discussion of them.

😎

 

 

 

 

[Bimetallic]

8 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

It would be interesting to know who his boss was, and the dates he was active.

Black only calls him "Fred" and states that this is a made-up name to protect his identity. Fred is depicted as a great, encouraging boss, but also someone who would kill people who threatened him. (He once killed a member of a criminal syndicate who came to his office with demands that Fred pay for "protection".) Black notes that Fred was a London nightclub owner (not sure what kind of club, like a strip club or a disco), and they were active around 1970 - 1975 or so. Fred paid for Black's shopping list of extremely expensive offset presses, platemaking machines, process cameras, inks, fine cotton papers, etc.

I've never heard of fakes made of solid gold before. That seems like it would ruin the margins of such an enterprise. The only fake gold bullion I've heard of is tungsten plated in gold, since tungsten has essentially the same density as gold (less than a 0.2% difference), particularly with PAMP Suisse and other bars.

Those silver readings are fairly trace level, if the numbers are millesimal fineness. 3 means 003? So 0.3% silver by weight? And then the fake is 0.9% by weight. I wonder why they bothered adding such a tiny amount of silver, and why the real Sovereigns had even 0.3% silver. That seems a bit high for unintentional trace level, and too low to be intentional or esthetically relevant. When silver is included in Crown gold, it's normally several percentage points, like the 3% silver in US Gold Eagles, which makes them so much brighter and prettier than Krugs and Sovereigns. I think other countries also included significant silver in their gold bullion, maybe Mexico a long time ago. I could've sworn I read about a Mexican coin that was all silver, no copper, as the alloying metal, so 90/10 or 91.67/8.33 with no copper at all.

That post by Jon Clarke relies on weight measurements that come down to less than a thousandth of a troy ounce difference. Both samples weigh 0.235... troy ounces, with the difference coming in the subsequent decimals. He doesn't mention the tolerances and accuracy of the scale used though, so it's not necessarily valid to assert that the fake sovereign truly weighs more than the real one. Most scales aren't accurate to that degree. The difference here is about 12 mg, for objects weighing about 8,000 mg. Are your scales that accurate?

As far as sources on Crown gold, I found Dodd's 1911 book History of Money in the British Empire and the United States (free online at Google books), and this article by Heather Darsie. It seems like Crown gold is defined by its gold fineness of 9167, not by the alloying metals. The balance is typically copper, but there's nothing that says there can't be some silver. I've attached a screenshot of some of the snippets from Dodd's book.

 

Edited March 26, 2022 by Bimetallic

[LawrenceChard]

On 26/03/2022 at 18:55, Bimetallic said:

Black only calls him "Fred" and states that this is a made-up name to protect his identity. Fred is depicted as a great, encouraging boss, but also someone who would kill people who threatened him. (He once killed a member of a criminal syndicate who came to his office with demands that Fred pay for "protection".) Black notes that Fred was a London nightclub owner (not sure what kind of club, like a strip club or a disco), and they were active around 1970 - 1975 or so. Fred paid for Black's shopping list of extremely expensive offset presses, platemaking machines, process cameras, inks, fine cotton papers, etc.

I've never heard of fakes made of solid gold before. That seems like it would ruin the margins of such an enterprise. The only fake gold bullion I've heard of is tungsten plated in gold, since tungsten has essentially the same density as gold (less than a 0.2% difference), particularly with PAMP Suisse and other bars.

Those silver readings are fairly trace level, if the numbers are millesimal fineness. 3 means 003? So 0.3% silver by weight? And then the fake is 0.9% by weight. I wonder why they bothered adding such a tiny amount of silver, and why the real Sovereigns had even 0.3% silver. That seems a bit high for unintentional trace level, and too low to be intentional or esthetically relevant. When silver is included in Crown gold, it's normally several percentage points, like the 3% silver in US Gold Eagles, which makes them so much brighter and prettier than Krugs and Sovereigns. I think other countries also included significant silver in their gold bullion, maybe Mexico a long time ago. I could've sworn I read about a Mexican coin that was all silver, no copper, as the alloying metal, so 90/10 or 91.67/8.33 with no copper at all.

That post by Jon Clarke relies on weight measurements that come down to less than a thousandth of a troy ounce difference. Both samples weigh 0.235... troy ounces, with the difference coming in the subsequent decimals. He doesn't mention the tolerances and accuracy of the scale used though, so it's not necessarily valid to assert that the fake sovereign truly weighs more than the real one. Most scales aren't accurate to that degree. The difference here is about 12 mg, for objects weighing about 8,000 mg. Are your scales that accurate?

As far as sources on Crown gold, I found Dodd's 1911 book History of Money in the British Empire and the United States (free online at Google books), and this article by Heather Darsie. It seems like Crown gold is defined by its gold fineness of 9167, not by the alloying metals. The balance is typically copper, but there's nothing that says there can't be some silver. I've attached a screenshot of some of the snippets from Dodd's book.

 

From what you say, I'm glad I never met "Fred"!

We have another page here with some more XRF results:

https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/analysis-of-alloy-content-of-gold-sovereigns/180

I was also looking for a blog page we did about red versus yellow gold sovereigns.

I certainly have posted quite a lot of stuff on TSF about the subject, and thought we had created blog / info pages from my input.

I will have a further look on TSF

3 ppt of silver makes an enormous difference.

Our diamond scales measure to 1/1000th of a metric carat, so 1/5000ths of a gram. Because we were weighing 5 or 6 coins, we could also divide the result (and any error), by a factor of 5 or 6. 

Most of the silver content in early sovereigns was not added, it was simply not refined out of the original ore, as there was little point. It would have cost more to refine out than it was worth. Also early refining techniques were not sufficiently good to refine to such pure levels economically.

Now that refining is techically more advanced, including electrolytical processes, it is easier to obtain pure metals. Sometime after 1932, or 1951, the Royal Mint fell into the bear trap of not realising that previous sovereigns looked so good because they contained silver. It was cheaper and simpler to make Au:Cu 9166:0834 alloy. Some early QE2's do contain some silver, but I have not tested enough to publish definitive or statistically significant results.

The counterfeiting would not have had access to XRF technology, and probably gave no thought to the silver content.

Edited March 29, 2022 by LawrenceChard

[CollectForFun]

This article on old Chards website contains some facsinating information about this topic:

https://goldsovereigns.co.uk/sovereignfakesin20thcentury.html

Also, great footnote to the article 😁:

Quote

We were appalled to learn that the M.O.D. bought their sovereigns in the Middle East, it is the sort of idiotic mistake that tourists make all the time. We could probably have supplied them cheaper at the time, and there would have been the guarantee that all the coins were genuine. Perhaps baksheesh changed hands!

 

Edited March 27, 2022 by CollectForFun

[LawrenceChard]

On 25/03/2022 at 22:48, Bimetallic said:

Hi all – I've been reading a memoir by one of your countrymen, Charles Black. It's called Counterfeiter: The Story of a British Master Forger (1989).

He was a banknote forger, probably the best around in the 1970s, mostly of USD, but ultimately also some British pounds when he says he reminded himself that he was an Englishman after all. How he faked the watermarks was pure brilliance.

But he dropped something in passing that shocked me. He said his boss had a side hustle of selling fake Sovereigns to the finest bullion dealers in London. But, they weren't fake in terms of metal content. They were true Crown gold alloy coins, 91.67% fine, balance copper, just like real Sovereigns. The boss had them made in Switzerland with the help of some Lebanese forgers (Black says the Lebanese were the best overall forgers in the world). Black said this was profitable because of the markup, i.e. the premium.

That's hard to imagine today, since the premiums before the pandemic were only 5-6%. And that's over spot, which doesn't account for any fabrication costs. Were the premiums on Sovereigns much higher in the 1970s? Were they mostly proofs or something back then? He doesn't mention anything about proofs vs. normal bullion, special editions, etc. @LawrenceChardHave you ever discovered fake Sovereigns that were made of Crown gold? Any other fakes made of the real stuff? This type of forgery is fascinating, almost like an unauthorized minting more than true fakery.

 

On 26/03/2022 at 10:23, LawrenceChard said:

It would be interesting to know who his boss was, and the dates he was active.

The "finest bullion dealers in London" at the time would have been Johnson Matthey Bankers Limited, Sharps Pixley (not the current reincarnation), and possibly N.M. Rothschilds. We regularly used to deal with the first two of these.

I like to think he would never have fooled the finest bullion dealers in Blackpool, and am sure he never did.

When you say "But, they weren't fake in terms of metal content.", I understand what you arre saying, but is it quite common for fake sovereigns to have the correct gold content, and sometimes too high. It is a common misunderstanding that all fake gold coins contain less gold than they should.

"They were true Crown gold alloy coins, 91.67% fine, balance copper, just like real Sovereigns."

Do you know an original, historic, source which states that Crown Gold is "91.67% fine, balance copper". I have looked for one, but failed to find one, which leads me to suspect that this was never part of the original specification.

Sure, Crown Gold is 22ct, so 91.66% gold, but if anyone tests older Crown Gold coins, there is almost invariably some silver content, and often traces of other metals.

I just looked at what Wikipedia says about Crown Gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_gold

Typically, it contains errors. I have found this to be quite common on Wikipedia, possibly because almost anyone can contribute, no matter how vestigial their level of knowledge or expertise. I used to correct Wikipedia errors, but have ceased to do so.

Wikipedia states "The alloying metal in England was, and is, traditionally restricted to copper. This is still used for the current British gold sovereign."

There is no source cited for this assertation, although I believe that because Wikipedia retains page change history, it may be possible to discover which ignoramus contributed this particular piece of disinformation. 

On a purely logical basis, to say "and is, traditionally restricted to copper", which is of course an oxymoron. 

One definition of "tradition" is "the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way." While something can be done or made in the present using traditional methods, the fact that it is being done presently does not make it traditional, not until some time in the future. 

There does seem to be a firm belief at the British Royal Mint that Crown Gold traditionally contains only gold and copper, with no silver, but this is not borne out by any evidence in the form of the metal content of British gold coins, at least not those before 1957. Because many collectors, dealers, numismatists, journalists, and others tend to believe that the Royal Mint is an absolute and expert authority on British Coinage, the misconception persists. I have presented these facts to the Royal Mint, but have not yet managed to convince them that they are wrong, and they remain reluctant to change their current specifications for the gold sovereign family of coins. Public opinion may persuade them to change, but possibly only if the RM discover that the majority of potential customers prefer yellow (gold-coloured) sovereigns rather than red (copper-coloured) ones. 

I have noted other errors on the same Wikipedia page, but these would probably be best dealt with as a separate topic of its own.

It is known or believed that counterfeit gold sovereigns were made in Switzerland, although I suspect that some of this production might have happened in Italy. If so, they were probably smuggled into Switzerland via the Ticino region. I was not aware the any Lebanese were employed in the Swiss (or Italian) production of counterfeit coins, although many of the 1970s fake coins were believed to have been made in Lebanon.

Mark-up is not the same as premium, but many people do conflate these terms.

I have said, on our websites, and on TSF, that gold sovereigns typically traded at around 40% to 42% premium in the 1960s, and poossibly 1970s. I have no direct experience of thier premiums before this, but the main reason the Mint restarted prooduction of sovereigns in 1957 was to counter forgery because of the high premiums at the time. 

"Were they mostly proofs or something back then?"

No, we, and your sources, were referring to ordinary "bullion" sovereigns.

"Have you ever discovered fake Sovereigns that were made of Crown gold?"

Yes, I come across them almost every day of my life.

Most of the fake sovereigns we encounter are pre-QE2, but here is a blog page from our website about 1958 fake sovereigns:

https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/suspect-sovereigns/927

You may wish to note our XRF test results:

	Genuine Coin	Fake Coin
Gold (Au)	916/917	912 (+/-4)
Copper (Cu)	80	79 (+/-1)
Silver (Ag)	3	9 (+/-1)

Here, you can see that there was a silver content in the genuine 1958 sovereign.

The fake was too yellow because of its higher silver content.

"Any other fakes made of the real stuff?"

Yes.

Most of the 1970s Lebanese fakes were made with approximately correct gold content.

These fooled many of the world's major coin dealers and auction houses at the time, which is possibly why there is not more discussion of them.

😎

 

I just remembered that this TSF post relates to a sovereign forgery with a good gold content:

I retrieved it because I have just referred to it in a new post:

😎

 

[Bimetallic]

Fascinating, @LawrenceChard, I had no idea Sovereigns used to sell at greater than 100% premiums over melt value. I'm not sure what a shilling is, but it looks like prices even reached 3x or 4x their melt. (When he says "£2-18 shillings", does that mean two pounds plus some fraction of a pound?)

I don't think we've ever had 2x to 4x premiums on old American gold coins in the US, like the pre-1933 gold, but I don't think there was much of a gold bullion market here from the 1930s to 1970s, before lots of government mints worldwide started producing bullion again, followed by the economies of scale provided by web-based dealers.

It's interesting that the British government couldn't get enforcement action by other countries initially because Sovereigns were no longer legal tender. By the way, do you have a definitive test for genuine/fake Sovereigns? Since they're made of the same stuff, are you just looking at the quality of the strike? It doesn't seem like a very difficult thing to reproduce, just standard coining with good dies. How do you know for sure that someone didn't hit Royal Mint levels of quality and detail? It sounds like the Italians and Swiss might have been capable of it. Since coins don't have individual serial numbers, it would be easier to fake them than banknotes (also because they're much less complex than notes). I assume that even an excellent fake note would risk discovery by either having the same serial number as another (genuine) note, or by having an invalid serial number. But coins face no such obstacles. It's an interesting question whether a superb fake Sovereign that is indistinguishable from genuine Sovereigns is in fact much of a fraud. If it's impossible to know that it's fake, then it's like Schrödinger's cat in a box that can never be opened...

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, Bimetallic said:

Fascinating, @LawrenceChard, I had no idea Sovereigns used to sell at greater than 100% premiums over melt value. I'm not sure what a shilling is, but it looks like prices even reached 3x or 4x their melt. (When he says "£2-18 shillings", does that mean two pounds plus some fraction of a pound?)

I don't think we've ever had 2x to 4x premiums on old American gold coins in the US, like the pre-1933 gold, but I don't think there was much of a gold bullion market here from the 1930s to 1970s, before lots of government mints worldwide started producing bullion again, followed by the economies of scale provided by web-based dealers.

It's interesting that the British government couldn't get enforcement action by other countries initially because Sovereigns were no longer legal tender. By the way, do you have a definitive test for genuine/fake Sovereigns? Since they're made of the same stuff, are you just looking at the quality of the strike? It doesn't seem like a very difficult thing to reproduce, just standard coining with good dies. How do you know for sure that someone didn't hit Royal Mint levels of quality and detail? It sounds like the Italians and Swiss might have been capable of it. Since coins don't have individual serial numbers, it would be easier to fake them than banknotes (also because they're much less complex than notes). I assume that even an excellent fake note would risk discovery by either having the same serial number as another (genuine) note, or by having an invalid serial number. But coins face no such obstacles. It's an interesting question whether a superb fake Sovereign that is indistinguishable from genuine Sovereigns is in fact much of a fraud. If it's impossible to know that it's fake, then it's like Schrödinger's cat in a box that can never be opened...

Pre-Decimal System
This may be a good time to explain our basic pre-decimal coinage system. The basic unit of currency was, and still is, the pound, or the pound sterling.

There were twenty (20) shillings per pound.
The shilling was subdivided into twelve (12) pennies.
There were therefore two hundred and forty (240) pennies per pound.
The penny was further sub-divided into two halfpennies or four farthings (quarter pennies).

Source: https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/common-names-of-british-coin-denominations/304

So, its decimal equivalent = £1/20th = £0.05, or 5 pence, so it is like a US nickel.

Here's a photo of a Queen Victoria shilling:

£2-18 shillings = £2.90

I didn't mention "2x to 4x premiums", but about 40%, so 1.4 x intrinsic.

It's not too long ago, that bullion grade US gold $20 double eagles were trading at about 20% to 30% premium, although I have also seen them at close to spot, and think they may have been at much higher premiums, perhaps 40%, 50% or more, in the 1960s and 1970s.

It's incorrect to say "Sovereigns were no longer legal tender.". They were not current circulating coins, and were not in production, but they were always legal tender.

"do you have a definitive test for genuine/fake Sovereigns?" - Yes, my right eye is pretty good, and the left one is not too bad either. 

It mainly boils down to experience, but almost anyone could discern the difference given samples of the real thing, and conducting a forensic level of comparison.

"Since they're made of the same stuff..." But they hardly ever are, although it should not be so difficult.

"are you just looking at the quality of the strike?" Mainly.

"It doesn't seem like a very difficult thing to reproduce, just standard coining with good dies." Try it, many people have.

"How do you know for sure that someone didn't hit Royal Mint levels of quality and detail?" We don't, but...

To do it profitably, you would need to produce fakes on a large scale. This would mean suspiciouly large quantities of mint condition coins of the same date turning up, and this would invite very close scrutiny.

"It sounds like the Italians and Swiss might have been capable of it." Capable, yes, probably.

"It's an interesting question whether a superb fake Sovereign that is indistinguishable from genuine Sovereigns is in fact much of a fraud." It would still be a counterfeit, and therefore fraudulent, but the first part of your question presents an intriguing concept. What happens if or when fakes become indistinguishable?

I don't know the answer, but it is certainly worth thinking about.

(Anyone interested in a mint bag of 1841 sovereigns?)

😎

"If it's impossible to know that it's fake, then it's like Schrödinger's cat in a box that can never be opened..."

@HerefordBullyun might have a theory about Mrs. Schrödinger's pussy cat, but yet another topic might deteriorate.

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by LawrenceChard

[HerefordBullyun]

2 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

 

 

@HerefordBullyun might have a theory about Mrs. Slocums pussy cat. 

 

Fixed that for you, thats the only one I know about!

[iacabu]

Although Mr Chard himself has already answered, he also featured in a recent video with Backyard Bullion discussing the very same topic. Worth a watch if you haven't seen it

[Bimetallic]

@LawrenceChard

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

I didn't mention "2x to 4x premiums", but about 40%, so 1.4 x intrinsic.

It wasn't you – it was Robert Matthew, the author of the article that you republished on your site. He said "...it contained £2-18 shillings of gold but sold on the continental markets from between £4 and £10."

I didn't understand his shillings bit, but I assumed that his number came to less than £3.00, so 2x to 4x premiums (or rather up to 3.33x, conservatively, with £10.00/£3.00).

By the way, this bit from further up the thread is off:

On 26/03/2022 at 12:52, LawrenceChard said:

It was cheaper and simpler to make Au:Cu 9166:0084 alloy

There's an extra zero in your copper figure, and a slightly incorrect number – it should be 0834, not 0084.

[Bimetallic]

1 hour ago, Iacabu said:

Although Mr Chard himself has already answered, he also featured in a recent video with Backyard Bullion discussing the very same topic. Worth a watch if you haven't seen it

The video I see from the thread on questionable Sovereigns is by some bloke named Christopher Collects. Are he and Backyard Bullion one and the same?

[HerefordBullyun]

1 minute ago, Bimetallic said:

The video I see from the thread on questionable Sovereigns is by some bloke named Christopher Collects. Are he and Backyard Bullion one and the same?

No definitely not!

[LawrenceChard]

39 minutes ago, Bimetallic said:

@LawrenceChard

It wasn't you – it was Robert Matthew, the author of the article that you republished on your site. He said "...it contained £2-18 shillings of gold but sold on the continental markets from between £4 and £10."

I didn't understand his shillings bit, but I assumed that his number came to less than £3.00, so 2x to 4x premiums (or rather up to 3.33x, conservatively, with £10.00/£3.00).

By the way, this bit from further up the thread is off:

There's an extra zero in your copper figure, and a slightly incorrect number – it should be 0834, not 0084.

4/2.90 = 1.38 (almost 40% premium)

10/2.9 = 3.45 (I don't know where he got that information from)

Thanks for spotting the "deliberate error"

😎

I will correct it.

I'm glad someone read it and stayed awake!

[LawrenceChard]

45 minutes ago, Bimetallic said:

The video I see from the thread on questionable Sovereigns is by some bloke named Christopher Collects. Are he and Backyard Bullion one and the same?

 

43 minutes ago, HerefordBullyun said:

No definitely not!

No, but they are both very positive and enthusiastic about what they do.

Of course, we only get to see Christopher's head, and Backyard Bullion's hands, so you never know!

😎

[SilverStorm]

This is where having head knowledge about the history, composition, minting methods, die strikes, etc becomes very important.  Testing equipment like the Sigma and the GVS can't detect accurate fakes, as it only tests for correct metal content.   I do believe Lawrence concurs with my statement.    And this is why I predominantly stick with current year BU as I don't know old coins well enough to distinguish between an original and an accurate fake (after having passed a Sigma test of course).   The only time I may consider picking up an old coin is if it has been graded and slabbed by a professional, like NGC or PCGS.