What to Do With Fake Coins (and Are They Still Worth Anything?)

Good morning!

So we’re a year late with this post, haha, but I still wanted to share because I found the whole process of figuring out I had fake coins on my hands, as well as WHAT TO DO WITH THEM afterwards?, super interesting. And my hope is that whenever YOU come across fake ones yourself one day this will give you some ideas on what you can do too!

A quick summary though of what led us to this point:

• I got a new collection last year to inventory and liquidate
• I found a Morgan dollar in it that looked SUPER off (1895 with no mint mark)
• I spent hours deciphering it, and then realized I actually had a total of 28 fake Morgans on my hands including the 1895!!
• I drafted a blog post about what happened next and then promptly forgot about it for a year 😂

So what did happen next?! I’ll finally tell you!

Well, first, I had to break the news to my client that she’s got a bunch of fake-os on her hands and that’s not something anyone wants to hear – especially after your trusted coin advisor hints that it’s “at least $500 of silver” when first taking a look at it!  (Oops). But I bite the bullet and finally just blurt it out at our next meeting, and thankfully the rest of her collection was worth around $2,500 so it wasn’t the end of the world.

Here’s how it went down:

Me: “I have good news, and I have bad news” lol… “Which do you want first?” :)

Her: “Bad news please!”

Me: (straight up) “I found 28 fake silver dollars in your collection…. Which are basically worthless.”

**Awkward silence**

Her: (starts laughing hysterically) ” This surprises me not one bit – my dad was always getting into weird things and probably found a deal he couldn’t resist picking up!” Haha… Whew!!! (It was her dad’s collection we were liquidating)

And from there we moved right to the rest of the collection as if nothing ever happened. Best outcome possible!!

We then had a decision to make: what to do with these forgeries? Should we sell them as-so? Maybe get rid of them completely (ie trash ’em) so no one later can get duped?  Get them analyzed in the off chance they’re actually made of silver so we could get the bullion value out of them at least?

I offered up the following for her to choose:

1. I can give them back to her and she can show them to another dealer or research more on her own to get a 2nd opinion
2. I could try to sell them for any *silver* value that may be in each one, but it’s doubtful (plus – would take a while longer as I’d have to drive a ways to get to the closest shop that has a machine that could do this)
3. We could just trash them so no one gets duped in the future!!
4. Or lastly, I could keep them for educational purposes and use them for show and tells at our coin club and other events. Which was my personal preference so that a) they wouldn’t get back into circulation, but also b) they’re actually pretty cool! Esp that 1895 which, if *were* real, would have been worth $40,000 lol…)

Which option did she go with?

Option #4 – making my heart happy :) And at the very next coin club we had I gave an impromptu presentation on how I came about these coins and what led me to labeling them as fake, and then I passed them around for everyone to check out. Half of the club said they could tell right away they were fake, and the other half were blown away that they were inauthentic.

Here’s a shot of some of them and you can tell for yourself:

Here’s also the original article I wrote that goes into the nitty gritty of how I put everything together, which details markings and errors and just general notes to keep in mind when you’re evaluating coins yourself:

An 1895 Fake Morgan and More!!

They really were pretty good fakes outside of some sloppy markings and an incorrect date. Plus – you never really go into a collection *looking* for fakes either – they seem to only come up when you see something that looks “off.” Which is a good lesson for ME going forward too: to always keep in the back of my mind that fakes exist! And to maybe even come up with a checklist to go down for all future collections I help sell too, hmm….

But there you have it! A number of things you can do with forgeries if you’re stuck. It’s not all bad! You can learn from all of them and at the very least get them out of circulation!

When I passed them to a couple dealers in our club that night, they told me what they tend to do with fakes which helped validate our decision:

Dealer #1 puts all fakes into a binder for educational reasons and to take them off the street (he told me a time when he once turned a fake one down, and then years later got duped by the exact same coin when he was in a rush looking it over! He was furious!! Haha…)

And Dealer #2 uses them for window displays at his shop. Which I find incredibly genius! For one thing you don’t have to worry about anyone smashing the window and stealing them, haha, and for another they’re great advertising pieces as Morgans are so pretty and popular. Plus you don’t have to worry about any sun damage! I bet fakes don’t tone the same way anyways and may look “pretty” permanently lolol…

At any rate, hope this helps in your own endeavors! If you have any stories of stumbling across fakes in your own collection or researches I’d love to hear about it :) We can learn from all of them!

Your friend in collecting,

PS: Over the months I’ve since given out almost all the fakes to members of our club to keep and use as identifiers. But I’ve kept the 1895 for myself and made sure to label it ;) That post-it alone will save hours of frustration for my future heirs!! (And of course I’ve documented it in my trusty spreadsheet too – much more longer lasting…)