Hi,

I've recently bought a number of items at an estate sale and among the items were a dozen or so russian coins.
Among them were 6 and 12 roubles that state they're made of Ural platinum. Does anyone know on how to verify
the authenticity of these coins?

Thanks!

I can almost assure you, they aren't genuine. If they are ever genuine, you are talking about thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars. First check with a magnet to see if they are magnetic or not. Second, weigh them to see if they are of this figure:

3 ruble: 10.35g
6 ruble: 20.71g
12 ruble: 41.41g

I'm suspecting that they are a lot lighter as platinum is a heavy metal. Post pictures if you can.

Welcome to coinpeople by the way.

The most commonly seen date for the platinum fakes is 1830.

RWJ

Sure enough, both coins are dated 1830. Both are not magnetic. Don't have fine scales, but will weigh them.
Here are the photos.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Yes, the coins are fakes, it is obvious. Look on the eagle's faces, they are qiute confused to be on such coins

This is what a genuine coin would look like: http://www.library.yale.edu/slavic/coins/h...001.87.265.html

I'm sure you can tell it's QUITE different.

Agreed. I'm sorry to say that these are fakes for sure. No doubt about it.

Looks very similar, except some details on the right eagle claw and the crown. Could they have used multiple strikes to make the coin back in 1830?

Before you answer any further, please kindly weight them. If they are significantly lighter, they are not platinum and I'm 99.999% sure they are. Secondly the color of greyness doesn't look anything like platinum but instead cheap iron / nickel alloy. Take it this way, if genuine ones are worth thousands of dollars and counterfeiters can make such coins to fool people and sell them at that price, I'm sure there are more than enough crooks willing to do so. Cost of producing a fake coin: initial cost - 20 dollars for die, the rest are easy profit. Mass production? Less than 10 cents afterwards.

Good advice - thanks! The 12 rouble feels heavy, but I don't have scales, and will have to take it to a jeweler to weigh them.
Will report later...

Found another 12 rouble coin image:

http://www.stacks.com/lotdetail.aspx?lrid=...;fs=true#photos

20 dollars for a die to be made? So to make a die and mint a single coin is an investment of 20.10 USD? Tell me how I can get set-up this cheap and I promise I will only mint fantasy coins. To mass produce coins like these it takes much more investment...not that expensive but a bit more than you say to just get started to mint....a casting is a different story, cheaper but easier to identify.

you can find a bunch of the coins here and prices they realized at auction:

http://www.coinarchives.com/w/lotviewer.ph...273&Match=1

http://www.coinarchives.com/w/lotviewer.ph...288&Match=1

100% fake. No reason weighing them. Most likely not even platinum.

Drusus apparently it's not that expensive that you might think: 6 years ago a Taiwanese was offering to do 100% high quality copy of coins at a quoted price of 800USD (or was it 600?) for a single die. Of course, you are talking about dangerously high quality coins. I am guessing prices have dropped and I haven't been seeing any figures at the moment - most likely the counterfeiters found a target source and no longer needs for "customers". As far as the Chinese dies are concerned, I used to see figures around 200USD ish (no idea of the quality) and there was a period of time when cracked dies were sold less than 20USD, for example like this:



With the proper connection in China, you can get a better deal so I'm sure poor quality dies used to strike coins shown up there can be done at a mere 20 dollars. I don't want to know how much counterfeit coins the die I have has struck and it has shocking details to it. Of course the counterfeiters have smarted up these days and decide to hide the evidence rather than to maximize profit and I don't see any counterfeit dies for sales these days.

Good grief, do you know that I found a Chinese 1 yuan counterfeit coin in a pile of coins that I got from my friend's trip there? 1 yuan is just a mere 12 US cents - obviously the labour cost must be A LOT cheaper than 12 cents!!! All I can say is, do expect more counterfeit coins popping up in ALL sections of the coin market as long as they aren't worth scrap value.

The very fact that they feel they can make money (and probably do) faking a 1 yuan shows that there is a somewhat sophisticated operation. Such a thing does not come very cheap. To mass produce coins one must have a minting machine (even older ones arent cheap) and all the supplies and materials including the material to make the dies. Luckily for them modern coins are about the same as cheap tokens so that helps keep the cost down. One search on the web will show many private mints in China minting cheap tokens for private businesses and other concerns who could probably easily run forgeries as well. There are only a finite way fake dies can be made and that depends on that machines they are using, most ways require some investment as well. The whole process is quite expensive but once that initial investment is made and paid for, then, I am sure, the lesser investment to make a die and run thousands of coins in said mint might be profitable and relatively cheap. Certainly these investments might be less, and it might be easier to operate such an enterprise in places like China, Russia, Eastern Europe...places where there is powerful organized crime, but all the same I think that it takes quite a bit of investment, time, and effort before you ever produce a single coin.

Hell, just to get set up to make hammered coins (something I have done) is not that cheap.

I would doubt any great investment for the dies or machines. It seems likely that the counterfeiters
work at a factory where such activity can be carried on after hours. They probably pay the plant
manager a bribe (or portion of the profits) for the privilege. This is probably also the case with forgers
in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

RWJ

I would find it likely that many may use an outfit already set up for minting, already have the very expensive hydraulic presses and the related equipment and supplies... The fact is, no matter where you live it will be costly to set up for such minting. If one can win over an existing private minting concern, that would probably be the best and cheapest way but there would probably be serious benefits to having the set-up and not using an existing set-up. The people who minted up millions of fake pounds in England had their own machine dedicated to only minting fakes, this way no profit sharing or dangers of having to bribe or coerce. My only real point is that it cost an arm and a leg to set up a higher yield mint.

It costs over $1000 in electricity alone to make a die that can be used to mint more then 100 prints... Use to be. Probably even more now.

$30-40 for the casting forms. Then the value of whatever someone melts into the forms. Say, $40 form - up to 1000 melts. So technicaly the expense is an electricity for the kiln in this case too. That is how 6 and 12 ruble things were made most likely. A couple of cents for each.

As I said probably ten times before - you can buy them in Vancouver china-town for a dollar for 5 peaces. Have to spend some time digging them out of the buckets. Then wash your hands.

Did you ever weigh these? Just curious as to the story ends.

I've ordered electronic scale to 0.01g accuracy and will weigh next week. I'll post the results...

ok, I've weighed the coins:

12 rouble weighed 41.49g, 6 rouble 16.92g.

Looks like 12 rouble is made of platinum or some other heavy non-magnetic metal, while 6 rouble is not.
Either way I'll be selling both on eBay shortly.

Do you remember I've asked about this Russian medal which did not look like it contained either gold or diamonds?

Someone thought differently - there was a furious fight into the thousands of $'s for this one:
Final price: US $4,171.83, wow...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...A:IT&ih=012

I would highly suggest you to be descriptive in what you are trying to sell and be careful if you are selling them on ebay - chances are any one of us here will report them to ebay for counterfeits and I will if it's not clearly labeled as it is.

So far, none of us are agreeing that they are genuine. Here is a genuine one owned by BKB: http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?showto...&pid=380523

Probably the easiest giveaway is the petals (the number 12 is in between them) if you look carefully - there are no details at all. Details of everything else is equally wrong.

Well, perhaps eBay is too much of a hustle. I'll sell all the russian roubles and medals to my russian friend who collects them, and he may do with them as he pleases. What do you think about the high price of a fake (imo) russian medal?

That's up to him. If he wishes to pay hundreds of dollars even though you told him it's fake, then take it - he's the fool if he believes he has won a lottery. If he offers you a dollar and if you accept it, then that's how it is. Can't be too difficult.

the 12 rouble is an obvious fake when compared to BKB's 12 rouble coin... here are the diffrences that i was able to point out when comparing the 2 coins :-

BKB's coin :- (hope you dont mind that i used the pic BKB )


yours with the differences marked:-


so even if the coin has almost the right weight it still not original

Well, I certainly wouldn't follow silly advice to sell it at $1 if it's a platinum coin, even if it's a fake.

In my opinion, the chance that it is platinum is in the range of highly unlikely to none.

How exactly can you guarantee that it's platinum and not lead based? Unless you send it out for assaying, or have the expertise and equipment to declare that it's definately platinum, I still have no idea how you can prove the fineness level from pictures alone. Weight says nothing either, it didn't take account of the exact dimension of what an original coin is supposed to be. Just take it to a jewelery shop and see if he agrees if it's platinum or not. If he does, just sell it to him at scrap value. Can't be too hard.

gxseries,
Don't you think I've already done that? The jeweler just weighed it, he doesn't have equipment to analyze the metal.
There's probably an expensive way to analyze it with refractive X-ray analysis, but if the coin is fake, it's not worth it.
By the way, the jeweler wasn't sure it's Pt either, so he gave me such a low ball offer that I refused.

Won't lead be magnetic though? The coin does not stick to the magnet...

for the record, no precious metals are magnetic. period.
not lead. not aluminum. not zinc.


Just Iron. or compounds with iron, such as steel, and some stainless steel. (but not all)

All metals are not magnetic unless it's iron, pure nickel and cobalt. There aren't that many metals that are magnetic.

everybody sees you trying to make people beleive that is genuine coin
I suggest you don't waste your time, you can beleive whatever you want to
There is no way a man with just a little experience in Russian coins will beleive in this bull
Don't think you are the cleverest one

ai...my experience is near to null ... and it still looks fake and not platinum to me..platinum has a different shine and sharpeness and russian coins in general have thin lines for their letters numbers etc. i.e. they have sharpeness and small dots whereas yours (as i showed above in the pics) the letters are thicker and the dots are bigger.

That thing has as much chance of being real as the "dogs playing poker" pictures have of being a genuine Rembrandt (i.e. none).

I think the fact that it fake is not even in question, at this point. but i do want to make a comment about being able to tell something about metalurgical content, based on a photo. you cant.

case in point: my wedding band is .950 platinum. Im looking at it right now. The inside looks like the day i put it on. Bright, Shiny. but i couldnt tell you if it was Platinum, white gold, silver, or chrome plated.

The outside is well scuffed from wear, now a dull matte grey finish.

Bottom Line is you cant tell from a photo if its platinum.