Here's coin A:


Coin B:


Are either genuine? Both? Only one, and which one? I can post more images if necessary. Please give reasons for your opinions. Thanks!

difficult to tell from those photos, you really need to look at the whole coin. Coin A looks rather suspect, but it could be due to wear or damage.

Some hints might be in order:
Did you look carefully at the torch?
The letter "B"?

i had a better feeling about coin A then coin B the lettering in B looks a little wrong.. but full pics of both coins are needed

Hmmm ... I had hoped that we could get by with just these pics ...
What about the letter "R"?

im gonna go out on a limb and say that A is good... and that B is bad.... I like the "R" on A but im sitting here with 4 that i know are good and a loupe comparing.

I will wait a little bit before coming to any conclusions here ... but I'm very glad to know that you do have originals on hand in order to compare with (I don't!). However, both images were of coins with "1908" stamped on them and no motto, so I am assuming that there are very few die varieties, if any.

Sorry that I don't have some kind of reward for this little contest ... if we can get more response within, say, the next three hours, then there might be an immaterial reward of sorts!

Please note that I do not own either of these coins, and I am not bidding on them, either. I believe that one of them is fake, but since it is not my area of expertise, I am hoping that other individuals (such as yourself) will eventually provide me with confirmation of the evidence needed. Those who have been following my posts about the fake Russian coins, and paying attention, will already know what I am getting at.

Not my area of expertise and I would pass on both. I believe B is fake, the lettering is wrong and the leaves next to the Y are weak while the stars seem to be strong. I won't comment on whether the stars appear to be properly shaped because I don't have an original to compare to and I haven't examined very many of these and the last ime would have been many years ago. A could very well be genuine, but it appears to be a weak strike if it is. Again, I don't know the series whether weak strikes were common. In either event, I would pass on that basis alone.

The stars are giving me problems on A, and the lettering is giving me problems on B. I don't have mine in hand to do a great comparison, but I've seen enough. Also, there are very few die varieties within the 08 NM, however there was a major reworking of the obverse hubs when they added the motto, so if a counterfeiter matched a WM obverse with a NM reverse, it would be fairly obvious.

Would you say that the images of either coin A or B matched a genuine WM obverse?
Do the details mentioned (letters, torch) differ on genuine WM vs. NM coins?

(PS - the stars are not necessarily the problem.)

Click on my Saint Set in my sig line and look for yourself at the NM and WM coins (not sure which mint your coins are from).

OK, you folks have been great ... don't want to hold you in suspense any longer, especially since time does matter with these things.

Coin A image was taken from the following auction:
Heritage auction, 1908-NM Wells Fargo (NGC MS-65)

Coin B image was taken from the following auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=160231921493

The eBay pictures are rather small, but the seller offered a link to bigger ones inside the auction description:
http://www.be-seen.co.uk/coins/1908_us_gaudens_a.jpg
http://www.be-seen.co.uk/coins/1908_us_gaudens_b.jpg

Now if anybody believes that coin B is fake, PLEASE REPORT IT TO EBAY with the following link:
Report an eBay coin listing violation

(And if you believe that coin A is fake, please report it to NGC and Heritage! )

wow... thats not a good fake at all.... it looks really funky from the full pics...

the wing feathers on the front of the front wing on the reverse....looks like they were just trying to squeze the right amount in there..... icky

Glad you noticed! They had me fooled for awhile, but since I'm more into Russian coins, I looked at those first.

I thought the face on B was the biggest clue til I saw the flame.

Once you start looking, there are surely a dozen clues or more!

Less than 24 hours to go ... and a couple of suckers are already bidding up to $900 for these things!
Please write to eBay! I already got three fake Russian coins pulled from this seller ... let's not let him get away with this!

Here's the link for reporting to eBay again:
http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=11559

When I look at the Heritage piece on the Heritage site, the stars look better and some of the muddiness could be the distortion introduced by the plastic and the lighting. It looks much better there than here.

I copied the Liberty detail from the huge picture which appears on clicking the "Look closer" link. I agree, that the smaller pictures look better. But I needed more detail here.

Less than 12 hours left in these auctions! Are we going to let him get away with this?

Check out his other "gold" items ... he is using the same images for all of the 1915 Austrian ducats. As Maya correctly pointed out, it is also a violation of eBay policy to do this without adding a notice in the description to the effect that stock photos are being used. Stock pictures are appropriate for some types of auction items ... software boxes, for example. Perhaps even for some types of coins such as modern proofs in the original mint packaging. But certainly not for these.

What about the Hamburg coin? The 1924 double eagle? Anybody take a close look at those yet?

Well, he got away with it (approx. $900 for each of the two double eagles) ... that is, unless eBay can contact the winners after the fact (both newbies, BTW). But I suppose we tried, at least. And we DID get the Russian fakes removed, so that's a partial victory.

BTW, it is a VERY BAD idea to send a message to the winning bidder after the auction ends because eBay can interpret this to mean "interfering with an auction", and as a result, NARU the person who wanted to warn the winner!

At the very least we now all know to avoid this crooked seller (xsrx26).
I feel sorry for the German buyer who paid almost $2000 for a probable reproduction.

Thanks BobH!

Sometimes, you need a better alternative than ebay. I was thinking if that buyers themselves have so much money on hand - if they are willing to pay, let's say 5 dollars to determine if a coin is counterfeit based upon if it's counterfeit or not, that might hit the counterfeiters quite hard. Counterfeiters lose, professional numismatic authors have more time to tackle counterfeits as well as having more income, buyers not losing out to counterfeits and a win to everyone. Only problem is when counterfeit quality becomes too high... where photography becomes useless.