Fake gold 10 rouble 1899 gold

[bobh]

Here's an extremely deceptive fake 10 rouble gold coin which I bought on eBay a few months ago. The dealer was honorable and gave me my money back; I'm sure he didn't have a clue.

 

This one was a giveaway due to the wrong mintmaster -- Alexander Redko didn't start work at the St. Petersburg mint until 1901, thus it isn't possible that his initials would have been engraved on a coin of 1899. Besides, the coin weighed in at only 8.4 grams instead of 8.6. With silver coins, this might not be indication of a fake because often they were weighed in bulk at the mint, and tolerance was about 0.18 plus or minus for silver roubles weighing 20 grams or more. But gold coins only had a tolerance of 1/10 gram or so, and they were weighed inidividually (information from Uzdenikov).

 

Moral of the story is: KNOW YOUR COINS! Here's a picture of the coin (obverse, reverse and edge):

[Art]

It's certainly a convincing looking fake. Good catch.

[Scottishmoney]

This is fascinating, because Russian gold is of interest to me, and I have collected it in the past. But it is also disturbing that a particularly common coin is being faked, but I would wonder what the particular diagnostics of this coin were beyond the obvious, ie what was the fineness of the coin, we know the weight was off, and the mintmasters initials were incorrect for the date, but I wonder if the weight was close what would be the benefit of counterfeiting a coin which sells so close to bullion value?

[bobh]

Good questions! I didn't have a metallurgist examine this coin, but I can see some possibilities:

 

(1) The coin might be gold-plated. However, I am not a metallurgist or chemist, so I wouldn' t know what base metals would be appropriate which would yield a weight which was off 0.2 grams, assuming equal volume;

 

(2) The coin might have been made from a genuine coin by splitting it apart, hollowing out some or most of the gold, and replacing the metal with some cheaper base metal, then replacing the rim with a thin strip of gold;

 

(3) The coin might be a restrike made from old dies during the Communist era, and someone just wasn't paying attention to the edge.

 

Obviously, as you have pointed out, there isn't enough added numismatic value by faking this one -- would probably do better to fake 1910, for example. R.W. Julian thought it might be a Beirut forgery from the 1960's. However, he hadn't seen it before, either (I posted these pics on the RCC newsgroup a while back where he took the time to look at them).

 

Something which isn't immediately obvious from these pictures is that the lettering shows slightly less sharp edges under 20x magnification than any of the genuine coins I have seen. That would speak in favor of the coin being struck from transfer copy dies made from an original coin. But we probably will never know unless someone else has access to another one from this series, because in order to receive my refund, I had to send the coin back to the eBay seller.

[ccg]

Keep in mind that in certain times in the past, fakes (in gold) of common coins were made for bullion trading. Most usually weigh the same, or slightly more, so this is a bit of an oddity.

[Scottishmoney]

There have been rumours floating around for years that American $20 gold pieces were heavily counterfeited in Europe prior to WWII, and that many made a trip to the USA much later on.

[gxseries]

That indeed is a trouble sign. The only thing that drew my attention was its reverse and the edge but other than that, it is indeed a perfect copy if it is.

 

Let's go through the possible combination listed

 

1) It can be possible but from what I see, it is extremely well done if it is. I really wish that you did measure the thickness and the diameter to confirm that it indeed has the same size as a typical 10 rubles so that we can do some decent calculations on the possible alloys.

 

2) Very unlikely as re-edging is too much effort. For the sake of 0.2 grams of gold, I am not too sure why anyone would ever put an effort to do so. 0.2 grams of gold is just around 4 (?) dollars.

 

3) I highly doubt if it is a restrike. It was rumored that a fair bit of gold coins and other gold bullions were melted down to mint the chervonetz in 1923. Another point to add is that the last gold coins minted were in 1911. Of course, the exception are the Tsarist silver planchets, which were well used till the late 20s.

 

Even if we are to argue that the 10 ruble coin you have might be a restrike, planchet sizes of a chervonetz and the Tsarist 10 rubles are different unless there is some other bizarre trial strikes. There are infomation that the Gangut ruble and 1915 rubles were ordered to be restriked by the Soviet numismatic society, but that was because they were scarce in the first place. The year 1899 makes no sense to me why it should be restruck.

 

Indeed I am at a loss to say what exactly has happened. The details alone has definately fooled me except the edging format seems to be awkward.

 

I honestly am loss of words here. Of course, if it is an unofficial restrike, that might explain everything.

[bobh]

Hello qxseries,

 

1) It can be possible but from what I see, it is extremely well done if it is. I really wish that you did measure the thickness and the diameter to confirm that it indeed has the same size as a typical 10 rubles so that we can do some decent calculations on the possible alloys.

Although I didn't measure it with a micrometer, I did compare it with my other coins and found no significant difference in diameter or thickness. Here is another image of the fake coin together with the four real coins used for edge comparisons in my other thread. Can you tell which is the fake coin here?

 

 

You can compare the edge thickness from the images here and in the other thread, too.

 

2) Very unlikely as re-edging is too much effort. For the sake of 0.2 grams of gold, I am not too sure why anyone would ever put an effort to do so. 0.2 grams of gold is just around 4 (?) dollars.

That's not what I meant ... you could hollow out the coin and get around 4 to 5 grams of gold, replacing the metal removed with lead, dental amalgam or something else. With modern dental techniques, it shouldn't be that hard to do.

 

3) I highly doubt if it is a restrike. It was rumored that a fair bit of gold coins and other gold bullions were melted down to mint the chervonetz in 1923. Another point to add is that the last gold coins minted were in 1911. Of course, the exception are the Tsarist silver planchets, which were well used till the late 20s.  (...) The year 1899 makes no sense to me why it should be restruck.

I agree that this is highly unlikely, as someone would have known about it. Although it might be possible to have an older mintmaster on the edge, since the edge was done before the face of the coin, it is unthinkable that A. Redko would have minted coins with the date 1899 and having his own initials on the edge. As you say, the edge lettering looks awkward, so even if this were the case, the lettering would have had to be comparable to other AP-edge coins.

[gxseries]

I am highly perplexed over the counterfeit issue. Indeed, if it is a counterfeit, it definately has fooled me. I can't tell, and if I had to guess, I would be saying it might be the second coin on the right.

 

But yes, indeed it is a worrying trend. Let's take it this way, suppose this coin is indeed genuine and someone managed to hollow its content and replaced it with other metals. If we allowed 5-6 grams to be removed, that might be around 60USD worth of gold there, which of course is pretty profitable if you are a bored dentist

 

The real problem is, if that idea is true and the mintmaster initials are wrong, I could imagine that someone who didn't know much cyrillic, cut that section and removed metal from there. And while he was supposed to do a good cover up, what is supposed to be AG becomes AP. So far, the only damage I can see is with the word "D*O/\|/|*" (sorry, I'm being lazy of not typing cyrillic right now) unless whomever managed to cut it so fine that I am unable to notice it.

 

Whatever it is, you most definately have done a careful check. Afterall, such 10 ruble coins ARE expensive these days, thanks to the gold pricing scam.

 

Of course, the fastest way to test it is to cut it up open, but no one is willing to pay the full gold bullion price tag for such test

[Tane]

10 Roubles 1895 Pattern

 

Not as skillfull as the 1899 one, but still interesting. It can only be a fake.

Look at the price

[SMS]

Brass (or possibly gold, but doubtful) plated lead. The brass alloy could be mixed to get the "proper" color. The fake coin is reflecting the light much differently than a real gold coin would. Being that lead is the only numismatically useable metal close enough to gold's weight, that would be your creamy filling Doubtful that gold would be used to plate such a coin because lead is about 5% heavier than gold (I believe). So you would need to plate it with something like a brass alloy that sits at 1/3 the weight of gold.

 

So the difference between the two coins (8.6 and 8.4 grams) is roughly 97.5% of the authenticated weight. A 90% lead core with a 10% brass plating would give you a molecular weight equal to 97.9% the molecular weight of gold.

 

I am no metalurgist, nor a chemist, but this sounds like our culprit here. I do believe that the brass plating could have been confirmed using ammonia. I believe ammonia breaks down the structure of brass, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Now, I guess it would all be pure speculation unless you buy that coin back and find out for sure

[ccg]

Brass (or possibly gold, but doubtful) plated lead.  The brass alloy could be mixed to get the "proper" color.  The fake coin is reflecting the light much differently than a real gold coin would.  Being that lead is the only numismatically useable metal close enough to gold's weight, that would be your creamy filling   Doubtful that gold would be used to plate such a coin because lead is about 5% heavier than gold (I believe).  So you would need to plate it with something like a brass alloy that sits at 1/3 the weight of gold.

 

So the difference between the two coins (8.6 and 8.4 grams) is roughly 97.5% of the authenticated weight.  A 90% lead core with a 10% brass plating would give you a molecular weight equal to 97.9% the molecular weight of gold.

 

I am no metalurgist, nor a chemist, but this sounds like our culprit here.  I do believe that the brass plating could have been confirmed using ammonia.  I believe ammonia breaks down the structure of brass, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Now, I guess it would all be pure speculation unless you buy that coin back and find out for sure

 

I think lead's density is about the same as silver, not gold.

[gxseries]

10 Roubles 1895 Pattern

 

Not as skillfull as the 1899 one, but still interesting. It can only be a fake.

Look at the price 

 

I can't tell what is the difference except the year 1895 is wrong Who exactly make these coins?

[bobh]

There were gold 10 rouble patterns made in 1895, but the reverse of the genuine coins looks more like the 37-1/2 rouble coin of 1902. This coin is pure BS! I have no sympathy for anyone stupid enough to bid on it, yet we seem to have a lot of bottom-feeder sellers with no morals who are only too willing to take advantage of them. It is just too easy to do -- the seller even admits that the authenticity of the coin is more than questionable, yet people think they are getting a bargain at over $500 for this junk!

[Tane]

Another one!

Can you spot the fake?

[gxseries]

The 1899. There is a story about how such rubles were counterfeited and used in the blackmarket. I would like to obtain one as I heard that the edging was manually inscribed.

[Tane]

Well, here's your chance! Go for it!

[gxseries]

Not with two other REAL gold 10 rubles!!!

[bobh]

The 1899. There is a story about how such rubles were counterfeited and used in the blackmarket. I would like to obtain one as I heard that the edging was manually inscribed.

Aren't there two 1899 coins in the auction? Which one did you mean?

[gxseries]

Definately the top one, although I am weary about the second 10 ruble coin too.

[bobh]

The lettering on the top coin looks funny to me, too. However, it could be the lighting playing tricks. It's fooled me before.

 

The edge is usually the giveaway, probably because it is mechanically just harder to fake than the flat parts of the coin, and it is the last place people will look who don't know a lot about these things in the first place. Those guys knew what they were doing when they designed those coins!

[Tane]

I received today a new 10 rouble 1899 for my collection... Guess which mintmasters initials it has on it..

 

 

 

You guessed right! (A.P) !

 

 

 

Pictures to follow soon.

[gxseries]

I received today a new 10 rouble 1899 for my collection... Guess which mintmasters initials it has on it..

You guessed right! (A.P) !     

Pictures to follow soon.

 

I can feel the pain there Tane. Have you managed to weigh it Tane?

[Tane]

Nope, I haven't got a scale which would be precise enough.

I just mailed the seller about it and now I'm waiting for an answer.

[gxseries]

Maybe a traditional scale balance can do the trick there Tane?