Opened My Mouth Too Soon

No sooner do I mention and blog that things have been a bit slow on the fakes front, I've been down to the shops (Co-Op and my local newsagents) and come home with £21 in loose £1 coins, from a starting £30.

Upon checking these 21 coins, I found two fakes. The first was a 2002 3 Lions, where the head and lions line up almost perfectly but what gave it away was the incorrect font type around the edge of the coin and no '+' Llantrissant mint mark between the end of Tutamen and the start of Decus. A good quality fake though.

The other scores a 10 out of 10 in my 'fakes' collection. Its a 1990 Welsh Leek design with the 2nd Queen Portrait. The lettering around the side was spot on when compared with 'real' 1990 coins. What drew my attention was that as a 1990 coin it had been supposedly circulating for 20 years but shows no signs of wear and tear. Perhaps from an Uncirculated Set that someone has had to use as spare change. Ok I thought of that and there was still something else that wasn't quite right.

When I reviewed the Leek design again, I noticed that it was slightly offcentre and the standard beading and edge detail was very near the actual edge of the coin itself on the left hand side, suggesting some sort of stamping process onto a blank disc that was perhaps not fully lined up.

If it took me nearly 20 minutes to come to the decision that it was fake, then imagine how many people it would fool if it was just in a handful of loose change passing from one person to another.

Slow Going On Fake Collecting.....Perhaps A Good Thing!!

I haven't posted on this website for quite a while but its really because I haven't got much to report other than I've noticed that perhaps due to the increased awareness of fakes, over the last 4 or 5 months I've probably only had about a dozen more and they are all of types I'd previously identified.

Many people I talk to, who previously weren't aware of the problem, are now able to spot fakes for themselves.

In a very very strange way I'd hate to see the fakes completely eradicated as its a section of coin collecting thats a little bit different to the norm.

Anyway, on with my anorak!!!