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.
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I also have a similar 1990 Welsh leek which looks as if it was struck yesterday, but the reverse has a die axis error of about 15 degrees. In fact I have a number of coins of different dates, mainly in the 90s, (but also a 1983,) which look very newly made, including a 1996 celtic cross I picked up last Saturday in my newsagent's. I agree with you that sometimes you can look very carefully for a long time before coming to a decision about authenticity, and even then there can be a nagging doubt.
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