Counterfeit 8 Reales - Interesting Newspaper Mention From 1854

Very interesting!

Dearborn From that report it seems a net 3 cents per dollar coin was worth refining. To me that makes complete sense. In the 1850s, Three Cents had some buying power.

Also consider that every time the mint reduced silver content they usually marked the coins or changed designs (putting arrows at the date was one marking). The type without arrows quickly became scarce in higher grades. The mint pulled (via banks) the high-grade older coins to recycle them. The 1852 25 cent coin contained 0.1933 ozt silver and the 1853 0.1800 ozt silver. The reduction of 0.0133 ozt silver was significant enough to mark the new coins for identification. Once the older issues were worn down to VF-EF the weight of silver was no longer worth refining. So only AU-MS examples of the earlier type hit the melting pots. The difference in value in this case was 1.66 cents. London was still maintaining the Sterling fix at this point in time (it was $1.25 US per troy ounce.)

I have read other newspaper reports (before 1870) that range from 4 cents to 12 cents per 8R coin. The 12 cents was for a genuine 8R from the war for independence that could be melted at a profit due to excess gold. I know that the gold found in these same coins was melted to recover the gold from the 1820s onward. Riddell reports melting 80,000 such coins before 1845. Of course, that all stopped when the coins became collectors' items. (I recently heard from a Mexican collector friend of my age that in the late 50s and early 60s he was still melting culls of the Independence issues to make a profit over face value. As coins they were worth a dollar in circulation and no collectors wanted them (provided they were common issues.) He could get more simply by melting thenm and selling the silver and gold raw.

All to often, we think in modern terms as if it has always taken a double-digit profit to drive a business. Remember Francis Henning making nickels in the 1950s? His profit was only 2 cents each, but he apparently made a decent income before he messed up and got caught.

One cent Indian head pennies were counterfeited in large numbers in 1893 in Boston. The profit was well under 1 cent. But the Secret Service took great pains to halt the operation.

My uncle lived very handsomely on his share of the profits from making 1805 Mo 8 Reales for the China trade which were full weight silver. He made even more of a profit when his operation converted to Morgan dollars that he could pass locally after 1933. Those coins cost about 45 cents each to duplicate so there was a 55 cent profit each. He didn't stop until he died. But after US coins became tokens in 1965, he modified his output substantially. He could not make sandwich coins.

When looking at counterfeits always try to think historically. A nickel was worth a lot at one time. As a kid I remember penny candy. A nickel bought a much larger candy bar than you can get for $1 today. In the late 1950s when I started collecting coins silver dollars were very common. Most were worn to VF or EF and tellers NEVER looked at the dates and mint marks. Imagine that.

My uncle said that it was better to never be greedy or you will get caught. A small profit on a counterfeit that attracts absolutely no attention is better than getting caught by making collectable coins that will be looked at closely.

I wonder what my Uncle Edgar would think about the modern Chinese Numismatic Forgeries selling on ebay. His work was several hundred percent better.