found in junk silver 1693 THALER?

In , on 02/19/2009
at 05:59 PM, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com said:

Bust halves, seated halves, Barber halves, walkers, even the occasional
nickel or dime have been counterfeited. The 1943 "plain" nickel comes to
mind. Some of it is done to deceive, some of it is done to see if it can
be done, and some of it is done because hands are idle.

There are many historic coins that have been purposely faked in lower
grades, to make them less susceptible to suspicion. Good enough reason?

To me and most others (1-2 notable exceptions ... "here") there is a large
difference between contemporary counterfeits, meant to circulate during
their time of issue, and modern creations meant to deceive the collector.

I happen to possess many bogus bust halves. I collect them, to the chagrin
of some (one? . There is a substantial market for these, even with the
constant discussion of their legalities. I can assure you that all of them
were made 100+ years ago to actually circulate. Which many obviously did
simply based on the amount of wear that is common. These pieces are
harmless to the inexperienced collector ... many are worth more as fakes
than a genuine piece would net. Many of mine are so worn as not to be
collectable as genuine. They are an interesting lot, however.

While it might not have made much sense to create WL halves to try and fool
collectors, manufacture enough of them to circulate and you might turn a
profit. It does still seem odd, but folks are counterfeiting the UK's pound
coin today, apparently.

Nick