1925 Half Sovereign - no mint mark

[TheGoldSovereign]

Hi, just going through some coins and spotted a half sov of 1925 but with no mint mark. Having a Google I see that there were some restrikes of full sovs in 1925 but nothing about halfs.

Has anyone come across one of these before?

[barney]

It will be a  worn SA mint mark or its a fake, Some pictures would be great  @sg86

[TheGoldSovereign]

grabbed a couple of hand macros but they show enough I think. I don't see anything worn, not sure what would make it obvious as a fake either!

Looking at it again considering it may be a fake its clearly different in many areas. Was from HGM, dont they test everything?

 

 

[danmc82]

Whats weight and measurement like?

[Roy]

It doesn't look right sg....we need steve to take a look.

I love things like this, if you wish to sell it I'll give you what you paid, no quibble.

If it is a fake, you have to wonder why pick a date that is only minted outside of the UK?

[TheGoldSovereign]

Weight is 4g, diameter is 19.48 v/s 19.50 on another half. 

If it is actually gold, why would someone bother to fake a coin, and so stupidly on a year that isn't minted in london? Doesn't make much sense to me. I'll be interested to see what HGM has to say, as i don't have any proof it was from them as they don't record the year.

[TheGoldSovereign]

34 minutes ago, Roy said:

It doesn't look right sg....we need steve to take a look.

I love things like this, if you wish to sell it I'll give you what you paid, no quibble.

If it is a fake, you have to wonder why pick a date that is only minted outside of the UK?

Ha, yea i know that you mean. If it is actually gold i would also keep it, slightly more interesting than the other many duplicates i have! Even if the design is off...

[Roy]

It's gold. Something of that weight and that size has to be. Assuming thickness of course. But is it 22K? 

It's a can of worms. HGM must check everything, surely?

[Silverhunter]

https://goldsovereigns.co.uk/fakes.html

interesting little video

[sovereignsteve]

3 hours ago, shortstack68 said:

The date numerals don't look right at all, they have a square appearance. The B P underneath also looks far to neat with no stop between B and P

 

Where to start.

As you say, BP is awful. The date as well; 1 and 5 are totally wrong and the 9 is dodgy.

The big giveaway is the gold itself. Look at the consistency of finish, especially near the date, it has a forged (edit: cast not forged, wrong word used) appearance rather than struck. In general the surface of the gold is "wrong" all over.

The detail and profile of the horse is sub-standard and he doesn't have a left foot!

[sovereignsteve]

37 minutes ago, Roy said:

It's gold. Something of that weight and that size has to be. Assuming thickness of course. But is it 22K? 

It's a can of worms. HGM must check everything, surely?

Yes it'll be gold, anything from 20 to 22 ct.

They made a load of fakes in the middle east.

I have had some in the past and had them tested by XRF, they all came out at around 0.910 instead of 0.9166

HGM say they check everything but what tolerance they allow I'm not sure. It may well be they are pretty much 22ct

Obviously the inticacies of sovereign design is beyond their ken. If it vaguely looks like a sovereign. they'll sell it as such if it passes their gold test.

[Pete]

If you want to compare I have attached photos of 4 coins I have but they are Mint marked South Africa.
Weights are 3.99, 3.98, 3.99, 4.00

My BP lettering is closer spaced and has B.P.

[TheGoldSovereign]

So it's a fake, that's a definite. My question then is what does the middle eastern manufacturer gain from producing them, scraping the 0.006g?

I would obviously like to know if it is actually 22ct or close to, as then I would just keep it. Has anyone has this from HGM before and know if they will argue with me about if it came from them?

@sovereignsteve regarding the finish, in general parts of the fake look way way sharper than others I have, but then some parts are crap

[TheGoldSovereign]

3 hours ago, shortstack68 said:

What does the sales receipt say? Also it should be 3.99g, the plus figure we could put down to the scales if the coin wasn't suspect, it should never be overweight, only slightly under if worn

Real ones are 4g on my scales so it's probably those

[Roy]

It's fascinating.

Having been caught with my pants down before (ebay not HGM), I took an interest in fakes/counterfeits.

The reasoning behind their manufacture is interesting. Believe it or not, at one time, a bullion sovereign was worth more than its weight in gold!

I have an interesting article that I'll post in full in the Premium Lounge.

'The Italian coins, probably mainly from Beraha’s organisation, were found to usually contain between 91.2 to 91.7% gold whereas the Syrian/Lebanese coins, attributed to Chatile and others, varied between 88.0 to 91.5% gold.'

[barney]

The counterfeiting of the British sovereign in the second half of the twentieth century

@Roy  is this the article i found it when researching your 1912 half sovereign 

In November 1954 a British Assistant Treasury Solicitor, Ralph Anderson, visited the Damascus moneychangers’ market. He found openly quoted for sale, British made, Swiss made, Italian made and Syrian made gold sovereigns. Each had a different quoted price. The genuine British made sovereigns being the most expensive and the Syrian made fakes the least. Anderson was one of the leaders of the British fight against the post-war counterfeiting of the gold sovereign. This must have shown him how far he still had to go in his battle to prevent the counterfeiting of the sovereign.

In the twentieth century there was no significant counterfeiting of the sovereign until after the Second World War. By this time the sovereign had been completely replaced in every day use in the United Kingdom by bank notes. However in many areas of the world such as Greece and the Middle East the sovereign was still in great demand.

Large scale minting of the sovereign for circulation ceased in the London Mint in 1917. The six branch mints carried on making relatively small numbers of the coin for some time after this. The Pretoria Mint in South Africa made the last branch mint coins in 1932. This drying up of supply with an unsatisfied demand led to the price of a sovereign rising much more than the price of the gold it contained. London’s Evening Standard reported in 1952 that although the nominal value of the sovereign was one pound or twenty shillings, it contained £2-18 shillings of gold but sold on the continental markets from between £4 and £10.

This situation was to be exploited by a number of counterfeiters in the late 1940’s and the 1950’s. They used gold in their fake coins but were still able to make a handsome profit. In 1952 the alarm bells started to ring loudly in the British Treasury and the Royal Mint when the Swiss Federal Appeal Court refused to extradite two sovereign counterfeiters to Italy. One of these counterfeiters was a certain José Beraha Zdravko, founder of one of the main counterfeit factories in Milan. The Swiss courts ruled that the sovereign could no longer be classed as money as it was not used as such in Britain.

A meeting of British government officials decided to authorise the Treasury Solicitor to take an active part in reversing this legal decision. Publicly the reasons for this were to protect the Royal Mint’s and the country’s prestige and commercial interests. In a confidential letter, S.Goldman from the Treasury appears to have stated the main motive in trying to prevent the counterfeiting of the sovereign:

Unfortunately we are not in a position to make public use of the argument that the copying of sovereigns may prevent us from employing them in our own semi-clandestine activities in the Middle East.

Ralph Anderson then took the lead in attempting to prevent this trade in counterfeit sovereigns. He brought professionalism and some would say a remarkable uncivil servant like energy to the task. He worked through British Embassies, their local legal advisors and with the prosecuting authorities. By July 1954 he was able to report that there were counterfeit sovereign cases before the courts in Milan (2), Turin, Coma, Trieste, Tangiers and Switzerland (3). By the end of that year the cases in Tangiers, Rome and Zurich had been successful. The Zurich case was crucial but taken by a canton level court and did not overturn the previous Swiss Federal Appeal Court ruling. There was one serious set back during the year when an Australian Court acquitted a defendant of counterfeiting sovereigns because they were not current coin. However the Australian government reacted quickly and the loophole in their law was changed by 1956.

The reverse of a 1918 counterfeit sovereign found in the USA

There were initially two main centres used for making counterfeit sovereigns, Milan and Syria. The coins from Milan were mainly imported into Switzerland and then sent all around the world. Most were sent to Beirut for the Middle East market. Anderson after a visit in January 1956 said, Beirut is the Clapham Junction in the movement of gold in and out of the Near East. The Saudi Arabian Finance Ministry reputedly bought 50,000 of these coins directly from a group of Swiss based traffickers. These Italian counterfeits also went to South America, Western Europe and Greece. The Syrian counterfeits were used mainly in the Middle East or smuggled into India.

The Italian counterfeits were considered to be of a better quality than the Syrian coins. It was suspected by the British authorities that the so-called Swiss counterfeits were merely the best examples of the Italian coins that had been trafficked through Switzerland. During this time the Royal Mint assayed a large number of the counterfeits. The Italian coins, probably mainly from Beraha’s organisation, were found to usually contain between 91.2 to 91.7% gold whereas the Syrian/Lebanese coins, attributed to Chatile and others, varied between 88.0 to 91.5% gold. Genuine sovereigns always contain between 91.6 and 91.7% gold. Beraha was to later boast (Note 1) that he used more gold in his coins than the Royal Mint. The Royal Mint’s assays proved this boast to be as untrustworthy as his sovereigns.

It is difficult to quantify the scale of the problem with any certainty but it is probable that the number of counterfeits was vast. The Treasury estimated that there were up to 300 million sovereigns in circulation in the world in 1955. The Milan counterfeit factory operated by Beraha was one of the first to be closed by the Italian police. It was estimated to be able to produce up to a thousand coins a day. The Swiss police stated that between December 1952 and April 1954 one group of traffickers brought over 400,000 counterfeits into Switzerland from Milan. Again in 1955 Anderson noted an estimate that there was anything between one hundred thousand and a million Italian counterfeits in the 15 to 20 million sovereigns in Greece.

By 1956 the British felt their actions were having a significant impression on the manufacture of counterfeit sovereigns. However they were concerned that the legal position was still very precarious. A number of legal appeals were still underway and an adverse decision in any one of these would have reversed the advances made since 1952. After a review of the situation it was decided to add another line of attack to help solve the problem. This was to increase the supply of genuine sovereigns. In 1957 the Royal Mint made over two million, new currency sovereigns. It then made currency sovereigns annually, except for 1960 and 1961, up to and including 1968. This produced over 45 million new coins. These coins were not available inside Britain but kept in the Bank of England reserves and available to meet demand worldwide.

The increased availability of genuine sovereigns significantly reduced the price of the coin compared with the value of the gold it contained. The increase in supply was probably helped by a slow reduction in demand. C.M.Pirie of the British Legation in The Yemen observed, There seems to be at the present time a far greater trade in American dollars. This led Anderson to state in a letter in 1959, In my opinion, …counterfeiting in Europe has been substantially stopped but there are indications of renewed counterfeiting in Syria.

The reduction in the price of a sovereign over its gold price removed the profit to be made from counterfeiting sovereigns using a twenty-two carat (91.67%) gold alloy. The reports on the Syrian counterfeits claimed they contained significantly lower amounts of gold, 40 to 60% and compensated by being thicker than genuine coins. This, use of less gold than the genuine coin, generated the manufacturers profit. The moneychangers in the Middle East because of the counterfeits inferior quality easily identified these coins. In consequence they were bought and sold for a lower price.

From 1960 to 1970 the numbers of counterfeits made never again reach the levels of the early 1950’s. There was counterfeiting in Beirut in the 1970’s of collector gold coins and probably currency coins. The devastation of Beirut in the 1980s seems to have stopped production of these coins. The large-scale manufacture of these counterfeits does not appear to have resumed after this time, however there are still a number of the older fakes in circulation contaminating the sovereign stock. This is especially true in the Middle East.

A small sidelight on this whole issue was shown during the first Gulf War in 1991. British Special Forces were issued with packs containing a number of sovereigns to buy assistance from local people behind enemy lines. The Ministry of Defence bought these coins in the Middle East. It is perhaps not surprising that when these were examined after the end of the conflict a number were found to be counterfeit!

[Coincollector]

Hi Roy, I think it was you who also had a larger diameter Sydney half sovereign than the standard 19.30mm. I got mine tested on a XRF gun and came out as 22ct and was offered the full half sovereign price from a bullion company for it. Although the coin might have been a fake half sovereign if the carats correct you will get the same price.

[Roy]

@barney exactly. Thanks 

@Coincollector yes, it was. That's good to know, thanks. I'd still rather keep it though...it's a (hi)story 

[barney]

There must be loads of  fake 1912 Sydney half sovereigns i brought  one in a group of sovereigns from a pawn broker i know.

It looked right was the right weight but like both of yours it was just a little bit wider diameter, I have heard about other people finding them as well. Unless we keep passing the same half between us

[Silverhunter]

Although hgm must sell 1000s of sovs a month surely this is a concern to some people here if a few experienced forum memberscan spot this why couldn't they? In the trade reputation /trust is worth far more than a few hundred quid it they got for the sale not taking into account the amount they could scrap from it. This is if it is proven a fake of course 

[Roy]

@barney Let's start a register! 

@Silverhunter Like Steve says, it 'weighs in' as a sovereign, it even looks like a sovereign... it must be a sovereign!

As long as it's in tolerance, it's worth its weight. As Coincollector attests.

[sovereignsteve]

2 hours ago, sg86 said:

I would obviously like to know if it is actually 22ct or close to, as then I would just keep it. Has anyone has this from HGM before and know if they will argue with me about if it came from them?

@sovereignsteve regarding the finish, in general parts of the fake look way way sharper than others I have, but then some parts are crap

I would think it would depend on how long ago it was. However I'm sure if you have been a good customer or bought several coins from them, they will take it back even if it's been months since you bought it. After all, you can justifiably argue that you have only recently been made aware it's a fake. You could also take the opportunity to quiz them on their testing criteria.

EDIT: Also be aware they will probably refund the purchase price not the current price. If this was low, you would be better off just selling it to them, they won't spot it's a fake If it were me, assuming I hadn't paid more than current rates, I would try to negotiate them taking it back at current rates and melting it.

On a casual glance, it looks like a well worn coin but as you say, some parts are sharp. That really does ring alarm bells as a well worn sovereign has a certain appearance that is easily recognised.

The standard of this fake is poor and wouldn't fool any dealer or serious collector, but there again, it wasn't made to do so.

[TheGoldSovereign]

Well this turned out to be an interesting thread, and even if parts of the coin are poor quality its interesting and i'd like to keep it if its close to 91.7% gold.

I have spent many a 1000s with HGM, they have offered to take it in, take a look, re-test with the machine and return to me if i'd like to keep it, postage refunded also.

It's a shame there isn't a list of known faked years and some more information on this, that article was a great read!

[Murph]

Certainly struck me as having the pock marked cast look to it but I guess if they employ someone who doesn't really pay attention to the look of coins and relies on the scanner it would pass.

If they have tested it before buying I'd imagine it will be close to 22ct.  If it turns out not to be that could be more worrying and I doubt they'd like to own up to that as it would make buying bars or some other coins from them a much riskier proposition.

[sovereignsteve]

9 hours ago, sg86 said:

It's a shame there isn't a list of known faked years and some more information on this, that article was a great read!

I still have 3 fakes somewhere but I don't know where. I've had them a while and kept them in the house somewhere well away from my real ones which are in safe storage. Trouble is I can't remember which super safe place I actually put them. Guess I'll come across them at some point.

Can't remember the dates but there was a YH, JH and a Gv. The YH is awful, even my dog would have spotted it, but the other 2 aren't too bad at all, they would pass all but the closest inspection. They are all very close to standard alloy.

I've also seen a fake JH half and one or two Gv halves.

I'll try to find them and post pictures for your amusememnt and education