Are there confederate counterfeits of 1850's $1 gold?

[MEL's Cache]

Hello all, newbie here. Great forum and already learning a lot. Thank you.

I sent in 3 $1 gold to be graded (1851, 1853 and 1854 Type 1), all purchased from the same person who claimed that they were pulled from a Civil War battle field. As he is an avid metal hunter and living in the heart of where a lot of these battles occurred, this is highly plausible. Anyway, all really good looking coins. The 1853 came back AU improperly cleaned. Upon further investigation on my part I can see where this is true as there are scratches across the head on the obverse. The other two however, came back as not genuine. These two are actually in better shape than the 1853 coin. I cannot see any difference between the coins and even weighed the "non genuine" coins and they show proper weight. I feel the gold content is correct. What is the likely hood that these are counterfeits from the 1850's? Is there any record of the confederate states producing counterfeit "Yankee" coins? Would it be worth it to have these regraded? Pics coming soon.

I would have been better off buying slabbed coins. Lesson learned, but these had a story behind them that made them attractive.

Is there a way, when having something graded, that I can request a report of why they were graded (or not graded) as they were. Would go a long way to help educating the customer. Does not seem to much too ask since the grading fee is charged anyway.

 

[Amazon]

Here is a photo of my 1852 contemporary counterfeit $1. Can you please post a photo of your coin.  I know counterfeiting paper money was big. It's also possible that a soldier could have had some counterfeit coins on him(unknowingly) but if there is no proof of this then it's just a story.

[RWB]

The CSA archives in NARA and LoC have nothing about organized counterfeiting by CSA. Only the Louisiana state and CSA Treasury gold struck from US dies and gold at New Orleans are mentioned.

[Conder101]

Why counterfeit older dates when they had genuine 1861 dies?  And if they were going to counterfeit gold dollars they almost certainly wouldn't use gold or at least not the proper fineness.  At that time the gold coins had pretty much their full face value in gold in them.  Counterfeits of proper weight and alloy would mean no profit so why do it?  And in fact with specie at a premium, it would mean an actual loss.  There are contemporary counterfeits but they are base metal like the one Amazon posted.  To get full weight gold counterfeits you have to jump forward a hundred years to the Middle East fakes.

[thebeav]

I think you were fed a 'bill of goods' with the 'dug these up on a battlefield' story. Most soldiers, at this time, didn't have gold to carry around.

Counterfeit gold dollars are relatively common (those Mid East pieces Conder is talking about), as the premium over gold value is 300 or better percent. 

I think you were correct in your assumption to stick with graded pieces. I hope you didn't get dinged up too badly!

Don't let it turn you off to the hobby. It's just part of education, and education costs money......

[BillJones]

The Confederacy did not have enough competent die sinkers to keep the southern mints open they seized after secession. They had to use the Union dies that were left to them until those dies wore out. They could not have had enough skilled workman to have made counterfeit gold dollars or any other coins. The only Confederate that was ever made was the gold one for the pattern Confederate half dollar, which was not well made. 

If they counterfeited anything, it would have been paper money once the Union started issuing it. I can recall even seeing any of that from the Southern side. A far number of contemporary Confederate paper counterfeits were made however.

[AUandAG]

The Confederate States of American was not established until 1861.  They would not have done anything in the 1850's.

bob

[BillJones]

4 hours ago, AUandAG said:

The Confederate States of American was not established until 1861.  They would not have done anything in the 1850's.

bob

When counterfeiters go to work, they make just about anything regardless of the date. In fact copying an older coin and making it look worn is one way to try to pass bogus pieces. If it's worn, it looks like someone else might have accepted it as genuine. This is frequently seen in colonial and confedertion era (late 1700s) coinage.

Having written all of this, none of it matters because the Confederate Government did not make fake Union coins. It did make coins with Union dies for a short time after it seized the southern mints.