Many of you will be familiar with counterfeit Portrait 2 and 8 reales, but few are as familiar as the other denominations, such as the counterfeit 1 reales. This is largely because they are quite uncommon. And I'll admit, after maybe a decade or so collecting these I only have about 10 examples; in comparison I own/I've owned dozens of counterfeit portrait 2 and 8 reales. Nobody to my knowledge has compiled a publication or public image database of counterfeit portrait 1 reales to know whether this variety is 'unique' or not, but a knowledgeable collector thinks at least one other example is known and it may be connected to a larger counterfeit family - very cool! I'm guessing this piece was struck on a German silver planchet based on planchet color, which would put its production period after 1837, and probably in the era of the Panic of 1837 when so many other U.S. and Mexican coins were being counterfeited.
Do you have any counterfeit portrait 1 reales to share? If so, we'd love to see them!
Otherwise, not much else to share in terms of counterfeit U.S. coin updates of note. No new varieties have been documented since the end of 2021. And I'm plugging away at finishing my next Bad Metal book. In the meantime, I'm looking for ways to fund this book's printing - let me know if you have ideas
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