Counterfeit Small Eagle Off-Center Draped Bust Dollars: Fun with Fakes

By Jack D. Young, Early American Coppers (EAC), and the Dark Side Group ……
 

I previously wrote a CoinWeek article on this “family” of fake Draped Bust Dollars back in 2019. Since then, these counterfeits have spread to about every coin-selling venue on the internet and are seen by collectors every day. So first I decided to put this together as a presentation for my friends at Live Coin Q&A, and that podcast can be seen below.

 

These common counterfeits are based on the 1795 “off-center” Bust Dollar. Known as variety B-14/ BB-51, the obverse design is unique to the date and variety and an obviously bad numismatic choice for a family of differently dated counterfeits!

The reference images below are courtesy of PCGS:

Distinctive and easy to spot, Liberty’s profile appears shifted to the left, and the first star is located well above the last curl of hair.

The counterfeits have been around since at least 2008, and many also carry another interesting attribution feature, giving rise to the term “Vampire Counterfeit”.

The following is an example posted in an online forum questioning whether it were genuine or not.

One of the issues with the 1795-dated examples is that a genuine host coin was used to make the dies, and so the fakes match up well with genuine examples except for the features highlighted by the two red circles above. The reverse was a workhorse for the United States Mint and so can be found on Small Eagle coins of many different dates; the green circle highlights a common attribution for the reverse, a small die chip over the leaf.

Through my research I did NOT find a mentionable counterfeit mark to identify the reverse.

Bad 1795s typically show the “bite marks” on the throat and have the correct die-chipped reverse. The other “tell” of the counterfeits is the edge. On the fake Draped Bust Dollars, it is square, flat, and smooth, with a machined appearance.

An eBay seller offered these images on request; the listing was removed shortly afterwards:

The genuine edge looks like this:

And now on to more of the “family”; this one is at least marked as a “replica”:

It has the off-center bust design, the bite marks, the “machined” edge, and the common reverse.

And another fake 1796 Draped Bust Dollar; these continue to get more deceptive as they throw in artificial toning and a fake PCGS holder, to boot.

Of course, the genuine coin isn’t even close:

Apparently, the counterfeiters build sets of dies where they drop in different dates to create the “family”. The date on this one compared to a genuine example is a good visual – as are the other attribution features.

The counterfeit is on the bottom; note the orientation of the “6” and the star at the lower curl of the genuine example on top.

One more 1796, and a recent eBay development: stealing the description of another (genuine) listing to add credibility to yours!

Kind of dumb; eBay did remove the bad listing. And the typical obverse:

And, of course, there must be a 1797! This one sports a realistic-looking die break.

Maybe the die is deteriorating after all the fakes that have been struck, but I haven’t seen another example like it since.

Next up is a 1798; I show it in comparison to the initial 1795 Vampire:

So how bad can this get? Well, our .CN friends seem to know no limits. How about a reeded-edge version?

Twenty-two sold! Where do you suppose examples from listings like this go? Maybe here…

Commemorative and sterling – yeah, right. They will end up for resale as genuine on the ‘Bay, Facebook, etc. And if they have any Red Book sense, they won’t show images of the edge! This listing had two “watching”… watching what, I wonder.

Both of these listings violate eBay’s stated policy on counterfeits and replicas, and both were removed after being reported.

But it’s like whack-a-mole on the ‘Bay, and new sellers and listings like these continue to show up there.

And then there are made-up slabs and certifications:

Both have the common “bite marks” attributions.

And what about Facebook? Well these can be “found” in several different groups on a regular basis, often blaming Grandpa!

And a final thought: as I was working on this presentation, a 1797 hit the ‘Bay with 13 uninformed bids:

I reported it through the “new” eBay reporting process with no success getting it stopped or removed. In fact, I reported four bad listings over the last couple of days, all of them staying up after token responses from eBay’s “Customer Service Agent”.

So, good luck on eBay!

As I have previously stated in other presentations and articles, one of the best ways to protect yourself from this type of fake for sale is to learn the series yourself. Buy the reference books, join a discussion group or club focused on your interests, and ask other experienced members and friends for their thoughts and opinions. We ourselves are the first line of defense against these scams and fakes.

Best as Always,

—Jack

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MORE Articles on Counterfeit Coins by Jack D. Young

 

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