My 1st Barber Quarter!!! Is it Counterfeit???

[ModernMiner]

My 1st Barber Quarter! Is it Counterfeit? **UPDATED**

Well Folks, in my ten years of detecting I’ve never dug a Barber Quarter.
Not sure if this crusty example qualifies or not? This is really The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of coin finds.

I went out today knocking on some doors around town trying to score a place to detect.
After about eight houses with no one home, I finally got permission to detect only the front yard (back yard had a dog) of a 1901 house.
After digging nothing but crappe’ for about an hour, I got a signal under a large pine out in the front corner of the lawn. It wasn’t even a good signal, but by this time I was desperate. The dirt was very dry and the pine roots were everywhere. I kept at it, and kept at it until I finally got the item out of the hole. Unfortunately, it snapped in half due to yours truly prying away at the roots. I didn’t have my pin pointer today, because I had to send it back.

I thought I had dug some sort of aluminum token at first, but it weighed too much to be aluminum. I had no idea what I had so I put it in my pouch. When I got home I cleaned it off with some water and saw a reeded edge and a date of “1895(?)” on it. I saw “Quarter Dollar” on it and some other details but still had no idea? I pulled out my trusty coin book and figured out it was a Barber Quarter! Yahoo!!!

Now for the questions:
1) Why does this coin not look like silver? It can be cracked in half like old pewter or lead. It has more of a white chalky appearance.

2) Why is it larger in diameter than a silver Washington quarter? They should both be 24.3mm.

3) The diameter of the Barber is larger than the Washington, but as you can see, it weighs LESS. Should be 6.25 g.

4) Was this a counterfeit coin, or was it toasted in a fire perhaps? Would a silver coin grow to this size and also crumble?

5) Does it look like 1895? 1893? Or 1899? I think it’s 1895.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I’m not sure if this coin should count as my first ever Barber quarter?

Thanks for looking,
MM

11/17/2013 ***UPDATE***
O.K. Folks, I received the silver test kit in the mail and conducted the test to find out if this crusty looking over-sized Barber quarter was:
1) Previously in a fire causing this kind of damage, or
2) A counterfeit made of some other type of metal.
Drum roll please..........
Actually, I didn't have a drum, but attached is a video of the actual test done, and a photo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4wzfAKuqug&feature=youtu.be

Thank to all of you for your guesses, info, and input on this mystery coin.
I guess I CAN finally cross a real Barber quarter off my list.
-MM-

11/18/2013 ***Another UPDATE***
Well, here's the results of me filing two areas on the Barber. I filed the inside edge and a corner of the back of the coin. I included a filed down Merc dime for a color comparison, since it's tough to tell in the photos.
I guess now we know what can happen to a toasted silver coin. It's kind of like a apple turnover. Crusty on the outside and sweet in the middle.

-MM-

 

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[ModernMiner]

Not necessarily a 100% test. Remember the price of silver was still less than the value of the coin at that time, so you could actually still make money by making fake coins out of real silver then. When the Sherman Silver Act was repealed in 1893 the price of silver dropped from .83/oz to .62/oz.

I guess what baffles me is:
*Even when heated to a melting point would silver change its physical composition from a shiny metal to a whitish tone, brittle, and pewter-like composition?
*How would a quarter heated to a high temp be able to expand to this size yet retain the lettering, details, and the reeded edge it has? You would think the whole coin would be bubbled if it started life as a real silver Barber and got heated to that point.
According to Bill's post and pictures above, he could not bend or break his silver coins and his look way worse than mine.
The mystery continues......
Thanks Nick,
Doug

 

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[Argentium]

Nick , You do make an interesting point - I guess the questions it raises for me are 1.) has anybody ever found a silver counterfeit coin
(excluding altered genuine coins to fake a D- mint mark on a 1916 merc etc.) 2.) if one were faking using silver - you would have to
alloy fine silver to .900 to not lose your margin - or what melt silver coins ?- kinda defeats the purpose ? Using silver , I don't know
how you get above your production costs in faking these . I'm certainly open to this idea as a possibility - someone please put up a
plausible scenario whereby this may have been accomplished .

 

[ModernMiner]

Nick,
Thanks for that great input. You got your post in while I was typing mine above.
If it is the real deal silver Barber that has been super heated, do you think it will still test as silver once I get my silver test kit?
The size of the coin still has me baffled too. If it were heated to the point that it expanded that much, I would think it would be a lot thinner than a normal quarter is, yet it is not.
Well, whether it is a melted or a counterfeit, I guess I should be happy that I finally found a Barber quarter.
-Doug-

 

[Argentium]

ModernMiner , You make some excellent points regarding the integrity of silver in the presence of heat . One of the reasons silver has achieved
a regal stature in society is because of it's ability to be alloyed , and cast , hammered , rolled , drawn , struck - and when necessary , refined and
re- cast into a new format repeatedly . A toasted silver coin will still ring when dropped on a concrete floor - will still be malleable , and if the
surface was abraded - would display the silvery sheen we associate with silver . I have worked with silver in many formats - sheet , rod, casting
grain , wire , and even coins for over 25 years and have become familiar with the working properties of the metal in response to high temps.
and I've never seen anything like what your coin displays - my guess is you have a pewter like alloy - it has a reasonably high specific gravity
so the weight range would be credible .

 

[silversweeper]

Here are pictures of a couple of pieces of half dimes that I found on an early site here locally. They look very similar to your quarter. When I first posted pics here, pretty much every one thought they must be counterfeit, but I'm still undecided. They are brittle and don't look like what I would normally expect toasted silver coins to look like, but......I don't have a lot to compare them to and can't imagine what they might have been through while they were in the ground. It's a farmed field and has been for close to 200 years or more. But the site was also an early camp site for visiting settlers, and also the probable location of slave quarters, workshops and etc.. I want to think that they are genuine coins that were heated almost to melting point. Possibly while a fire burned over the spot they lay in the ground? Which would have been like cooking them in a mold made of the dirt they were covered in. Over the years a lot of chemicals would have been used in that field so a combo of heat and chemicals? Who knows. I've not tested them for silver yet so am curious as to what you find with yours.

 

[Nick A]

Nick , You do make an interesting point - I guess the questions it raises for me are 1.) has anybody ever found a silver counterfeit coin
(excluding altered genuine coins to fake a D- mint mark on a 1916 merc etc.) 2.) if one were faking using silver - you would have to
alloy fine silver to .900 to not lose your margin - or what melt silver coins ?- kinda defeats the purpose ? Using silver , I don't know
how you get above your production costs in faking these . I'm certainly open to this idea as a possibility - someone please put up a
plausible scenario whereby this may have been accomplished .

1) Yes, (non-modern) silver counterfeits exist. I have read about them, but could not find an internet reference to link to.
2) Silver for the jewelry trade would be commonly available then as it is now. I would imagine you could not tell the difference between sterling .925 and coin silver .900

Criminals are not known for being smart. Just check the Henning nickel story to get an idea - who imagines counterfeiting nickels to be profitable? Besides that, casting isn't all that expensive. Before television, people had a lot more time to engage in all sorts of projects, hobbies, engraving love tokens and even counterfeiting in small amounts. And more people had skills to work with metal - we now outsource all that to other countries. If you are unemployed, retired or have lots of time on your hands the ROI equation isn't especially relevant, particularly if the maker had the tools on hand already to process the metal. An extra $1.00 a week from counterfeiting, say 10 quarters a week, could go a long way in 1900. Say a retired jeweler/watchmaker in pre-Social Security days wants to augment his income. He has the know-how, probably many of the tools. He could possibly even cast dies and engrave them. A rolling mill to make planchets... it is possible.

 

[Nick A]

Nick,
Thanks for that great input. You got your post in while I was typing mine above.
If it is the real deal silver Barber that has been super heated, do you think it will still test as silver once I get my silver test kit?
The size of the coin still has me baffled too. If it were heated to the point that it expanded that much, I would think it would be a lot thinner than a normal quarter is, yet it is not.
Well, whether it is a melted or a counterfeit, I guess I should be happy that I finally found a Barber quarter.
-Doug-

I'm betting with near certainty that it will test as silver. I'll be very surprised if it doesn't. (In which case all my other bets are out the window as well.)

I can see thinking it would be thinner, but if it cooked and expanded, that wouldn't surprise me. The brittleness may come from the cooking? It heats up, and air pockets expand in the coin's "gooey center" as it cooks. Then it's quenched, the air pockets remain, have expanded the coin and weakened the alloy?

 

[Msbeepbeep]

Congrats on an interesting find! It's the detectors fault! It knows what you want to find and thinks it's funny to signal on the counterfeit coins, just like mine keeps telling me that the pop top rings are in fact real gold rings, then laughs when I dig them up. Get even ! HH!

 

[BuckleBoy]

Man you dug one before I did! Now we will have to see who digs a genuine one first! if you get one before the wedding I'll give you a great drink special and that first beer will only cost ya a quarter.

 

[curbdiggercarl57]

Man, am I loving this post!
Both sides have valid points, can't wait to hear of the silver testing results.
I'm still leaning towards a counterfeit.
Your coin, which is slightly larger, (but missing a small piece), weighs in at 5.7 grams.
A real barber would weigh 6.25 grams. Even accounting for wear and tear, I think it's too light.
But at the same time, my counterfeit half weighs in at 9.52 gms., and a real one weighs 12.5 gms.
Yours is a lot closer to the true weight of a real coin.
But the size of your quarter still makes me suspicious.
But then Silversweeper's Half Dime looks like the real thing, to me at least.
Maybe age, heat, and ground conditions can leach out the silver in a coin.
Posting my only other counterfeit, (not trying to hi-jack the thread), a solid lead Morgan Dollar.
What I find amusing is that the coin has obviously been "stamped" onto the lead, making the image backwards from the real thing.
But who knows, in a dark, seedy saloon, maybe almost anything would pass for legal tender.
My only other thought, when you do get the tester, try it first on the inside of the coin, or anywhere that won't damage the coin.
If it is pewter, the acid may eat away at it, and that coin is just plain too interesting to damage.
Again, Kudos!
Carl

 

[Argentium]

Nick, Your" two cents worth" is worth a lot !! I must say you have made very convincing arguments with your "cooked " coin theory and
you put up a plausible scenario whereby someone might create the occasional silver fake quarter . The degree of expansion seen here is still a
problem for me - as is the overall flakey," rotted " appearance of the broken areas seen straight on in one of the photo's . I too admit
that I'm no expert (as in metallurgist ) - just a jeweler/ silversmith - so I certainly don't have a technical or scientific understanding
of this fascinating situation. I'm still in the "I'd be very surprised if this is silver " camp - but far less certain of my position after your
excellent theories .

 

[bountyhuntergirl86]

That's a really different and cool find... :-)

 

[ModernMiner]

Here are pictures of a couple of pieces of half dimes that I found on an early site here locally. They look very similar to your quarter. When I first posted pics here, pretty much every one thought they must be counterfeit, but I'm still undecided. They are brittle and don't look like what I would normally expect toasted silver coins to look like, but......I don't have a lot to compare them to and can't imagine what they might have been through while they were in the ground. It's a farmed field and has been for close to 200 years or more. But the site was also an early camp site for visiting settlers, and also the probable location of slave quarters, workshops and etc.. I want to think that they are genuine coins that were heated almost to melting point. Possibly while a fire burned over the spot they lay in the ground? Which would have been like cooking them in a mold made of the dirt they were covered in. Over the years a lot of chemicals would have been used in that field so a combo of heat and chemicals? Who knows. I've not tested them for silver yet so am curious as to what you find with yours.

SilverSweeper,
Your coin looks to be identical to what mine looks like. Brittle, cracking, same color, and some bubbling going on. Mine is bubbling a lot more, but like you mentioned, who knows what these coins have been subjected to. Thanks so much for posting those shots. Even your broken edge shots look like my coin.
Congrats on your unusual half dimes.
-MM-

 

[ModernMiner]

Thanks Carl.
I'm torn too. Both Argentium and Nick have some good points.
That lead Morgan dollar is very cool. I think you're right, a saloon would have been the place to spend that at. Although even today kids don't know what a half dollar, Sac dollar, or modern gold dollar are if you try to use them to pay for something. LOL
-Doug-

 

[ModernMiner]

Man you dug one before I did! Now we will have to see who digs a genuine one first! if you get one before the wedding I'll give you a great drink special and that first beer will only cost ya a quarter.

LOL. I was hoping the wedding was taking place in the middle of a corn field so I could find a real Barber quarter WHILE you were getting married.
I'll be sure to wear headphones so I don't interupt the vows.
Thanks Wiil,
Doug

 

[ModernMiner]

Congrats on an interesting find! It's the detectors fault! It knows what you want to find and thinks it's funny to signal on the counterfeit coins, just like mine keeps telling me that the pop top rings are in fact real gold rings, then laughs when I dig them up. Get even ! HH!

Good one Msbeepbeep. I call those pull-tabs West Virginia wedding bands. Just kidding, I saw the movie "Wrong Turn" and don't want to tick anyone from WV off.
Thanks for looking,
MM

 

[ModernMiner]

I wanted to thank you all for the great replies, info, photos, and guesses.
I had no idea that my first Barber quarter would be this fun. Hopefully the acid test will tell us something. Stay tuned........
Can't wait to find a Barber half now. LOL
-MM-

 

[johnnyblaze]

That is a cool find man

They were better at it in the earlier days..

Blaze

 

[ModernMiner]

That is a cool find man

They were better at it in the earlier days..

Blaze

Thanks JB. This coins older than Quindy. LOL
-MM-

 

[thrillathahunt]

Actually Doug, what you have there is two counterfeit half-quarters. Keep diggin' my friend!