Sunday, September 28, 2008
Forgery!
Last week the Radio 4 Today programme ran a story on the forgery of One Pound coins. Apparently, two percent of the one pond coins in circulation are forged. They also gave some tips on how to spot a fake. At the time, I had five one pound coins in my loose change, so I thought Ha! there's a possibility I have got one (in fact the chance is about 10%). So I checked the coins in my possession and lo, I do have a fake one pound coin.
I took some photographs.
The first photo is of the "tails" side. Note that it is the full Royal coat of arms. There's nothing odd about this other than that it is very worn and the face is slightly concave.
The second photo is of the edge. Unfortunately, it didn't come out well, but if it was in focus, you'd be able to see that the writing round the edge is not evenly spaced.
The third photo is the "heads" side. Note that the Queen's head is the right way up but the coat of arms was upside down. When flipping the coin over to take the photo I was very careful not to change it's orientation. If this coin was not fake, the orientation of the coat of arms and the queens head would be the same. Also, the writing is very poorly done. The date on the coin is 2002 which means that the forger was too stupid to use Google to tell him what he should have put on the tails side.
The only question now is what should I do with the coin?
I took some photographs.
The first photo is of the "tails" side. Note that it is the full Royal coat of arms. There's nothing odd about this other than that it is very worn and the face is slightly concave.
The second photo is of the edge. Unfortunately, it didn't come out well, but if it was in focus, you'd be able to see that the writing round the edge is not evenly spaced.
The third photo is the "heads" side. Note that the Queen's head is the right way up but the coat of arms was upside down. When flipping the coin over to take the photo I was very careful not to change it's orientation. If this coin was not fake, the orientation of the coat of arms and the queens head would be the same. Also, the writing is very poorly done. The date on the coin is 2002 which means that the forger was too stupid to use Google to tell him what he should have put on the tails side.
The only question now is what should I do with the coin?
# posted by JeremyP : 12:42 am
