Forgery/Fake/Counterfeits Of 1 Piastre French Indo China
Posted by slang on December 23, 2008
Earlier two beautiful 1 piastre 1888 & 1889 French Indo China silver coins were shown.
As a collector, beware that there are many forged/fake 1 piastre French Indo China coin around. Looking at the below picture, you will see a very crudely made 1 piastre 1908 French Indo China coin.The face and the letters are really very badly done. The composition is not silver but a mixture of silver + nickel?)
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i’m at the moment in indonesia . My friend whom i trust to be telling the truth found one of these while snokleing 22 years ago . The only problem is it is dated 1778 .how can this be ? Is it a fake . Is it worth anything . If it is real what is it worth .
Hi Paul,
I am not sure whether u are referring to the 1 piastre. So far the earliest date for 1 piastre is 1885. Incidentally, when I was at Hanoi ( a holiday tour with my family), I saw many amended dates of the 1 piastre which costs a few US dollars. Even for the smaller denominations, I don’t recollect any early date like 1778.
Anyway, it would be interesting for all of us to see a scan and I can put into this blog to share your friend’s experience on this particular coin.
Maybe any one would like to help Paul on this?
There is a group of people selling similar faked coins near to the corner of “3rd of February” street and “AuCo” street, HCMCity. Their coins are all of the year 1908 and of much better quality than that in the above picture. The surfaces of the coins are almost of the same quality as those of genuine coins. However the faked coins are strongly magnetic. A magnet will easily reveals the counterfeit nature of the coins.
Remember that Silver is non-magnetic and nickel is weakly attracted by magnets. These counterfeit coin are strongly attracted by magnets. The coins seem to be made of steel with silver cladding on both sides. Probably they are made from a coin stamping plant. The dies may have been manufactured with the help of laser scanners and numerically controlled milling machines.
These counterfeiters also sell silver covered faked coins of similar designs from other countries of the same period.
Hi Ton Tran-Cong,
Many thanks for your kind information. Incidentally, in my blog, I mentioned many types of counterfeits,fakes,reproduction.
If there is money to make, surely there will many conmen who will try all means to reproduce “real-like’ coins. Human greed precedes god given skill-set to those con-men!
hey, i have a coin that says one piastre on it and it dates 1907, but the seven actually looks like it has been turned around, like a backword seven.
it has the picture of a man with a cylinder shaped hat on and it has letterings on it from a language that i can’t put a name to.
can anyone out there help me with some info? Carl
C downing, the seven being inverted is a sign of the coin being a fake, however, it may be a mis-print. The coin should have the picture of a lady – like the statue of liberty just sitting down. Take it to your local museum, they should be glad to help.
Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
AnnaHopn
I have a few 1888-A 1 Piastre French Indo-Chine coins I bought from an old Hmong man but on the back they say .900 POIDS, 27 GR. Are they real? We have a lot of Hmong in our area settled here after the Vietnam war and he brought these with him.
Catalogue only show such coins as 27.5g. I too bought these coins during my holiday in Hanoi.Until now I cannot prove its authencity (I am too lazy to scan and write to Krause to seek their advice/authentication)
I have three of these coins. I have inherited all of them as a gift, one from my grandma and two from the funeral of my mom’s aunt. They are not magnetic so does that mean that they are real? how much are they worth?