PORT ANGELES — Authorities are warning businesses and individuals who want to buy and collect old coins to be on the lookout for counterfeit U.S. coins.
On Feb. 3, a downtown Port Angeles business, EZ Pawn, paid a person about $20 each for more than 20 counterfeit U.S. Morgan silver dollars that were supposedly from a century ago.
Police Officer Duane Benedict said “it’s absolutely amazing” how easy it is to buy similar coins on the Internet.
“China is making these things by the thousands,” Benedict said.
“We want to make sure that the public is aware that these things are available on the Internet.”
Officer Benedict got a call from EZ Pawn.
“They brought me in there to look at something they thought was fake. So I was pre-warned. But I picked it up and said, ‘What’s fake about it?'”
The 20 counterfeit U.S. Morgan silver dollars were supposedly from a century ago. Brian Winters of EZ Pawn has bought coins for years — and even he was fooled.
Unlike most counterfeits, the coins did not all have the same dates. One was a super rare 1893S, worth thousands and thousands.
It was at that time Winters pulled out a loupe and looked at a real coin and a suspect one. He found the “T” and the “I” too thick. All the coins were fake.
The real coin weighed in at 26.7 grams. The fake was two grams lighter.
For those of us without a gram scale, there are other tests for detecting the counterfeit coins.
The real ones have a high-pitched ring when they’re dropped. The counterfeits land with a thud.
Also, a strong magnet will detect small amounts of iron in counterfeit U.S. coins. If a supposedly “silver” coin has even a little bit of attraction to the magnet, then it is a fake, Benedict said.
The counterfeits aren’t just limited to silver dollars. Other coins — including Indian head pennies — also have turned out to be fakes.
And EZ Pawn says they’re continuing to see fake coins brought in by other customers.
Benedict warns businesses to be suspicious if someone uses only coins to pay for merchandise.
“Use caution if someone brings in a lot of coins to buy something, and look them over carefully,” he said.
“There are many different types of coins out there that are collectable for whatever reason, and they have to be represented as a replica or a representative of some event.
“They cannot be used or represented as legal tender.”
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
KOMO is the Peninsula Daily News’ Seattle news partner.
