By Jack Riley
In a previous article I discussed a large “family” of counterfeit Type A reverse Peace Dollars. The majority of the coins encountered were dated 1921. This article is about a counterfeit 1921 Peace Dollar with a B2 reverse! This reverse type wasn’t used until 1922.
Before diving into the specifics, let’s have a short review:
Let’s look at the two reverse for 1921 and 1922 Peace Dollars:
On the 1921 Type A reverse, 4 rays appear below “ONE” and on the Type B reverse, three.
There is one more distinction on Type B reverses, which we label B1 and B2. As illustrated below, B1 reverses show two mountain peaks while the B2 reverse has 3.
Image below Courtesy of VAMworld showing the 3rd peak, B2
So now we progress to that 1921 counterfeit with a B2 reverse! See below.
This is the only example of this counterfeit I have seen as of now. The coin is a cast counterfeit evident by the images and the weight of 23 grams. You can see grainy surfaces and many “lumps” throughout the fields. I make note of two possible markers if this is identified on various dates.
There is a prominent dot about the A of “DOLLAR” on the reverse that may be a helpful indicator and a small crack running through the eagles mouth/head.
While this particular coin shouldn’t fool a veteran hobbyist, it is very possible this is interchanged with various dates and an unknown “family of fakes” is out there. Variety attribution on Peace Dollars can be tricky even for experienced collectors.
But this article provides the basics from which all of us can learn.
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