fake pound coin

Fusion · 2 Mar 2006 at 09:29

bottletop said:
the gf brought this coin on the right home today, and I think it's a fake.
The colour's all wrong (it's almost brown), dodgy milling on the edge with no lettering, and it seems worn like it's too soft. Anyone else had one recently?

I had one a few weeks back. My cousins had one too. They're lousy fakes.

Gaijin · 2 Mar 2006 at 11:16

Aye, most fakes are made out of lead or other soft metals, get a knife and cut it - if its a dull grey under then its well fake, if fact if you can cut it - its well fake!

Von Smallhausen · 2 Mar 2006 at 11:47

Matblack said:
I've had a couple, one which was made of plastic even. Not a lot of profit in £1 coins though, I tend to concentrate on printing £20s

MB

Although what with that 8 million cut from the ' The Heist ', you can take a holiday I think.

Ekim · 2 Mar 2006 at 11:54

http://coins.about.com/gi/dynamic/o.../www.scotlandonsunday.com/uk.cfm?id=933012003

UK has up to 15 million fake pound coins in circulation

BRITAIN is awash with up to 15 million fake £1 coins, according to official estimates.

The Royal Mint said it believed counterfeits now account for nearly 1% of all pound coins in circulation with increasing numbers turning up in change at shops, supermarkets, bars and restaurants.

Counterfeiters can make £80 for every £100 worth of bogus coins they sell.

Part of the problem is that many people are unaware of the high number of bogus coins in their pockets, because without close examination they can easily pass for the real thing.

There is also little incentive for the public to hand over any they suspect are not the real thing, as there is no mechanism for compensation.

One expert said: "I think they could cost around 50p to 75p to produce, so you have to produce an awful lot to make it worthwhile. Frankly, if I get any I just pass them on in my change, it’s not worth doing anything else."

Coin dealer Gerry Day, of London firm AH Baldwin, said fake coins first started to appear in 1995. "Some of them have been very good, others are very bad. But there are certainly a lot of them out there."

Because of the reluctance to report fakes, gauging the size of the problem is difficult. The Home Office does not keep individual figures for counterfeiting coins and the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the Treasury and the Mint are reluctant to discuss the issue.

According to the Mint’s own published figures, the amount of pound coins issued since their introduction in 1983 is at least 1,600,000,000.

The news that the Mint believes nearly 1% are fakes came in an answer to a parliamentary question.

Unlike notes, coins do not deteriorate and are therefore not normally taken out of circulation officially. Neither do they tend to be hoarded by pensioners and drug dealers in the way bank notes are.

So even allowing for some storage and wastage, the vast majority of the coins are still thought to be in circulation, leading to estimates that the total amount of fakes in circulation is between £10m and £15m.

Fake coins are often lighter, thinner and have a lighter, more golden-yellow colour compared to the real thing. The design of the coin should be clear and precise with unevenness or blurring a sign of counterfeiting. The letters on fakes are sometimes indistinct or unevenly spaced.

AJUK · 2 Mar 2006 at 11:59

I was so concerned about having a fake quid in my pocket I decided to check my change as I walked to the sarnie shop to get my lunch. I accidentaly dropped 50p down a drain. :mad:

Wyrdo · 2 Mar 2006 at 12:10

Jokester said:
I doubt it would be fake to be honest, costs to much to make coins to make it worthwhile faking them.

Jokester

I've had quite a few fake pound coins.

Try scratching it, you might find the paint comes off. Or bite it

they're usually quite soft.

spirit · 2 Mar 2006 at 13:14

fRostiE said:
use it in a vending machine

some people at i knew at college afew years ago used to fix two 1p's together and it sometimes went through as a pound !

impossible!!

MATTeL · 2 Mar 2006 at 13:34

Jokester said:
Yeah, but were they properly minted coins or were they just "tokens" the right size and weight to appear as a £1 coin to a machine?

Jokester

A token that looks like currency would be illegal.

There are more checks than the size and weight carried out by a coin slot on machines.

Taping coins together the try and get the dimensions right as said before is impossible.

The coins are subtly different and the coin readers would detect and reject them.

djbenjo · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:03

MATTeL said:
A token that looks like currency would be illegal.

There are more checks than the size and weight carried out by a coin slot on machines.

Taping coins together the try and get the dimensions right as said before is impossible.

The coins are subtly different and the coin readers would detect and reject them.

More detail please

Will Gill · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:17

me and some mates used to make these in lead dies for fruit machines when we were younger.

can spot them a mile away to look at, scratch them with another (real) coin and they will reveal a shiney silvery colour under the coating.

andi · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:18

djbenjo said:
More detail please

I'd rather he didn't.

The number of e-mails we get at work asking how to scam validators is bonkers...

Will Gill · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:20

MATTeL said:
A token that looks like currency would be illegal.

There are more checks than the size and weight carried out by a coin slot on machines.

Taping coins together the try and get the dimensions right as said before is impossible.

The coins are subtly different and the coin readers would detect and reject them.

trust me back in the day there wasnt anything like this technology, maygay and bazooma bell machines took our coins.

yeah it was against the law but I didnt care as a 16 year old ye olde chav (ragga's we were called

)

robmiller · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:22

Wow, I had one of these the other day and thought it was just a new coin. Thankfully so did the person on the till who I handed it to :cool:

andi · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:23

It was very popular in the nineties. Validator manufacturers had to find ways to stop it quick, and came up with some rather dodgy technology. Modern ones wouldn't be a problem.

Spunj99 · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:27

I've got 1 with the same design on right now.

Pretty sure its not a fake though as it's got a nice shiny pattern on the rim.

Ooooooh shiny.

*drools*

Dj_Jestar · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:32

If you think about it.. £1 Fakes are easy to make, you can buy the perfect template press for, amazingly, £1, then it's a case of melting lead into the mould and painting it gold.

andi · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:34

Dj_Jestar said:
If you think about it.. £1 Fakes are easy to make, you can buy the perfect template press for, amazingly, £1, then it's a case of melting lead into the mould and painting it gold.

And stamping the design on in a vaguely realistic way

Dinomania · 2 Mar 2006 at 14:38

There is a newish coin, with the Forth railway bridge on the back, and just a pattern on the edge (like ><><><><), designed to commemorate feats of engineering, I guess.

It's easier for a forger to forge an unusual coin, as people are less likely to realise it's fake than if it was a very familiar design. That's why shops are often dubious about Scottish notes, as they're often faked in England, seeing as most of us couldn't tell a fake Scots note from a real one.