I purchased a few Walking Liberty half dollars on eBay and most of them seem legit. EBay, I know... But the seller has 6200 reviews at 94% positive. Anyway, there is something about the one in the pictures that seems "off." I noticed that the "D" in GOD looks thin. The weight is a tad heavy, but not something that screams counterfeit. I can't see any mold lines or pitting that might indicate a reproduction. The "ring" test produced a slightly higher tone, but I'm not sure how great that test is in the first place. It's not magnetic. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
No matter how many reviews he has I do not purchase from anyone with that low of a percentage score, sorry. Thanks for sharing, welcome to CT.
Hi Craft**, Looks good to me, as well. I would expect fakes of key Walkers & not an almost 48M mintage coin. However, I do think it wise to be suspicious of any eBay seller w/ less than stellar feedback profiles. J.T.
Seriously who would counterfeit one of these and in silver no less? You've just a nice-looking half there.
I can't read the weight in your scale photo, but assuming it's around 12.5g, check the coin's thickness. The last fake WLH I got from eBay checked out for weight, but was about 15% thicker than a real example. That's how they get a correct weight on a silver-plated copper slug. I see some funkiness around the date on your obverse photo. That's another frequent tell for fakes.
Nice looking coins. However, I would never purchase anything from a seller with such a low positive rating. If it was 99.4 I would read his feedbacks, and if it was costly to me and rare to me I would still pass. Did this seller accept returns with the seller paying for the return? I'm not implying you made a mistake, but I am saying your braver than me on ebay.
The scale reads 12.63 grams. The thickness seems consistent with other legitimate halves to my eye. I haven't gotten out a caliper or anything. I think the thickness would be noticably off if it were silver-plated, right?
Lol, it was a decent price, I think. It was $17 (after tax and shipping), so pretty low-risk. I think I'll hang on to it, but thanks for the offer!!!
Lol, are you serious, a caliper? @CraftPaperNinja, forgive me, but if you'll just try and follow this, I'll bet you've never ever in your entire life minted just under 48 million coins. Be honest. My point being, if you had, the first thing you'd notice is they don't all strike up the same. And we get out our high-magnification scopes, those kinds that can detect amoeba in a glass of water, and sensitive scales, and here, calipers, we're going to find what we're looking for, differences, it's a foregone conclusion. At that insane microscopic level, there are going to be differences. But here's the real kicker, that's hardly surprising. The opposite is what would be surprising. Bottom-line, you've a normal coin. Nobody would counterfeit that. Don't go the way a lot here are going, these days, it'll drive you nuts. And you paid double melt for that good-looking coin, and that's a success. Just take good care of her. That's all you've got to do, now.
That's a good answer, although I have seen counterfeit examples not usually as nice. I don't think with a caliper he was looking at a small variance like 0.002 but rather something more obvious. Now if he broke out the micrometer I'd say just spend it at that point
Haha. They've faked pretty much everything. There's a fake 1942 half on the Chinese website right now for $1.21. Measuring the thickness is logical - fakers make them thicker to get the correct weight. You probably only need to put it in between a couple other halves. I agree that your coin looks fine though.
