MORE ON CONTEMPORARY COUNTERFEITS

This is a good question and goes back to times when coins, or at least certain types of coins, were in circulation much longer than today. I don't think there is an official definition, but "contemporary counterfeit" usually is used to describe a coin as "counterfeit during the time in which this coin type was used as a means of payment, with the intention of passing it along as good money". It is opposed to the term "modern counterfeit", which is usually describing a production, usually but not necessarily of recent times, which has been made to fool collectors.

For obvious reasons, "contemporary counterfeits" have lost their importance nowadays with the predominance of fiat money. I don't know if fake paper money would be called "contemporary counterfeits" as well (it may well be in an hundred or so years down the road). Of course, counterfeits of circulating coins are still made - the British pound being a vivid example. A recent example of counterfeits being caused by metallic content would be the mid-1990s 10 pesos coins of Mexico. For a while, these coins were made bimetallic with a silver core, and people took out this central part and replaced it with a less valuable metal.

Of course, there were also counterfeits - and fantasy issues - of ancient coins made for collectors in medieval times. Admittedly, these items won't fit the above definition, which is not scientific by any means anyway.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: HOW CONTEMPORARY WERE 'CONTEMPORARY COUNTERFEITS'? (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v15n47a09.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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