A while back I had a bit of an admittedly unlikely win by bidding on a very dirty coin on eBay. It was badly listed, simply as Peso Coin, thus seemed to fly under the radar of other buyers and I won it for a lowly £6, which is about $10.00.
Yes, It was a 50 Peso Coin! Thankfully I was skeptical before it arrived and didn't get too excited, as there are a number of issues with it.
I have since cleaned it up and here are my findings:
Lustre and shine: Vibrant. Could be gold for all I know.
Diameter: 37.04 mm actual / reference states 36.00 mm
Thickness: 2.75mm actual / no reference available
Edge: Inscribed off centre "Indepencia Y Libertad"
Weight: 22.3g actual / reference states 41.61g, with a gold content of 37.5g
Reference I am using is the Chard website: http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/mexican50pesos.html
So in summary, obviously this is a counterfeit.
Now here is where I get confused - searching around the web, I see it is common for some of the counterfeits of this coin to actually have gold content. It is not marked anywhere with replica or anything, so is obviously intended to fool people as the real thing.
This reckons a counterfeit of similar weight had gold: http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=4708
Comments?
How can I test to see if it has gold content beyond dipping the bugger in acid? I don't have, nor can I afford one of those fancy electronic testing things. Ideally, if it has *any* value, I'd want to sell if for melt and use the cash for some silver.
