US Coin Pictures

Colonial New Jersey, Cent 1787 (choice AU)
Early American Numismatics Auction: March 21, 1992, lot# 99

Here's a link to an article on Counterfeting Operations in China. It's not illegal to counterfeit any coins there except Chinese coins issued since 1949.
Modern Chinese Counterfeits of United States Coins

Normally the cardinal rule of Small Eagle Bust Dollars is that they have problems. If they aren't slabbed, then they almost certainly have problems. However, I took a chance on this one as the whole US collection being sold at that auction wasn't slabbed. Also I always wanted one of these but only where one could see the breast feathers on the Eagle. It's my guess that this one might slab AU-53 today, but then I won't be able to read the edge lettering.

It is my belief that this beautiful reverse design was discontinued as we were on the verge of a Naval War with the New French Republic in 1797 and we wanted a more martial appearing design for our coinage. Hence the Hereldic Eagle replaced this design in 1798 as seen on the 1806 half dollar (see below).

Some years ago I placed a "Wanted" ad in Coin World to buy any Draped Bust Half in very choice AU for $900. Someone, I think from MD, sent me this one. At the time it wasn't my idea of a choice AU so I countered with an $825 offer and it was accepted. It just goes to show that those CW ads do occasionally pay off. I think this coin would probably slab AU-55 today but then you couldn't read the edge lettering.

I have to get the full obverse & reverse image pages working so you can see the Hereldic Eagle reverse which replaced the small eagles on our coinage starting around 1798.

Only 1636 pieces were made for circulation.

"Particularly surprising, in view of [Theodore] Roosevelt's later renown as the most labor-minded of Presidents, was his atitude towards social legislation... he vigorously protested a proposal to fix the minimum wage for [New York] municipal laborers at $2.00 a day."
This was when Roosevelt was an Assemblyman in New York, early 1882.

Hence it appears that $2.00 a day was considered "too high a wage" for city laborers in New York during this time. As it is now, costs in New York were then higher than many other parts of country.

I showed this coin a major US coin dealer: Clark A. Samuelson and after a 3 or 4 second look he told me that it is an Omega counterfeit.

Omega counterfeits were made of MCMVII (1907) $20 gold pieces which are very expensive coins. The Omegas were die struck using the full weight of gold and could be identified by an Omega letter inside one of the letters of "LIBERTY". Also some 1910 Omeaga Indians were supposedly struck as well.

Despite looking carefully at all the letters with a Hastings triplet, I could not find any Omega letters. This piece also has the correct # of stars on the edge: 46 in 3 partitions which was characteristic of the 1907 - 1911 issues. There's some discussion of these counterfeits on CoinTalk, the link is here:
www.cointalk.com/threads/omega-counterfeit-10-indian

Weight according to a very good analytical balance (Ohaus) was 16.754g although I think my balance was reading a little hi & needs calibration. The correct weight is 16.718g