Good old 8894 most numerous fake

I have an old note, serial number 8894, but it is $10,000 rather than $1,000.

You have an alteration of a copy. No. 8894 on a Bank of the United States $1,000 note is perhaps the most copied note in the world and someone has taken one of the copies and altered it to a $10,000 denomination. It has no monetary or collector value.

The 1883 nickel got lots of publicity. Was it the only circulating coin without a spelled-out denomination?

Don’t forget the three-cent silver, three-cent nickel, the half dime (1794-1805), dimes (1796-1807), the 1796 quarter, the half dollars (1794-1807) that had it on the edge. It was the same for the dollars from 1794 to 1804.

Why are the Morgan dollars called Bland dollars? Poor design?

Congressional parentage. Bland, with a capital B, was a Missouri Representative who got together with Senator Allison to pass the legislation that forced the Treasury in 1878 to buy a minimum of $2 million a month of silver to coin dollars.

What is an “X-Ray” note?

If you are hip to the jive, this is an old term for the rarely seen $10,000 note.

Here’s another name for a silver dollar:

A reader says, “I grew up in a rural grocery store in Princess Anne County, Virginia. Former slaves often carried a silver dollar in their cheek and it was called their “birth dollar.” My parents would often give them groceries on credit and hold their birth dollar as collateral until they got paid.”

What can you tell me about several copper pieces I have? They are the size of quarters and some have reeded edges.

From your description, if you have unstruck, reeded copper pieces the size of quarters then they are slugs, or fake coins, and not unstruck planchets. The reeding can only be applied by the striking of the coin, so it is impossible to have a reeded planchet. The unreeded pieces, if approximately 95-105 grains, are probably also slugs, made to use in slot machines and telephones. They are illegal to own, sell, trade or otherwise dispose of.

What is a “collar” or “ring” counterfeit?

Back in the mid-1800s some smart counterfeiters discovered that it was possible to take the $20 gold pieces and saw them in two, scoop out the gold and replace it with a platinum disc or base metal, solder the halves together and hide the joint with a reeded ring which was placed around the coin. The scheme worked until the price of platinum rose above the price of gold. These pieces still turn up in old collections.

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More Collecting Resources

• The 1800s were a time of change for many, including in coin production. See how coin designs grew during the time period in the Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1801-1900 .

• Any coin collector can tell you that a close look is necessary for accurate grading. Check out this USB microscope today!