What do you do when you get a counterfeit coin of some value?

Sell it for $2.55?

Sell a counterfeit coin for the real value? So funny.

Should have put this in General, damn.

Are you stating that the coin would be worth $2.50 if it were authentic? I took your statement to mean that the fake coin was worth $2.50 to collectors. It was the “some value” thing that threw me off. Apologies.

The coin, in my currency, is worth about two and a half bucks.

Apology accepted and not necessary. I guess as hard as I tried to word the question it was still unclear.

In any event, this just happened to me and I was wondering what you would do… Try to pass it off with your next purchase or grin n bear it, lesson learned.

I understand now. But better to state that the coin would be worth 2.50 if it were genuine. As to what to do with it, I haven’t a clue. Is counterfeiting a coin of such low value (here) a common occurrence where you are?

I think most people try to pass off counterfeit money as real money to not get stuck with the loss. A girlfriend of mine once got a counterfeit $20 from the bank and when she realized they of course said they couldn’t do anything about it.

I once had three Canadian quarters in a roll of US quarters from a US bank and when I tried to exchange them they said there was no way it was from them. They absolutely were. That’s not counterfeit, but it was worth only 75% of the value.

I once realized we had a counterfeit $5 in our register at work and when I told security the bill didn’t say In God We Trust, they didn’t care. I was young and just left it in the drawer. It was probably deposited with all the money. Who knows when it was finally taken out if circulation.

The right thing to do is report it to the police or a bank. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if they do nothing about it. Maybe if there is a big counterfeit ring going on that they are aware if they actually do something with the information.

Yes, it is sadly. And for me, two fifty is not “low value” it is the highest denomination coin. Half an hours work at minimum wage.

It’s like the $5 counterfeit we had at work. Lower value denominations tend to be less suspect, and so counterfeits at those amounts get overlooked quite often. Stores in America will test the paper of $50 and $100 bills with a special pen, while $5’s, $10’s and $20’s slip by. I wouldn’t know a fake American coin if I saw one. They all feel fake to me now. I don’t use cash much and I’m still accustomed to how older coins felt and looked. As you know America has been reluctant to use high value coins. You almost never see a half dollar or dollar coin.

Now I REALLY understand and appreciate your problem. Over here people rarely bother counterfeiting denominations lower than $20. And there’s a virtual epidemic in fake hundred dollar bills. In fact I’m on my way in a little while to a wholesale distributor who writes the name of the customer on every c note (hundred dollar bill) they receive. How did you discover the coin is fake?

It is a real coin but from another country. It is very similar insize and design, but upon closer look does not look anying like it. Sigh, my eyes…

@stanleybmanly I’m not sure where you live, but in America that is a popular misconception. Here is one story.

@zenzen So that is like my Canadian quarter story. How much is it actually worth in your money when you do the exchange rate?

I dont understand. It is worth about two fifty US.

I would like to hear from jellies what they would do in this situation.

I would keep it and turn it into a collection. $2.50 is a good chunk of change, but not enough to bother me.

Wait. I need to clarify. The way I understand it you have a coin you thought was worth $2.50 US. A coin that would be valid currency in your country, but it actually is from another country, not your country. Is that right?

@Aren’t Canadian quarters currently worth more than their U.S. counterparts? That link about counterfeit in the Sacramento region was interesting. But consider the difficulties involved with attempting to pass off $13,000 in one dollar bills. The effort expended alone would generate greater profit in a minimum wage job. Then there are 13,000 opportunities to get busted for a dollar bill. Whatever’s going on at the mall has “amateur” smacked all over it.

I’d probably test it in vending machines out of curiosity. Mostly I just like seeing how well they detect coins that are “off” in either size or weight.

If it got returned regularly, it would just go in the change bowl. Unless it was a good size or had some other value (I haul a Liberty Dollar around as a good luck charm)

@zenzen – are you looking for answers like this?

Modern bill and coin acceptors are extremely good at sorting out counterfeit as well as foreign coin or currency. Vending machine operators rarely find a quarter size “token” or foreign coin in their cash boxes.

I’d probably toss it in a collection plate.

Chalk it up to moolah moo-LOST. ;-)

@stanlybmanly The quarter incident happened when I was him college in the late 80’s. In Michigan at the time stores didn’t care if people interchanged coins and I couldn’t understand it considering the value was so different. The Canadian quarters did not work in American vending and laundry machines and the whole point if getting a roll if quarters was so I could do laundry.

The fake $5 and my girlfriend’s fake $20 were in the mid 90’s.

I used to work with a Greek-American (he had emigrated from Greece as a teenager, and later became a naturalized American citizen) who frequently revisited his home country and always brought back plenty of Greek coins.

I don’t recall all of the different currency values (coins worth various numbers of drachma), but I do recall that the drachma was a very much less valuable unit of measure than the US penny. He explained to me why he brought back so much apparently useless currency to the States. If he had a coin that was worth, say, 25 drachma and had the approximate size and weight of a US quarter-dollar (a quarter, in other words), then the Greek coin was worth considerably less. It would never fool even a half-awake cashier, but apparently it would always fool the automatic toll machines on Chicago’s Northwest Tollway. So where others had to pay 50¢ at a toll booth, he could get away with paying something like 8¢ by using various Greek drachma coins to fool the machines. Not exactly counterfeiting, obviously, but illegal, of course.

What the Illinois Toll Road Commission did with all of the Greek drachmas that they must have collected over the years, I have no idea, but whenever I receive change for any transaction in the Chicago area (especially at toll booths), I always examine it now.

I metal detect and found an older coin 1721 Farthing in fair condition. Trouble is the coin is too thin; it was remolded almost 300 years ago. Still worth about $20 today but only a quarter of a penny back then. They were counterfeiting for small amounts not just large coins.

I have a 1 Euro coin in my left pocket at the moment given to me in change. All my bona fide coins are in my right pocket. I cannot get rid of the damned thing. It is worth £0.79 but is useless in the UK, though it resembles a British pound coin the vending machines will not take it. I have considered passing it on to some unsuspecting shop owner but keep chickening out. I have had it for around three months now.

I guess as hard as I tried to word the question it was still unclear.
No crap? That never happens here. ~~~~~
Fluther answer Go spend it in a vending machine that can’t tell the difference.

Actual answer Try to find out how and where you received it as change and ask them if it happened to anyone else. See if they will give you the legal change you should have had, and suggest they contact the correct authorities and their bank to let them know, they may have deposited fake coins in their bank.

@stanleybmanly – they’re good but have to accept a wide variety of coins, (different periods of quarters for example have different weights) so that’s why it’s interesting to see if they’ll accept something new. It’s not about pulling one over on anyone, (they’re out a quarter, or at most a dollar in the US, not exactly backbreaking with the markups on machines) it’s just interesting to me to see how good they are.

I’ve operated different coin machines, so I understand what you’re saying, just if it will fool you with one in each hand, it will probably fool most machines.

It’s an interesting fact I discovered decades ago. It seems that every nation that has ever been part of the British Commonwealth has a nearly exact U.S. quarter size coin with Queen Elizabeth’s profiled crown adorned head. In fact they all have the exact same portrait. @funkdaddy what would you say is your rate of success in getting vending machines to accept bogus coins, tokens , slugs, etc?

Keep it as an oddity

Thanks guys. It was an aggravating experience and you made me smile on the busride home.

@stanleybmanly – It’s not really a spreadsheeting hobby or anything. I’ve probably tried a dozen that I thought had a chance and would say half of those were taken. I give friends a few bucks when they go out of country and they bring me a few coins. It’s interesting to see different ideas of money, but most are really light compared to US coins.