| HOLEY DOLLAR and DUMP - REPRODUCTIONS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Reproductions of the Holey Dollar and Dump pair were advertised for sale at $7 per set in 1965/66. The coins, by Becker of California, U.S.A. were imported and sold by P.
Varne, Western Australia. They were sold as reproductions but can be a hazard for the unwary as the coins themselves bear nothing to indicate that they are copies. Several attempts to sell them as genuine have been documented. In one case a reproduced holey dollar, purporting to be genuine, was shown as an illustration on the cover of a book on Australian antiques. In another, a reproduced dump was used as an illustration in early editions of a well-known coin catalogue. For security, some museums have been known to put them on display without any indication of their true origin. The reproductions are cast in a lead alloy base metal which has a distinctive silvery-grey surface with detectable irregularities and pitting normally found on items produced by this method. When struck on a hard surface, they issue a distinctly dead sound when compared to the ring of silver coins. Six different holey dollar reproduction designs are known, none of which correspond to any known surviving Holey Dollars. They are:
The counterstamps are based on the type I/A die combination. The crossbar at the top of the right vertical stroke of the U in SOUTH is missing in the reproduction and there is a weakness in the ES of WALES. The reproductions, varying in weight from 264 to 321 grains, are lighter than the 333 grain average for genuine holey dollars.
The reproduction dumps are thinner (1.0 mm) than genuine dumps (average of 1.5mm) and have no edge milling. The reproduced denticle pattern around the rim is exaggerated when compared to that found on real pieces.
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