USA 5 Dollars 1912, Gold

G'day guys!
I have a request from a guy who asked for help about a gold coin he inherited. All he's been saying is "It should be real/authentic since my mom's grandfather bought it". I have, after a few weeks, finally got some pics from him. They ain't great, but I will post them all here. It is attached to a frame of some sort, which makes it to a necklace. The coins itself doesn't seem to have taken any damage from it. It is possible to remove it from this frame without damaging the coin.
I'm sure the guys from the U.S. has seen plenty of these. at least I hope so.

The weight it 7 grams, and the diameter is 22mm. I don't know how exact he has weight and measured. Of course this coin came to mind, but the the weight is off by more than 1 gram, and the diameter is off by 0.4 mm.



Cheers!

I'm not sure what to tell you, because these coins were/are heavily counterfeited, and it's difficult to tell the real ones from the fakes. The weight does bother me, it should be 8.359 grams (I confirmed it with one of my reference books). (I suggest you try weighing a known good coin of any type to see if there's a bias in your scale.) The good news is, even if it is counterfeit, they're usually made of gold.

Sad to say, I believe this is a counterfeit. That it is that drastically underweight is a giveaway.

However, just like Steve27 said, it would be a good idea to check the accuracy of your scale.

Hi all,

I finally found my Detecting Counterfeit Gold Coins by John Devine a.k.a. "Lonesome John" (1977, reprint 1980). He has a 1912 $5 on p. 180. Here it is (top and bottom of page):



Of course, the pictures Ngdawa provided are not good enough to see whether his friend's coin has some of the same problems.

I've been waiting a looong time to get the pictures, and when i finally got them there were like 90% table on them. I did ask him for detailed pictures, this is is what I got.

Iasked him about the scale as well, and it's just a normal scale, without decimals. I did mention that i noticed a smaller problem when he announced the weight, but I still wanted to ask.

Thanks a lot for the info about the Book of [i]Counterfeits[/i], I will pass that info to him.

About what was said earlier, is there still a change it's gold, even though it's a fake? Or will that be another let down?

Thanks for your help guys!