The listing, RARE Counterfeit 1892 Barber Quarter ~ Specimen~ Estate Lot Collection has ended.
What is a Contemporary Counterfeit?
A coin, usually from a base metal, which was cast or struck from crudely engraved dies or dies made from a host coin from legitimate United States coinage and made to pass for face value at the time of its creation. Modern counterfeits with the COPY labeling or unlabeled Chinese copy artifacts are NOT considered to be Contemporary Counterfeits.
Rarity
Contemporary counterfeits, by their nature, were typically hand made in small quantities. Therefore, they are quite rare and occasional acquired by knowledgeable collectors.
Barber Quarters (1892-1916)
Coins of this type were made in fairly large numbers for the time period in which they were current, though there are a few notable exceptions. As most collectors of the time sought only proof coins to represent current issues, relatively few mint state examples survive of the ordinary production coins. Augustus Heaton’s 1893 monograph extolling the virtues of collecting the branch mint pieces gave rise to a limited market for such coins, and a few dozen numismatists purchased these directly from the respective mints at the time of issue. Thus, while there are several scarce dates within this series, few are truly rare, except in uncirculated condition. Scarce, low mintage dates include 1896-S, 1901-S and 1913-S. Barber Quarters were the oldest coins of this denomination still circulating in the 1930s when the first inexpensive boards and folders for collecting by date and mint appeared on the market.