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by sam_goody 1003 days ago
The Israeli one shekel coin was counterfeited so much that it was more common than the real coin.

When they caught the counterfeiter, he was let off on a technicality (his coins were not an exact copy - they were missing a dot, and they were not magnetic while the real coin was), but the coins were so common they were accepted as legal tender.

(At the time people said that the counterfeiter was fined so much he had to keep the presses running all night.)

1 comments

Coins are a weird one because I don’t think any of the ones in common circulation are worth significantly more than melt value.
Yeah, but then look at all the oddities that occurred when they were made of precious metals, and the resulting economic impacts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_coin_debasement

https://www.goldavenue.com/en/blog/newsletter-precious-metal...

https://page-one.springer.com/pdf/preview/10.1057/9780230118...