An unusual auction took place earlier this year. The sale featured a number of very high-grade early large cents, some with remarkable provenances going back to some of the most famous large cent collections ever formed. Yet they brought only a couple thousand dollars apiece. Even an MS63 example of a very rare variety of 1793 chain cent brought only $3,600. How did this happen?

The pieces being sold were electrotypes, copies made of some of the finest genuine large cents in existence. The auction was that of the Early American Coppers (EAC) club, an organization of half cent and large cent specialists, and the pieces had been properly catalogued as being electrotypes. The sale of these pieces raises a few questions. Why would anyone pay thousands of dollars for what are essentially counterfeit coins? How did the manufacturers of these pieces have access to the clearly amazing genuine samples they had copied? What is the point in collecting and studying these so-called coins?

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