Quote from Pioneer on January 23, 2013, 7:00 pm

One of the recent threads on collectors universe mentioned a fake HK-296 (Wells Fargo) pieces being peddled on e-bay. http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=26&threadid=876183 In case you were not aware, there are fake HK-296 cast pieces around. To be honest, i've been looking for one to buy just to have. The image below is of a ** REAL ** HK-296 MS-66 piece that Jeff Shevlin sold me. The fake pieces have the same design, but the features of the fake are much more coarse... like the coin had been circulated and/or poorly struck. At the 2012 ANA Summer seminar course on So-called dollars, Jeff had a fake he showed... but I don't have a good photo at the moment. Just beware as I honestly think these fakes show up on e-bay not infrequently. I'd suggest only purchasing NGC graded HK-296 pieces.

Quote from Gregory Schwinn on March 11, 2014, 10:28 am

Could you post a photo of your SCD? Given differences in scales, I have found silver HK-296 to weigh in the neighborhood of 27 1/2 grams, and the diameter of 40mm is known/published. Note that the copy I posted above has the word "COPY" imprinted on the third rail car (last one on the right), as required by the US Federal Hobby Protection Act. The only thing I am not sure about is the "40" you mentioned on the side. Are you sure that's correct? Could you post a photo of the side ? I will have to pull my HK-296 out to look at the side? perhaps another person on this site can address this since the real ones are 95% silver, 5% copper. edited by rjesinger on 3/12/2014

Quote from Pioneer on March 12, 2014, 7:42 pm

Ok... here's a photo of a fake Wells Fargo piece... notice the significant quality problem (presume this piece is cast) compared to the real deal....

Quote from Gregory Schwinn on March 17, 2014, 6:54 am

I recently purchased an HK 296. I have compared with photos and it matches the real photo. It's weight is 26.4 grams and diameter is 39.58 mm. The edge is marked with a 40. Does this agree with real HK -296?

Quote from Pioneer on December 29, 2019, 11:38 am

Jeff was telling me a few years ago that the original boxes for this piece can go for $300-$500 alone.... pulled this image from HA.com...