Trevor Ashmore is a coin counterfeiter

Coin counterfeiting

Coin counterfeiting of valuable antique coins is common; modern high-value coins are also counterfeited and circulated.Counterfeit antique coins are generally made to a very high standard so that they can deceive experts; this is not easy and many coins still stand out.-Circulating...

 infamous for producing modern copies of ancient English coins in the 1960s.

Ashmore was a part-time coin dealer in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As he was a precision engineer

Precision engineering

Precision engineering is a subdiscipline of electrical engineering, electronics engineering, mechanical engineering, and optical engineering concerned with designing machines, fixtures, and other structures that have exceptionally low tolerances, are repeatable, and are stable over time...

 he also made experimental coin dies

Coining (mint)

In minting, coining is the process of manufacturing coins using a kind of stamping which is now generically known in metalworking as "coining".A coin die is one of the two metallic pieces that are used to strike one side of a coin...

. In 1972 he set up the company 'Period Coins' in Sutton-in-Ashfield

Sutton-in-Ashfield

Sutton-in-Ashfield is a market town in the Ashfield district of Nottinghamshire, England, with a population of around 43,000. It is situated four miles west of Mansfield, close to the Derbyshire border.-Geography:...

 producing replica coins, selling mostly to numismatists in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The business eventually failed but he remained in production of replica coins. After retirement in 1991 he began to produce forged coins commercially again.

Ashmore tended to concentrate on silver coin

Silver coin

Silver coins are possibly the oldest mass produced form of coinage. Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks. Their silver drachmas were popular trade coins....

s, which are especially dangerous to collectors since they are not hallmarked; his coins have appeared in the IBSCC's Bulletin on Counterfeits as well as Spink's Numismatic Circular

Numismatic Circular

The Numismatic Circular is an international periodical published by Spink since 1892 based in London. Now published six times a year, the Circular offers coins, books and banknotes for sale at fixed prices and features articles of numismatic interest. It is believed to be the oldest such...

, April 2000, pp.50-54, coin no. 16.

Recently coins such as Edward I Farthing have emerged.

External links

• All Bulletin on Counterfeits coins are scanned and available at http://www.forgerynetwork.com/