“A field of opportunity” As the economy of Peru struggled to recover from war in the late 19th century, the government concentrated on printing large denomination paper money
With a serious lack of silver coinage to go around, everyday citizens began using coins from neighboring nations, cutting their coins in half, and — apparently — counterfeiting them.
Or, as scientists who recently published a paper on the coin speculate, it was a historically contemporary ne’er-do-well from overseas who made the copy.
In the paper, the scientists describe studying the chemical composition of the coin.
They eventually found that it contained metals and impurities suggesting it was not a recent counterfeit.
“The refining methods were not as good as they are now,” Dr. Luis Ortega-San-Martin, an author of the paper, told the New York Times.
“Someone saw a field of opportunity,” Dr. Ortega told the New York Times. “[But] the counterfeiter probably didn’t realize that that coin didn’t exist.”