HELP with lego coins on sprue

[zinnn]

So I bought a handful of "new and genuine" coins off ebay the other day, today they arrived but look fake to me - the colour is different (more yellowish), the Lego logo is bigger when compared to my definitely original coins, and the numbers on the flip side don't stand out as much as on the originals, the embossing is very light and not as pronounced. Maybe those were produced later on (the ones I have are from the 90s wave)? Can someone help?

Here's a pic with 2 of my coins on top of the ebay ones:

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by zinnn

[TalonCard]

I'm not the best at spotting fakes, but I do recall from having opened a bunch of sets over the years that the coins ranged in color from very yellow looking gold to an almost silver. Never paid as much attention to the embossing, though.

[Aanchir]

Do you plan to resell them? If not, I figure you could just open and use them regardless of their authenticity. It's not as though quality factors like "clutch power" would apply to LEGO coins like they might with other parts of dubious authenticity.

Also, as @TalonCard mentions, LEGO's chrome gold / metallized gold coatings have varied over the years, possibly because of how easily the coating material can wear away if kids put chrome parts in their mouths. Since chrome parts were so common back in my early, irresponsible KFOL years, I learned this from experience.

Those sorts of color discrepancies can be even more pronounced if you have both brand-new chrome parts and older, more "weathered" ones in your collection. So I wouldn't worry too much about this slight visual mismatch.

And as long as the LEGO "word mark" is on the back of both sets of coins, I think that's probably enough to give these ones the benefit of the doubt — certainly, there are counterfeiters who go as far as to replicate the LEGO "word mark" on their molds, but they don't tend to remain in business for very long, since companies that exactly copy a competitor's brand name or logos to the letter can't really feign legitimacy when faced with legal challenges!