In Georgian London, fake coin was a problem. There were no banks willing to take in the fake brass shillings you had accidentally picked up in your change at the market. The problem central to counterfeit money, and interference with the currency itself was to do with bullion, and the growth in international trade. England minted coins in both gold and sterling standard silver. These coins had a set value, but they stayed in circulation for a long time, and over the decades, the bullion prices changed, so the actual value of the metal was either lower, or higher than the face value of the coin. If the value was lower, it was cheaper to 'buy' coins and make them into silver dishes, spoons and forks and so on, than it was to buy the bullion to make them. So coins began to be taken out of circulation that way, and also, the price of bullion on the Continent rose, and clever merchants shipped English coin to Europe where it was purchased to make objects. The English Civil War and the Commonwealth had not helped, and by the 1670s, John Evelyn recorded that there were not enough coins around to pay for simple household items and food. This is unthinkable in modern times, but it provided the perfect opportunity for fakers. As long as no one looked too closely, and simply continued to pass the money around the system, it was worth the face value. A secondary trade in fake money sprang up along side the bullion trade, and both preyed upon English money.
Those further down the trade, and without resources or skill often turned to coin clipping. The edges of Britain's modern 'silver' and 'gold' coins are milled to prevent this crafty exercise, but in the 1660s and 1670s, there were even Elizabethan coins swimming about in the system, their fine edges ripe for trimming and polishing back up. Coin clipping allowed poor but daring people to build up enough shavings to take to a smelter and have changed for money. This of course, meant that the smelter had to be in on the act as well, but he was just another component of a complicated network with one foot either side of the law.
'Coinage offences' were taken very seriously by the courts, and especially so during the coin shortage of the 1670s. Women caught clipping were burnt, and men hanged. The making of fake money was a skilled job: there were dies to carve, and striking coins from hard mixed metals was no easy job. The fakers often clipped their forgeries to make them appear more convincing. There are also notes from trials recording how fakers made rare dies of early coins, presumably to produce fake collectible coins, and probably from high quality metal.
Shopkeepers were supposed to destroy any fake coin that came their way, but often passed it on. The 'Broken Money Men' patrolled the streets, with their cry of, 'Brass money, broken or whole.' They were supposed to pay a nominal sum and slice it with shears in front of you, but they paid a little extra for the good fakes and everyone saw what they wanted to see.
With so many fakes around, it was no wonder William IIIrd, in 1696, decided to give English money a makeover through recoinage. Old money was taken in, and new, less-easy-to-fake money put into circulation. Millions of pounds worth of money was put out between 1696 and 1698, effectively re-valuing the pound. Silver continued to be variable as far as bullion was concerned, and even the raising to Britannia standard of all domestic and ornamental plate between 1696 and 1720 didn't stop coin clipping. In 1816, it was decided the only way to stop the fakery and cheating was to make silver coins with far less silver, making them worth only their face value and this measure was relatively effective for the next century until the Great War pushed bullion prices into the stratosphere. More on other fakery another time.
p.s. The slang for something fake, or fakery in Georgian London was spanish.
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