I wanted to buy an Athena and Owl coin but I am not looking to spend a huge sum of money to get one. Does the coin come as a bronze coin or not?
You are referring to Athenian coins with the bust of Athena on the obverse and a large owl on the reverse, right? They did indeed exist. You can see an example here. However, be warned that if your interest is historical, these coins were from well after the glory days of Athens, when it was no longer the center of power. Classical and archaic athens didn't make coinage out of non-precious metals. For small change, they made some very tiny silver coins like the obol and hemiobol that can in fact be purchased for much less money than the larger drachms and tetradrachms. You may want to try to find some of those, as they may be in your price range.
Thanks for your response. There is one on ebay that I was looking at but I didn't know if it was real.
It still may not be. There are plenty of fakers on there. Make sure that the seller is not on this list, and make sure that the coin isn't in the fake reports here. I don't know that much about Greek coins, but if you post or PM me a link to the auction, I can let you know whether it's an obvious fake, at least.
While Gao is absolutely correct, I'd go a bit further and say that it is not very likely that a bronze owl found on eBay will be real unless it is vary small and late. Even these are more likely to be sold through more specialized collector venues. Currently there are two 12mm diameter Athenian bronzes on eBay but neither has the owl reverse. If the coin is the size of the silver tetradrachm but made of bronze, it is 99% certain to be fake. Equally discouraging, the smaller silver of the type tend to sell for good money unless they are a bit on the ugly side. Drachms (4g) and Obols (.7g) can be obtained but other denominations are speciality items. You might find a worn tetradrachm for about the same money as a clear example of the tiny ones. The image below shows 4 obols and one hemiobol (.35g). Most are a bit better than average offered but there are really nice ones out there if you have the cash. I wish I had a 1/8 obol to show you but I've not seen one I could afford in the last 40 years.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220461123980&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT Can yall look at it?
Copper Owls? Fake. The funny thing is that we really would like to find some of these "copper owls." It would solve some problems. However, the coin shown above was not from ancient Athens. A short version of a longer work. http://www.coin-newbies.com/articles/msns_owls.pdf A longer version of the still-longer work http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=7154 Arguments against the thesis http://rg.ancients.info/owls/fourrees.html I cite Reid Goldsborough's arguments against my thesis because his antithesis accepts the premise that there were no genuine official Copper Owls. I believe that there may have been, but we have never found any. One important fact to consider was offered by Jim Hauk. The Athenians knew better than to make coins identical except for metal because it would be easy to pass bronze for gold. Instead, Athenian coins always show small differences between series. The gold coins of Athens were not like the silver coins. We know that. So, if there were bronze owls, they would not look like silver owls in bronze.
Not only a fake but a pedigreed fake sold by the metropolitan Museum of Art in the 50's and 60's according to this page: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/fakes/displayimage.php?album=10&pos=236
hope mines not fake! hey just to post somthing here about athena in bronze.ive have one and was also interested in finding some more stuff out about it.i hope its not a fake.my father got it for me as a gift when he was in iraq doing his dutys i could post a pic of it as soon as i get around to it.i have a bunch of differt coins.i hope to be of help.
Just to add my two cents (or two tetartemorioi, in this case). This has been a nice thread, and exactly what CoinTalk should be about: collectors sharing their knowledge and helping other collectors. With all the recent chatter on what kinds of posts and language (and especially, attitude) belong on CT and what does not belong here, I thought that some praise was due. Allow me to give y'all a high five. :high5:
Going to need a time machine for that high five. (2009) That was funny, but also sad at the same time.
