I picked up this Antiquanova reproduction from eBay recently for $20. It is struck in tin and looks beautiful and convincing (kind of) in hand but it weighs only 30 grams. Just for fun I showed it to my wife to gauge her reaction. Me: "Look what I just got in the mail today," handing her the coin. Her: "That's Arethusa, that's a Syracuse tetradrachm, no wait it's too big, it's one of those d-somethings!" her eyes getting bigger. Me: "Dekadrachm." Her: "That's a $10,000 coin!" gobbling a little. Me: "$50,000 in this condition." Her: "Ok..." eyes widening more. Me: "It's a fake, it was $20." Her: "Oh." Totally loses interest and hands it back. Check out http://www.antiquanova.com if you never have before. 190 reproduction (fake) ancient coins struck in tin, silver or gold. Some are obviously not real and some could fool people if doctored and marketed shadily. John
Wow, it looks good really. Lots of their coins are pretty off, but this seems ok for style. A coin like this is obviously not something I'm familiar with, but does this one look really good or is it just me?
It is a very good copy. The guy who engraves these dies is very talented. Makes you wonder what he is not openly selling...
Just an opinion: the danger of their products is inversely proportional to how familiar you are with the real things. The ones that strike me as deceptive are the ones with which I have no expertise whatsoever. They make the same things in silver also but those have a counterstamp S that would need to be removed before you sold it as real. There are better fakes out there but theirs are good for the money if you want to set something in jewelry or flip it before ball games. Note the S on this silver one (reverse bottom). Compare their 12 Euro obol to my $50 one.
