There seems to be a great influx of different types of staters from Paphos in the market. Unfortunately this is also a chance for forgers to play their game. I managed to discover a fake one which I post here for the information of collectors and professionals (@Barry Murphy) The original: And the fake one: 1. The fake has numerous cracks along the edge which may point to the use of a press. However, this cannot be the single reason for condemning the coin as coins from Cyprus are frequently overstruck and authentic coins do exhibit flan cracks. 2. Part of the bull was off the flan in the original. The forger took an imprint of it and reused it to create modern dies. The flan is big enough in the fake but still the face of the bull is not complete; the same with the front leg of the bull. 3. The corrosion and die damage on the bull has been copied and transferred to the fake coin. 4. The dotted border to the top and left sides has been manipulated/invented by the forger. The guilloche has also been manipulated. 5. The biggest shock is the "theta-omikron" above the head of the eagle. The forger assumed it was a "theta - omikron" as the original he used had this part off the flan. The theta-omikron does not exist in the Cypriot script. The misinterpreted symbol on the original coin is a palmette. It is quite shocking for me that someone went into all this trouble to create a forgery and possibly gain a couple of hundred euros. I assumed that the process was quite costly and investing money to fool one or two collectors would not make much sense for this price tag. There is also the obvious trail of the original mother coin: sold in CGB and resold in Solidus within 2020. The forgers can be easily uncovered. I come back to my old conclusion: know the coin and hardly trust anyone.
Here is one currently on offer @Savoca (Silver - Auction 91 -- Lot #286) that looks suspiciously familiar... Cyprus. Paphos. Pny... circa 500-480 BC. Stater AR 22 mm, 10,64 g Cypriot letters above bull standing left / Head of an eagle to left, above, palmette, below, guilloche pattern, all within incuse square. nearly very fine BMC Cyprus pg. 36, 5, pl. VII 5. Starting Price: 200 EUR https://www.biddr.com/auctions/savoca/browse?a=1444&l=1547771
Thanks for spotting this; it is indeed coming from the same forger. And good reflexes by savoca, it was withdrawn already so either someone informed them or they are reading CT There seem to be traces of an undertype but I unfortunately cannot make out what is it. It could have been useful to understand if they used ancient coins to press with the fake dies. Or it could just be some random lines added by the forger to make it appear as overstruck in an effort to make it seem more authentic.
Great detective work @pprp! And great Savoca withdrawed the coin already. I had a complete opposite reaction from another auction house when I pointed out a fake with known fake dies...
On a second thought, I think that most probably the used a stater of aspendos, the type of the hoplite/triskeles which are cheap and in abundance. I believe that I can see one of the triskeles legs above the head of the eagle.
I forwarded this thread to Savoca after making the above post. It is a positive to see that they immediately withdrew the coin -- An indication of a reputable auction house.
This is one of the most interesting posts on CT in quite a while. We all make mistakes. It would be nice to know how the coin came to be listed in the Savoca sale - by a duped victim consignor or by a perpetrator. The problem is that the bull nose/hoof and small dots at top issues should have been a tip off and are obvious after you pointed them out. A lot of work went into the making of this fake but the faker was not sophisticated enough to correct them. The frightening part is that he is learning and there are probably people out there better at it already.
It's Cypriot sylabic script translating to may the curse fall upon him. Seems the curse worked as the forger let the Paphian staters alone and is now dealing with Lesbian hektes.
By learning, I assume you mean that, unlike the coin that @pprp posted, the one in the Savoca auction had the nose off the flan and the hoof obscured by a fake test cut. So sadly, yes, he/she is learning.
Thanks everyone on this thread for posting, and for keeping the photo-files of fake coins updated. Have any counterfeiters been publicly named since since Christodolous was caught in 1914? Sometimes we hear about counterfeiters being caught. For example, in 2009, we learn "As a consequence of police operations in Messina (Sicily), a huge quantity of perfect imitations of ancient coins, realized by a Sicilian forger, has been recently found." However, the authors do not tells us the name of the forger, if they know themselves. It is difficult to remember counterfeiters such as "Unknown Messina 2009" or even “Studio ‘Varna-1’”.
