psst-- your sprue is showing...

I am looking for a particular Roman Republic denarius and thought this one might fit the bill.

But...

Is that a sprue?! Is this a cast modern counterfeit?

19 mm, 4.05 g

 

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It sure looks like a sprue, but I'm not prepared to call this a modern fake just yet. Have you checked it against the known forgeries over at Dr. Ilya Prokopov's Fake Ancient Coin Reports or on Forgery Network?

Here is my copy of this coin I purchased from a very reputable dealer off of Vcoins:

TI VETURIUS ROMAN REPUBLIC; GENS VETURIA

 

I spent an hour checking for known forgery matches. ForgeryNetwork, Forum, Esty, and half a dozen others. Didn't find any examples for this particular issue, thought I'd get some opinions here. I really want this issue and like the looks of the OP picture but that protrusion sure looks like a sprue. It is not being sold by a major auction house.

Were these denari ever made from cast flans? Could it be a remnant from a cast flan?

 

I don't think so. The coin was struck not cast in 137BC. There are some differences between our two coins. Is that enough to make you weary? I dunno. If you have doubts, stay away and find another. Do you know the weight and, if you don't mind telling, what is the price?

 

Yeah, I think it's a modern cast fake

Price is too good to be true too. And I just noticed that the seller says (after giving some history of where it came from) "possibly ex jewelry".

"Jeweler's copy" is probably more accurate.

It's from an eBay seller. Link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/390658021551?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2648

I've only bought a few coins on eBay and they were from sellers with good reps-- other people I know had bought from those sellers too. This one is unknown to me. I also looked at Forum's 'bad seller' list and didn't see this name but apparently eBay fraudsters change names often. Don't know if this is a bad seller or not. For that matter, I'm not sure the coin is counterfeit. But I strongly suspect it is.

Oh well, back to perusing auction houses and sellers I know...

 

I have seen many coins listed by this seller, but I've stayed away ONLY because of his shipping costs. $15 is a tad excessive to me.

 

Sprues are common among bronzes. If the edge of the flan wasn't machined after it came off the casting tree, you frequently find a sprue. I have several such coins. I've rarely seen them on silvers, however.

 

Casting sprue - got it:

 

I'm looking through wildwinds, CNG archives, etc and so far haven't seen any other Roman Republic ARs of this era which have evidence of a sprue.

 

I don't think you will either.

 

Those actually look like completely intact overflow chambers. The sprues that attached to the casting tree would be at the top, no?

 

No => those are ultra-awesome Syracuse big-arse sprues (they grow 'em big up thar!!)

 

=> this is my sissy example, with an insignificant sprue (*sigh* ... the other sprue-kids laughed at me in the showers!!)

 

you know, they say it's not the size of your sprue.......

 

Last night I sent a message to the seller expressing my concerns. They have removed the listing and sent the following response.

 

The flan was cast and then the coin struck on the blank flan - the coin was not cast itself. It was as though whomever made the original cast flan overfilled the mold, removed the flan from the mold and didn't bother to bust off the sprue - nor did the person who struck the coin in the dies, nor did people when it circulated - it was just left alone for us 25 centuries later to marvel at the wonder of it.

Me being me, and having to have multiple examples of practically everything:



This is a nicer example of this particular issue - still with a strategically placed sprue near the sphendone of Arethusa on the obverse and the tail of the dolphin on the reverse.

 

I was making a distinction between the overflow runner and the runner that attached to the casting tree. I suppose it depends on how we define "sprue", but I think it's better to differentiate for the sake of clarity. From wiki...

The metal is introduced through the sprue into the flan chamber and overflow runner. The overflow runner serves to contain the dross and feed some metal back into the main chamber as it cools, but since it has a separate function from the sprue that attaches to the tree, I think it's better terminology not to call it a sprue. It's an overflow runner.

 

There were basically three types of casting trees...



Sometimes you find coins with sprues on both sides of the flan, whose flans would have been cast in a daisy-chained tree like A. But when overflow runners were used in trees B and C, like this...



...you sometimes find coins where the overflow runner was not removed. That's what scottishmoney's coins look like to me. I prefer not to call those sprues, but it's a minor distinction, to be sure.

 

Hmm, I posted this on Forum's fakes thread asking for opinions and so far all but one person thought it was fine.

I'm surprised.

 

From what little I have read on the issue, we don't know for sure but believe many silver and gold flans were cast before striking, but not in strips like bronze. THey were more likely cast into individual forms, cooled, and then removed. With PM you could afford to have beeter weight control than with bronze, since bronze was a token coinage anyway.

So, having said that, its possible to have a touch of extra metal on the edges of a PM coin, but its not common since they always wanted tight controls of the weight of these.