Oh no!!! Is my Pupienus a cast???

Well, this is the FOURTH time this has happened to me within ONE year! At least I got my money back in the first three cases and hope to do so this time also (the seller wants do do his own examinations before). But if it wasn´t for the internet and especially this (and the German) forums and the help of C.Clay and D.Sear, I would have never known. I only started collecting recently, but ALL of the coins and/or identical casts had been sold by major auction companies as genuine without them having noticed them actually being forgeries.

All my cases concerned large Roman Bronzes (Otacilia Severa Medallion, Drusus Sestertius, Pertinax Sestertius, and now Pupienus) in the price range of around 300 to 650 USD.
There seems to be no real market for cast medium Roman Bronzes and most fake ancient silver coins are likely to be more obvious by their "Bulgarian" styles.
So the Serstertii that I preferably collect must be the most "endangered species" out there when it comes to the risk of forgery, and that since the 16th Century.
Nobody has a reason to duplicate average coins of Antoninus Pius or Phillip the Arab, but the problem becomes obvious once you have all the "common" faces and start to venture into the "rarer" portraits (I had promised myself never to spend more than 100 USD on a coin, but didn´t we all once?).

At least the four other Sestertii I sent to Sear passed the test and nobody has expressed doubts about my Gordian I and Macrinus (yet), which were my most precious purchases so far (and hopefully will remain so)

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I'm so sorry about your run of forgeries .

Thank you for going the extra mile and sending coin to David Sear. Now we can document the coin's fraudulence with confidence and it may prevent someone else from buying a similar fake.

Are you going to make a note of the condemnation in this coin's ACsearch listing and in Forvm's Fakes gallery or would you rather one of us do it?

 

Awww, that always sucks (I'm sorry to hear the bad news Julius-G)

Hmmm? => but is there any chance that you could please post a photo of Sear's forgery-alert?

Hey, you certainly don't have to ... but I love those Sear's certificates and I'm fairly sure that the newbies would also benefit from seeing an example of a forgery.

=> here is an example that I received when one of my babies was stopped by the goalie

 

That's scary

 

I don't like to keep mentioning my "old fogey" status, but this post brought a realization to me that I probably have several bogus or fake coins in my collection. I have a number of coins that I bought over fifty years ago, maybe some over sixty, in the days before the internet or big coin conventions -- when ancient coins were mostly purchased at coin shops or infrequent coin shows, or personally traded with fellow collectors where you could examine coins "in hand". I don't recall fakery being an issue then -- I believed sellers implicitly when they proclaimed coins genuine. In my own innocence I undoubtedly purchased several fakes (although I don't believe any of the collectors or dealers I associated with then would have deliberately sold me a bogus coin). I was not a particularly astute or knowledgeable collector then -- nor am I now -- so I am sure I accidentally made some bad purchases.

 

I'm sorry Julius G. Forgeries happen. I've bought several. Stick with good sellers and keep learning.

 

Indeed it is. Even everyone in this forum who had voted on it before I broke the news thought it was genuine.

I´d have to figure out how to do that, but feel free to go ahead...
My other fakes and their clones would certainly also deserve a mention there

Why not? Here it is. I must say David Sear is a great guy and his Certificates of Authenticity that he sent for my other Sestertii will make me sleep a LOT better after what I experienced with some of my other purchases lately . And I hope it will help to return this one (the seller wants to examine it further first)...

 

I've made a note of Sears' conclusions in the coin's ACsearch listing and added it to Forvm's Fakes gallery. I'll work on adding your other coins later today.

 

you've been snake bit, but you're not alone .its' strange that of all the coins i have got for my collection, the 2 that were deemed forgeries i always remember and i doubted all my coins afterwards till i sent a bunch in and had looked at and slabbed. we think the seller knew at the time, but this isn't always true either and most likely didn't. the otho forgery i gave away with the knowledge it wasn't real and the marc antony i sent back and i've never been able to buy those types again

 

That's awesome => thanks Julius-G (yah, we usually learn more from our mistakes than from our wins, eh?)

 

Die matches are normal with rare sestertii and point more to the coins' authenticity, given that there is nothing else suspect about them in terms of style or method of manufacture (such as casting seams or air bubbles). Both coins look fine to me.

By the same logic, two die-matched coins that exhibit no evidence of double striking would also be fakes, because they were struck in a near identical way.

In the case of these two coins, both are double struck, yes. But while the double-struck areas are very similar, they are not identical. Double strikes are common with sestertii. If the same team using the same dies double-struck one coin, they are likely to double strike the next coin in a very similar way due to their particular rhythm and pattern of movement while working. This would naturally result in a series of very similar double strikes. So the fact that the double-struck areas of these coins are similar but not identical is further evidence of their authenticity.

 

I know no one wants to hear this but I remain of the opinion that new collectors of any age who were new in the hobby decades ago started a bit slower and worked the way up to Otho, Pupienus, Macrinus and the like. Handling a bunch of Gordian III, Maximinus, Vespasian etc. coins might help in time. Certainly handling a thousand expensive/rare coins a week for 40-50 years like David Sear has will never be matched by most of us. We will never have that 'gut feeling' level ability to feel comfortable making the call on some of these coins that are particularly attractive to fakers. What we can have is a feeling when we should spend the money and ask help from a pro or just walk away from a questionable coin. We mentioned this in the recent discussion of Antinous. If, right now, we must buy the commonly faked coins, we might be better off also collecting professional opinions from as many experts as you can find.

If you are getting forgery reports back from more than one coin from a seller, you might want to consider using a different seller. A dealer who does not accept a Sear condemnation as reason for refund might not be the best source for future purchases.

 

@dougsmit

IMO, very well stated!

 

Another update:

The seller´s expert has re-examined the coin and stated that he has investigated it by microscope using a Leica MZ95 as well as a strongly magnifying Keyence digital microscope, several LFK measurements, and additionally an X-ray fluorescence analysis to interpret the LFK values.
Regarding the conspicuousness of the SC he explained that similar conspicuities could also be found in non-suspicious pieces from this reign (for example, BMC 43, 7).
The lack of sharpness mentioned in the forgery report could be explained by the treatment of corrosion:
A light microscopic examination of the piece had revealed that the coin was clearly corroded. Corrosion would clearly be visible at the edges. The corrosion had apparently been smoothed in two steps (first with a somewhat coarser tool, then presumably with soft wood, as was customary in the past.) Casting features such as bubbles and dendrites were not present.
The LFK value would not indicate a cast either, all measurements would not show any abnormalities that occur during casting.

They would understand that I was unsettled by the advice of David Sear and the discussion in the German forum (where almost everybody thought the coin was a cast with similar arguments as David Sear has put forward) and offered to refund the purchase price and offer the coin again in one of their next auctions.

What do you think???

 

Two experts - two opinions. Who is right?
-How much of an expert is the sellers expert?
-Does he deal with ancients day in-day out like Sear does?
-His is strictly speaking not an independent and neutral opinion. That should be taken into account.

In my opinion, therefore, Sear's judgement weighs more.

PS - is there an equivalent to D. Sear in EU?
It occurred to me that U. Kampmann, the author of the roman coin catalogues may be an option.

 

I agree. Not that David Sear couldn't be wrong, but I place more weight on his opinion than the hand-picked expert of the seller.