Classical Deception

I didn't you you were such a big fan of Bulgarian forgeries. I see quite a few of them in there.

 

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No, I'm not a big fan of forgeries , and there are no Bulgarian forgeries in this picture,
they were made by Antiquanova in the Tsjech Republic, they make 'm in tin, pure silver and pure gold.
They are a supplier of Museum giftshops all over Europe, if you buy coins on eBay and local websites, you better be informed how they look like.
Here's one upclose in silver:

 

I do not agree with the destruction of fakes but believe they need to be shared and documented so they will not be unknown to the next generation. The Republican denarius below is an extremely common fake. I have seen a dozen offered online. This one had to be returned to get my refund so I no longer have it. Each specimen has the same poor centering and chippy flaws. Common fake.


This Vetranio really fooled me but finding identical coins (not just die duplicates but identical in every way) showed it was a high end cast fake. It was also returned to the seller so all I have is the photo. Scary fake.


Why would anyone make such a high quality fake of such an ordinary Probus? It fooled me and the seller until I saw it up close and decided the tiny pimples needed investigating. I found duplicates in the literature. Embarassing fake.

I bought my favorite fake on eBay properly identified as the fake it is. I believe this Zenobia Greek legend Provincial bronze was tooled on a very low grade Flavian Spes reverse as changing the portrait from a fat man to an unattractive woman and replacing the obverse legend which is exceptionally clear. The intent was to produce an Alexandrian tetradrachm with Elpis (Emmett 3911) so the SC was changed to read LE. It might be more deceptive if it were much thicker like a tetradrachm should be. Was the intent to make the only existing Zenobia drachm with very atypical fabric or did the faker really not know a tetradrachm should be chunky? Funny fake.

 

Here is a fake Titus:



A good cast fake, but the odd V in Vespasian tipped me off as I've seen similar filled in letters in other cast coins. Another clue were the pimples by Titus' mouth and eye, and the big pimple by his neck in the right field as well as that weird mark on the coin field by the neck (which made me think of imperfections left on the field by careless forgerers working on the cast copy mold..something I've seen on other fakes photos). An examination of the edge at 45x magnification confirmed my suspicions and revealed clear and visible traces of a cast line that had been mostly obliterated by the forgerer...but not good enough to avoid detection at high magnification.

The weakness in the reverse legend at the 3 o'clock position also made me suspicious considering the legend's Roman numerals were much fainter and weaker than the border dots right next to it. It is not something you'd expect to see if that was a natural flat spot on a struck coin...the border dots should have been almost gone or not present if that was a weak strike area of the coin. Look at it yourself...it is a major clue and alarms should be going off in your head.

 

As a collector of Chinese coins, I have to always be on my guard about fakes. I have only been duped a three or so times, but the financial loss was minimal. One of which took me a couple years to find out because the metal was too metallic to be ancient. I may have more, but it is so mard to tell.

I pick up fakes of rare types to fill in the gaps in my collection without breaking the bank. Some of these are excellent fakes that have fooled experts (Bob Reis for one) or could fool most collectors. I have not stamped them in order to keep them deceptive as learning tools (as bad as it sounds). It is more helpful to a student to not have the answer when authenticating the coin as that will bias the judgement. Some of these are just supposedly fake with a high probability of being such.

 

I have a small bag of the Euboea, Histaia tetrobol fakes which flooded the market years ago and still find their way into eBay and even reputable dealers' catalogues. When I bought them I thought they were OK despite them looking different from the known examples because Sear referred to a type that is cruder in style and I thought that was what I was buying. Turns out they are fakes which Barry P. Murphy alerted everyone to at the time. They sit in a small plastic bag together with many other small silver coins and I have not yet decided what to do with them. I cannot remember if I bought all coins together (in which case all coins, including those of different types are almost definitely fake) or separately (in which case I will need to study each coin carefully and get some help) so for now on, they all remain in the bag.