Macedonia: Philip II 1/12th Stater...in Silver. Is this possible?

Did you ever face an eBay "Buy It Now" situation where you thought you'd better bid fast or someone else would swoop in and get it? I try not to succumb to this, but every once in a while I do. Sometimes I regret it...

In this case, the seller had good photos, but described it as a "1/12th stater" of Roman Emperor of Philip II ("The Arab's" son). That clearly wasn't correct. But I know very little about Greek fractionals, so frantically going through Google Image search, I found that its design matched Macedonian 1/12th staters of Philip II. Exciting, yes, but the problem is, the coin in question is made of silver, Philip's 1/12th staters are gold.

According to Wikipedia, staters were typically silver, not gold, at least until the Macedonians came along, so this denomination in silver is plausible in a general Greek way.

I found only one other example of this coin in silver, a current offering on eBay from a seller in Greece. Hardly reassuring! This example is fairly well photographed, is much more off center than mine, and shinier (mine is a bit dull - base metal or just toned, I'm not sure) and weighs about the same. He describes his as an "obol" and a "fractional."

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MACEDON-GR...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

I thought the coin was attractive, and it is struck (not cast - not proof against a fake, but better than nothing). So is this a phoney? Has anybody seen such a coin? Below are photos and my stab at attribution (based on gold examples I found on line). Any help greatly appreciated:



Macedonia - Philip II (?)
1/12 Stater in Silver (?)
(c. 359-336 B.C.)
Pella Mint (?)
Laureate head of Apollo right / ΦIΛIΠΠOY, thunderbolt above, facing lion's head below.
Sim. (but in gold): Le Rider 26; SNG ANS 209-15.
(0.86 grams / 9 mm)

 

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I have a 1/5th Stater for Phillip II:


MACEDON Philip II AR 1-5th Stater Apollo head r - Horseman r trident below as Sear 6691

I feel very comfortable with mine as I got it from Frank Robinson... and I checked it in my Sear Greek Vol II.

 

Nice coin, Alegandron. I wish mine had the horse on it!

 

Same design as Alegandron's coin, but in bronze.

 

I'm no expert on Philip 1/12 staters, but if your search (and the cursory one I just did) only turned up gold, I would assume the listed coin is a repro, especially since it's an ebay listing.

 

I'm not familiar with it as it should be gold. A quick search shows no results in silver. If you look at his other listings he openly sells mostly 'museum' reproductions (openly), so I would assume this is not genuine. Besides, the face of Apollo is just not the right style. Looks decidedly Seleukid to me (not that I think its genuine, but I think they got the style wrong).

 

Thank you Ken. I agree - my least favorite part of this coin was the bust of Apollo (although I still find the lion head/lightning bolt well-executed - kudos to the counterfeiter). I'll keep an eye out for other examples...one thing that seems odd to me is a counterfeiter doing a "one off" on something like this. Perhaps he's (she's?) slowly releasing them so as not to flood the market and raise alarms? Otherwise it seems like a lot of work for not much money (I am assuming that creating a minuscule die and striking teensy-weensy coins would be a lot of work).

Back in the mid-1980s when I was first collecting, I recall World Coin News articles about the Black Sea Hoard forgeries. Those things were all over the place (and a lot of them are still for sale, I suspect). That situation is always in the back of my mind when looking at ancients for sale. But sometimes caution overrides the fact that I sometimes like to gamble .

I'll add my "so-called silver 1/12th stater" to my "Worst 10 of 2017" list. Thanks again for your help.