Hadrian Aureus: A Tale of Subtle Differences

I would have said #1. That is a terrifying fake. I'm pleased to see that the auction company is so ethical that they contacted you and resolved it proactively. That says a lot.

 

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Nailed it!!

... glad to hear that you're getting your money back

 

Why do all 4 coins have a raised spot of gold at 8 o'clock on the reverse?
Right on top of the rabbit

 

I'd say coin 1, that coin looks suspiciously smooth, all the other coins have blemishes.

 

noname => I'm leaning towards coin #2 (side-bet?)

 

Is it 100% sure that the crossbar in the A is not only missing due to slippage on the reverse ? There is slippage on the next letters to the A, the NIA letters.

I have found another (picture 2) example with with slippage on these letters ANIA and there the is the crossbar missing due to slippage.

Imho coin 2 is authentic!

Coin 1 is a cast fake, look at the A of Hispania which is different from all other examples of this dies and the wear is not convincing, wear on the protrait should be in realation to the wear on the letters which is not the case.
Correct wear would mean more worn and flatted letters to be in realation to the heavy wear on the portrait which has removed Hadrians eybraw completely.

 

Has to be #1 - it is muddy compared to the rest - look like an impression of the other three. Once you spot it, it is clear.

 

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Coin 1 immediately looked "off" to me, because of the very flat fields. However if it was offered by a reputable auction house I probably would have thought it was just due to the lighting.

Coin 3 is possibly the authentic host. The flan shapes are extremely similar.

 

It is a pity that I missed this very interesting post. I contacted IdesOfMarch01 to warn him that his coin probably was not a fake in my opinion, but of course I can not assure that without checking it in my hands. The biggest mistake is to consider that Coin 2 is from the same dyes than the others, which is not correct. The dyes are very close but not exactly the same. In fact, Amentia showed a coin (supposed to be authentic and sold in the same Auction House, NAC) with the same dyes (same S and A) of the Coin 2, both coins look authentic. There is a third coin of the same dyes in the Museum of London, which it is supposed to be authentic too.

Coin 1 has a long pedigree that you can check in the last auction of this month:

https://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=5927&category=197776&lot=4948794


So, in principle, there is no doubt that Coin 1 is authentic, the strange appearance can be due to pasted or old dyes.

According to my database, in my opinion there is not any fake yet, and hopefully never. Well, there is a replica but of very low quality.

 

Let me clarify that coin #2 (my coin) was determined by the auction house to be a forgery, NOT coin #1. I didn't make this very clear in my previous posts in this thread.

 

Coin #1 has a dot between AVG and COS on the obverse. That dot is missing from the other three.

 

It does not look a point to me. It is an excess of metal coming from the adjacent C (it can be seen easier in another picture of the same coin: https://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=5927&category=197776&lot=4948794). Anyway, it is not significant because there are several excesses of metal between SIIIP, however it can be explained as I said before because it seems that the dyes were worn out. And the most important is that the authenticity of coin #1 is not questioned, but #2.

 

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=106038.0

 

Thanks Okidoki for the link, very interesting. Finally, the coin #1 was tooled but authentic. I can not see any picture in the link, original images from NAC 2000 would be very nice but that is another story, let's focus on coin #2.

 

If someone had put a gun to my head I would have said #1.