Some reflections on ancient coin acquisition and fakes

It's true that we don't have perfection in the various ways one can acquire coins. Luckily I have never had a fake outside of two coins (both fake) that were gifted to me by a neighbor when I was 8 years old. One was a fake Alexandria tetradrachm of Nero and the other was a fake denier of Bohemund of Tripolis (crusader coin). Anyway, it pays to stay vigilant as one amasses one's collection over time.

 

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I don't deal with ancients, but as we know fakes can be anywhere. The question is, what do we do about them?

One option mentioned in an earlier post suggested they be destroyed. That would certainly prevent them from returning to the wild where someone else can be duped into thinking they were real. Is this what dealers and auction houses do when alerted to fake coins that are returned to them?

If, however, you did buy a fake, maybe you could keep it and use it as a learning tool not only for yourself but also for others. I think a collection of different fakes would be good for a display at your local coin club. But once again, precautions would have to be taken to be sure they don't get released into circulation.

Just some thoughts from the voices in my head.

 

That works, too. A better idea all around.

 

Better make sure you know 100% that it's a fake before destroying or defacing anything. Some coins are pretty obvious but there are some imitations that use techniques making it very hard to be sure if you've got a modern fake or an ancient one. I've seen coins from Romania struck with transfer dies and imitations from Hungary that were cast and in both cases they were found as part of a documented hoard and are certainly ancient.

As soon as you destroy or deface an authentic ancient you've gone too far in my opinion. We had a troublesome member here who did something similar some time ago and bragged about discovering a fake by cutting into it with a Dremel and realizing it was harder than silver should be(unaware apparently that the increasing copper content of the era made a very hard alloy). I sincerely hope his experiences here have caused him to stop collecting if his first method of fake detection is destroying the coin.

A better approach is to simply document their forgery status as best you can. If you don't want to be responsible for it, transfer the coin to a well known dealer or auction house with a black cabinet. As more and more coins come to market sometimes new fakes are being outed discovered but other times coins that were long thought to be altered or outright forgeries have been exonerated.

All that said, it is ultimately up to the individual collector to keep fakes out of his or her collection. Few of us here are coin dealers so rather than always having to know "yes this coin is authentic" or "no it is a forgery" we always have the option of saying "I don't know" and sticking to coins we feel much better about. This is the best advice I can give anyone wanting to avoid fakes and the number one thing that has helped me avoid fake and altered coins. It's not so much "fake until proven otherwise" because I would never assert these coins I skipped were fakes(in some cases I've proven myself wrong later down the road and in many cases my reasons were not entirely sound or logical) but for me if there's any doubt there's too much doubt and for that reason alone they're not welcome in my collection.

 

My numbers are similar except I started a decade earlier but took off a decade while my wife was not working and I was 'sole breadwinner'. I have a similar number of fakes that were a surprise to me THAT I KNOW OF but assume I made that number of errors of which I remain ignorant. I have a half dozen coins I would not sell to any of you (with few exceptions) because of my lingering doubts. My most expensive coin was well under $2000 but I agree with the 'in hand' requirement for expensive coins. I also agree with the "the good old MK 1 eyeball and a good lens" concept except I believe you need to add reliance on 'gut feeling'. I don't need evidence to walk away from a coin that just does not strike me as right without any reason beyond a feeling deep inside.

I oppose Capital Punishment for coins and consider branding Cruel and Unusual. I will point out that most of you would have destroyed that first coin of Domitianus II which was considered a fake for a century until the second one showed up in a hoard casting new light on the subject. I want no part of being hated by collectors of the next century because I thought I knew everything about anything. I also will point out that some of us would love to have some unmarked examples of Cavino, Becker etc. productions which now have a market value greater than 90% of the genuine ancient coins (counting LRB's it might be 99%). History is calling and asks we keep our opinions reversible.

 

Here a related question to the forum members. Let's say and auction house is selling somebody's collection and there tooled coins in the collection. Mentioned as such. Would you still buy coins from that collection?

My thought is that whoever has obvious tooled coins may also have gently altered coins that may escape the auction house numismatist's scrutiny.

 

Depends on what the definition of tooled, means. I might be forgiving about smoothing the patina, while not as forgiving about the hair or the face of the bust being tooled.

 

I very much doubt that any reputable auction house told you that they were selling coins they haven't seen in the hand.. or anything even remotely to that effect. I also doubt that any reputable auction house used the fact that they were selling consigned coins rather than coins they own as an excuse for not checking the authenticity of those coins.

Is there a reason you keep your CoinTalk profile private?

Phil Davis

 

Yes, e-bay hired me to do a campaign here.

 

This point is really well taken. I found my very first Eraviscan denarius banished to the HJB black cabinet.
Phil Davis

 

The angst about fakes misses what I think is perhaps the most significant point: regardless of source, you simply cannot purchase a fake of most coins. Fakers are not making copies of every single coin in RIC or Wildwinds. They are picking and choosing areas of opportunity: popular emperors, popular styles, simple designs, rare coins. If you buy an Athens owl or Julius Caesar from a questionable source, yes, you might get fake. By the same token, you can confidently buy RIC XXX from Emperor YYY from any source and never get a fake, for the simple reason that no fakes of that coin have ever been produced. Though fakes undoubtedly exist, and even the best dealers can be (rarely) fooled, let’s not lose sight of the fact that 99.9% of die pairs can only be real. Protect yourself with knowledge, absolutely, but there’s no need to look on every coin you see with suspicion and doubt. I personally couldn’t enjoy this hobby under those circumstances.

 

What is the nature of that campaign? Why not disclose this on your CT profile?

 

I am pretty certain Alex22 was merely joking

 

Agree! Who is going to fake this?

 

That’s true. But it made me wondered : is there a single emperor that never been copied or forged ? I did a quick search on Forgery network or FCR and I could not find one !

 

I started collecting ancients in early 1961 with a nice denarius of Nerva costing $10 from a Philadelphia downtown department store. Since that time I have thousands of ancient coins go through my hands and have purchased hundreds, some of which I resold or traded later. I purchased and traded mainly at club shows and a few local coin shops, none of which specialized in ancients. Over time I have discovered that something like 5-10% of my acquisitions were fake, including some I discovered were fake right here on Coin Talk or another ancient coin forum. I am enormously saddened by this and hope that nothing I ever traded or sold was in this category.
I have tried very, very hard to educate myself to detect phony coins but with today's reproduction technologies it is becoming more and more difficult to detect them. Often I have found them suspicious only after coming home and doing some tests on them or posting them right here. I have also found out that dealers, especially at the shows are not at all happy with me when I show them how their coins were detected as fakes. One dealer at a local show was indignant when I showed him why it was a copy, not an original and will no longer do business with me and refunded only a portion of the purchase price.

I am afraid that despite my best efforts to educate myself I cannot completely rule out present and future purchases as modern counterfeits. Every time someone posts coins here and asks if they are genuine I try to ask them why they think a coin might not be genuine, but it seems that the market is now overrun with fake coins and it is discouraging. Those counterfeits I purchased long ago and cannot return I now keep in my "Black Cabinet", which, unfortunately is still growing. I will keep collecting, but a good deal of the fun and pleasure of purchasing these coins has been to a great degree been replaced by concern and apprehension.

 

Origin is important. You admitted to buying from inexperienced sources, so you got burned around 5-10% of the time.

I've always bought strictly from reputable auctions and dealers, and I've only been burned 1.25% of the time as a result...and ended up getting my money back without any hassle or problems.

You also get good at detecting over time so those numbers will only ever go down. Even the best methods of forgery available can be detected. It may take more than simple intuition to spot the top 1-2% of fakes on the marketplace, but it can be done.

Also, make sure you separate the fakes from the genuine and label them as fakes. You don't want your family accidentally trying to sell them as genuine when you pass away

And for Pete's sake, quit buying from eBay. eBay alone is responsible for helping to fuel 60-70% of the counterfeits in our hobby. My message to newbies is always "stay the hell away from eBay."

 

@TIF and @Volodya, of course I was joking. There are many reasons for why one may wish not to have own personal data available for public. Not least because what @desertgem just mentioned in this thread. The members whom I trust and befriend have no problem in finding out who am I for their own purpose.

A healthy level of "paranoia", like mine, is helpful in this hobby when directed to the right direction This, in a way is also one of the features that makes this ever-researching aspect of ancient coin collecting so much more attractive. It's like the ever presence of danger in jungle expeditions.

Thanks everyone for helpful discussion. Great many cases and valuable advice!!! Thanks a lot indeed.