Is this Diocletian a forgery?

I know, it is not always a good idea to discuss coins that are in a current auction sale. However, this coin struck me as very odd and possibly fake:

https://www.biddr.com/auctions/bertolamifinearts/browse?a=1240&l=1318493

They say that the reverse type is typical for Jovian. That is true in general, but this particular type were the Emperor is dressed in a Toga instead of wearing military dress I have seen only on fake coins of Jovian.

What do you think?

 

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edit

 

Yes, it is a fake. I made a topic about it two months ago.

https://www.lateromanbronzecoinforum.com/index.php/topic,1897.0.html

here is the same obverse with another impossible reverse

 

I thank that it's no way that it's real.

 

Bad fake.

 

That Diocletian is a fake and I wrote them about it twice. After the first time they noted the reverse was a type of Jovian. The second time I included a photo of my fake Jovian with that same (modern) reverse die:



They didn't withdraw it. If they didn't believe me, I still think it should have been withdrawn until other experts looked at it.

 

good eye @Tejas ...

 

Wow. This is so obvious that this auction house is now on my personal blacklist. This is like selling a 1923 Peace Dollar with a 1986 ASE reverse.

 

Why should they? We still have plenty of people here that bid in sales we have shown to lack either expertise or ethics and there are many people not on Coin Talk that have money to burn, Is there an oversight group that polices the coin auction business (biddr or eBay, for example)? Perhaps they will end up refunding to the buyer if he complains but that does nothing for the people who buy and don't show their coins until they want to sell them. A mule that spans Jovian to Diocletian hardly has a reasonable chance of being a genuine error to a point worth discussing.

Buy your coins from people with BOTH knowledge and ethics. Avoid those who hide behind statements that they are selling so many coins that they are bound to miss a few. If you are doing so well you can't handle it, hire staff.

Exactly! They do not care if we don't bid; someone else will.

 

All I know about Bertolami is that their coins on VCoins tend to be very optimistically priced.

 

The problem is you can find fakes in almost any auction, regardless of the seller, even the one you think is perfectly reliable.

Tomorrow, this Parthian coin will be sold. It is an obvious bad fake.
https://live.spink.com/lots/view/4-...drachm-bust-wearing-high-crown-left-rev-arche

 

I have bought books from Bertolami in the past but never ventured on coins.

 

I think it's safe to say that coin books are very unlikely to be fakes!

 

Phew, I'm in the clear

 

A 24%(+3.5% CC) buyer's fee presented enough of a justification for me to nix them from my own consideration.

It's understandable that coins may slip through the cracks, however, it is the implied onus of the (intermediate)consignee to confirm the authenticity of the items that they're charged to broker.

A copy as obvious as this shows a lack of due diligence on the part of those responsible for confirming the attributions, and the subsequent cataloging of coins put up for auction.

Reputation is tantamount to trust in the auction business.

 

I think I'm reacting so strongly because you don't really have to know anything about previous fakes, or die matches, or anything like that to know this is a fake.

You just have to have a basic working knowledge of the history of the period and an extremely basic reference guide.

Like @dougsmit said it's just not a historically plausible coin. I'm surprised the standard doesn't have a chi-rho for even more ridiculousness.

 

Unfortunate. I had a bunch of their lots bookmarked, but I won't be bidding on any of them now.

 

What worries me is that the obverse is, in my view, very well made. If the forger had combined this obverse with a plausible reverse of the same quality, I think it would have been very difficult to spot the fake.

Or am I wrong? Is the obverse also an easy to spot fake?

 

I have bought coins in Bertolami sales and always have been satisfied. I won four in their last sale. The 24% buyers premium was a disappointment (up from 22% previously), but I took this into consideration with my bid limits on each coin. I noticed this fake and privately consulted with @Valentinian who confirmed it as such.

Bertolami often includes rare variations of moderately good quality in their sales with considerably less hype than CNG or NAC so I was very disappointed that they did not pull this obvious fake after being notified of its dubious character.

 

The biddr website says the OP PR was 460 GBP. If it was paid for and the lot not withdrawn, the buyer made an expensive mistake.