Recently a reputable dealer I know for over 20 years have offered me a coin I could not pass on. It is a large bronze of Otacilia Severa from Ptolemais, Kdman 210. The coins is extremely rare, Kadman only knew of one example, in Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem, and no other specimens have surfaced in trade or museum collections. I immediately jumped at the opportunity, but after more careful examination of the seller's pictures (see below) I started to hesitate. While Otacilia coin is unique, and Kadman's illustration is of poor quality, there are few published specimens of coins of the same type (and struck with the same reverse die) of Philip I and II. Here is a Philip II coin from Sofaer collection: One can see that left and bottom parts of the coin look identical to my specimen, however top right part is strikingly different. It looks like Nemesis crown in my coin was worked on and converted to letter O, and part of Nike to L, while the original OL was off flan. Overall it looked like the coin was tooled to get it 'complete legend' impression and make it more valuable. Well, the effect was quite an opposite and I was able to get it at reasonable price when I pointed this to the seller. When the coin arrived I took a very careful look, and didn't see any obvious sign of alteration. Right shape, uniform color, edge looked nice. And then I poked the 'tooled' part with finger (literally) and to my surprise a small piece of the coin just fell off revealing something white underneath. It was some kind of plaster or cement filling, and it took me just a minute or two to remove it completely, again just with my fingers, no tools: Now I am pretty sure I know what happened to this coin. It was heavily affected by corrosion, probably bronze disease, and somebody decided to 'restore' it. The craftsmanship was amazing, I have handled thousands of different coins from area, and I thought I knew something about alterations, which are actually very often seen on Judaean coins. If the legend was restored correctly, I would have not even consider this coin problematic in any way. The coin, from the surface, color, shape and edge perspective did not look suspicious at all! Of course I knew the patina is artificial, but I did not expect anything like that. Again, all the flakes you see on the pictures are some kind of plaster and have nothing to do with the original material of the coin. Overall I am actually quite happy that after all the coin was not tooled and all the details that are there now are original. However, it raises a question - how many other totally normally looking coins on the marking are actually modified in a similar way? I now suspect there are many...
That is an amazing job of restoration & cleverly deceitful . The sellers photos wouldn't have triggered any suspicion to my eyes , however, the real color of the coin would have . What a shock it must have been to watch the coin crumble in your hands !
I think it is possible that the restoration was done professionally by/at/for a museum in the same vein as it is done with ceramic or stone objects. Was this coin part of some old collection that had been restored by a professional, perhaps in the fifties or sixties, in Greece or Israel?
The entire thing is scary in more than one way. I am most certainly not a specialist in the area or sophisticated enough to believe that the coin was special enough to deserve conservation let alone the amount of effort that was done to it. Some one was a student of the type and wanted to make this scrap into a whole rarity. It bothers me that the faker knew enough to see an opportunity here but not enough to realize that adding the OL in the wrong place would give it away if it fell into the hands of someone who was aware of the type. Further, only someone who was a ware of the type would be interested in the coin in the first place and the value added by those wrong letters would be minimal to someone who recognized and wanted the item. How sure are you that what is left is solid and original rather than completely consisting of repair? Again, I emphasize that I am not one who would consider buying the coin as shown in the first picture for any price approaching what it would cost to do that work. Is it a 'final exam' piece from a school for coin alteration? That seems less likely that that the whole thing is a fake constructed from scratch. This subject interests me because of a fake/alteration in my collection. My Zenobia is obviously not original and all the obverse legend was created by tooling. The reverse style leads me to believe that the coin started out as a Flavian as (Vespasian or Titus) but I am not interested in playing with it to see if it breaks, as yours did, revealing that there was material added to the original as to give a place for tooling. I believe the intent of this fake was to simulate an Alexandrian tetradrachm ant the reverse that started as SC was modified to read the date LE. I would love to know if that was accomplished by pushing metal around or by adding some material as was done on your coin. I do not want to know badly enough to place the coin in acetone or go picking at the letters to see if they pop off. My coin would fool no one who had ever experienced a tetradrachm of Zenobia's time give or take a decade. The fabric is all wrong. That leaves the question that bothers me most. To fool whom was the item made in the first place. There are thousands of people with more money than sense who might be attracted to a coin of Zenobia for their 'one per ruler' set and might buy the thing. I paid $12.50 knowing full well that the item was fishy from a dealer who listed it as exactly what it is. In the case of my coin and yours, it would be wonderful to know what larceny was in the mind of the perpetrator that made it and when this happened (I assume both are within the last 300 years or so; neither would have been done in ancient times to make something to be spent.) Seriously, how many people exist on the face of the earth that would recognize that the incomplete item as it is today (not accompanied by the shards around it) would be worth going through that much trouble to elevate the market value? Is there a demand for or an awareness of the Provincials of the Philip period that would drive such activity? This certainly is one possibility. There must be more. "It was quite scary indeed " You said it well. Thanks for sharing.
