Thank you for the response. Can you tell me how you could tell so quickly? By the color? By other things? I am very much interested in that, even if they are not the real deal.
The quality and the metal. The real ones are silver. heres some links if your interested greek coins http://wildwinds.com/coins/greece/i.html and heres some fakes http://www.forumancientcoins.com/fakes/index.php
just to add, it can be very tough at first to tell real from fake, and I'm just echoing others here, but the best way to get authentic coins is through good dealers like www.forumancientcoins.com and vcoins.com
Thank you! It seems overwhelming for a newbie to tell fake from real and I suppose the dealers in ancient coins capitalize on this fact. Then again, one wouldn't go around buy anything else of supposed authenticity on the street somewhere, so coins should be no different. The coins I posted belong to my girlfriend's family in the M.E. and I had serious doubts about their provenance when they said "it's been in the family for who knows how long." My guess, as yours, is that they were peddled these coins, they took it, and now they're junk! If anyone can add what other characteristics of these coins give them away as fakes (apart from not being silver and their apparent quality), please do so. I am very interested!
The main damning characteristic, apart from the fact that they should almost all be silver and are not, is the general soapy look of the metal, indicative of casting. All of these should be struck coins.
The sprue should be visible somewhere on these. It's a piece of 'extra metal' where the metal was poured into the mold. I'm not sure if I spelled sprue correctly, but I'm sure one of the members can correct me if I didn't.
These would not have sprues. They would have been cast first in one sided molds, then attached. You should also see a seam running around the edge of the coins.
Are all cast coins with a seam and done in two parts? Also, I recall factories in China and others using dies to stamp out coins, yet they were still identifiable. Besides the actual material (weight, density, etc.), how else can one tell a well-made fake from a real one? Is the composition method (weight, density, etc.) a fool proof way of telling them apart?
Counterfeit detection of either ancient or modern coins is a very difficult skill to acquire. There have been numerous threads on it around here, do a search. For ancient coins, the best thing to do is to look at a lot of coins, fake and real. The links already posted here are extremely useful.
Thanks. Is it fair to assume that reputable dealers will only sell authentic coins? Also, could you comment re the notion of weight and density as a good indicator of fake vs. real?
The coins shown here, if real, would add up to a few thousand dollars. I hope you got a good deal on them rather than paying full price but we have to ask why anyone would sell a $1000 coin for $100 or $10. There are a dozen factors to consider including weight and density but it is not all that unusual to find fakes that are good weight, good style, good looking and well made. The two on the left are better efforts than the other two but they still are certain fakes. See: http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=4792 $3200 http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=6886 $440
Howdy, Thanks for the links. I didn't buy these and I never would buy anything from some random person. These were supposedly in the family of my girlfriend's extended family for some time, though I suspect they may have been bought from street markets or something of the sort, under the assumption that they were valuable. The seller told them they were ancient Egyptian, which is obviously not the case. Thank you again, I'm loving this forum!!
My apologies, then. My knowledge of ancient coins is lacking, I'm afraid! I'm working on it, though. This time last year, I didn't even know what a sprue was, so I must be making some progress.
