This one is the BnF de Luynes example: And this fake currently appears in a French auction. Strangely enough, the forgers decided to modify the dots in the exergual line in the obverse.
This is a terrible attempt at a fake. I do not know the seller. Are they regular fake sellers or just not at all familiar with ancient coins?
pprp, posted: "... And this fake currently appears in a French auction. Strangely enough, the forgers decided to modify the dots in the exergual line in the obverse. Thanks but I'm very curious about your comments. The design of the two counterfeits is completely different - including the dots. From what I see, they came from two entirely different makers - one much more talented.
Thanks! That clears it up. Since the post is about fakes, "this one" used with the genuine coin threw me off. I was thinking what an extremely deceptive "fake" the the first one must be and how crude the second fake was when compared to it.
I think the OP said that it's the BnF example -- the French National Library. So I don't think anyone will be buying it!
That coin is certainly not for sale. It is a museum specimen in the Bibliotheque nationale de France in Paris and comes from the Duke of Luynes collection. While it doesnt make it immune from being a fake, I doubt it is one.
View attachment 1373216 What's going on (especially) in the field above the Bull? Does anyone think this specimen has been tooled? Oops, "smoothed."
I realize BnF is the French national collection but wrongly assumed that 'de Luynes' was a French seller of which I have never heard. The style is what strikes me as 'different from the many variations of the type we see online. Certainly we would expect it to be genuine given its history. I still would not buy a die duplicate of that style. https://cngcoins.com/Search.aspx?IS...TYPE_ID=3&VIEW_TYPE=0&MAX_COUNT=10000&PAGE=1# I have been anxiously awaiting the publication of the BnF coins but they still have not posted Roman Imperials which include my the coins of interests that fall in my price bracket.
Are you sure about this? When I search for instance for "Trajan" objects on Gallica.bnf.fr it brings up quite a number of photographed coins, such as in this link. The site is somewhat difficult to navigate and my experience with the Roman Republic section is that sometimes you'll find things photographed but not catalogued or whatever(so they don't show up on CRRO) so sometimes you need to use really broad searches.
I started with the hypothesis that Bourgey who sold the coin to de Luynes, the collector himself and later the experts who saw the coin over the years in BnF would have recognized it as a fake if it was one. So I posted this as the genuine mother coin (or one of its plaster casts) which was used to create the fake now for sale.
If the de Luynes coin is indeed a genuine mother coin, it may have served to produce several fakes. Another one that I found when browsing old French auctions was sold in a Vinchon sale in 1959.
@pprp @DonnaML @Meander Are we sure the top coin was de Luynes'? His catalog, written by Babelon, had an example but it wasn't this one. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k875287q/f31.item (It's #419 on that page)
That’s a different specimen. The one pictured in the OP is de Luynes 551: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k875287q/f41.item.zoom
They seem to have reached Hadrian. I want to see Domna but all her coins are provincials so far. I want to see the coin Cohen saw to list Cohen 250 for Julia Domna. The BM has two on their site and I have two. All are die duplicates. I want to see if theirs is, too, and if they have added any more in the last 150 years. Of course I will be interested in seeing all their Eastern Denarii 192-204 AD or so.
BnF XII is two volumes from Aurelian to Florian. Hopefully they will complete the series, since it jumped from III to XII