Fellow CT'ers, Just finishing up browsing EBay where our favourite seller from Munich has posted a ton of fakes (which he is selling as such). Many are easily spotted from their style, but others, not so much. Posting a few here which would have taken me in. The presence of increasingly convincing fakes is always a wakeup call for me, and makes me more hesitant to spend money on this wonderful hobby. Thankfully, I have this great community to help keep my dream alive.
Yeah, that Roman Republic denarius might have fooled me. The style seems correct, but I'm not an expert in this coin type. It even has, what seems to be, a nice amount of toning, and some wear and scratches. It has a lot of small pimples on the obverse, which could be casting pimples. But, I have a hard time, distinguishing casting pimples, versus die rust. But, if I see a lot of pimples, I usually pass, just to be safe. It seems like a bad thing to do, to sell fakes, or manufacture fakes, even if you advertise them as fakes. Some people who buy such fakes, could be shady people, who will then sell the fakes, and advertise the fakes as authentic. And, it cheapens the entire hobby, and adds uncertainty to the entire hobby. Such fakes have already cheapened and terrorized the area of ancient Chinese Ban Liang coins. However, authentic ancient Chinese Ban Liang coins are cast coins, which makes them easier to fake. Hopefully, an expert dealer would catch such a fake, as that Roman Republic denarius, and not buy it, or sell it. I'm one of the hapless rabble of collectors, who generally tries to buy from expert dealers, to try to avoid such fakes. The trick is, to know, who the expert dealers are. Of course, one can check the edge of the coin, for a casting seam, or file marks, but only at a coin show, or after you have already ordered and received the coin, which is not fun.
Other than being guilty by association, what is the evidence that these are fake? Are these matches to known fakes? Are there a notable style difference? I'm not saying that the OP is incorrect, rather that the condemning coins should have some supporting information other than guilt by association or "it's fake." Edit: Rereading your post, is seems that these particular coins are being sold as fake? If so... disregard my post above.
A friend of mine used to say : "There is no such thing as an authentic coin, there are only well-made fakes". I wonder which philosophical school he belongs to, sceptical? cynical? tongincheekal? Let's be serious. If these coins are actually fakes, I must admit I would never had suspicions just looking at the photographs. You say they are fakes just because the seller openly says so, and I suppose he sells them for a very cheap price. But is there anything else (the weight, for ex.?) that could enable a trained eye to distinguish a fake? Let us admit it is now possible to forge fake ancient coins so perfectly that they cannot be distinguished from authentic ones any more, and that the forger's own word is now the only possible reason for which they can be considered fakes. It would be a revolution in the domain of numismatics. We are now entering the Era of Suspicion. The only authentic coins will be the ones with a real verifiable pedigree proving they were already in private or public collections before perfect forgeries were technically possible. And also, of course, the coins dug out from controlled archaeological excavations. I am still a bit sceptical. If so well-made and deceiving fakes can actually be forged, it must be relatively easy and at a very low cost. A worn Roman Republican denarius is not a decadrachm of Akragas or an Eid Mart aureus. The operation of forging ancient coins must be profitable, or if it's not, what for? Another question is : are we sure they are fakes? I know a collector who posted on instagram some rare coins telling they were fakes, but not telling why he was so positive, and a few months later I found these very coins (or their perfect clones) auctioned as authentic by a serious and well-reputed house. As a matter of fact, I could not, from just the good photographs, distinguish any reason to suspect them.
I think it’s sad that a serious dealer of ancient coins is selling convincing fakes and by doing this helps to spread fakes on the market, knowing that other people can (and probably will) sell them as authentic coins.
Yes. I found the Roman Republic denarius on Ebay. It's still for sale. In the seller's title for the coin, it says "modern forgery". It's being auctioned on Ebay, with 1 bid so far, for 1.99 euros. I don't know much about the seller, and I've never bought from him, and I don't plan to. I've seen some CoinTalk posts about him, in which he (or his company) has a very bad reputation, for various reasons.
