I have had for many years, probably for 40 years, this nice small silver coin: AR 11-12 mm, 2.63 g Obv.: janiform head, left bearded, right unbearded, in circle of dots Rev.: goat walking right I do not remember how much I paid for this but I am sure it was not much because I am an old miser. Unfortunately, somebody later told me it was a fake, a double die-match with 3 coins published in the Bulletin on Counterfeits of the International Association of Professional Numismatists. The only difference was that my coin was much heavier : 2.63 g, the 3 fakes being 1 g or less. These silver coins were declared fakes because they were obverse die-matches with a bizarre gold coin Bank Leu experts declared a fake in the 1950s : on the obverse the janiform head, on the reverse a triple bearded head. OK... But this gold coin put in Bank Leu's forgery trays "as a curiosity" is a double die-match with a silver coin of Paris BNF, from the Henry Seyrig collection! And from 2003 to 2021 four other small silver coins, from the same obverse die, have been auctioned by well-reputed houses, all with weights of c. 1 g. There are other coins, one in the ANS collection, others in trade, with the same types Janiform head / Triple bearded head, but from other dies. Are they authentic? I don't know. But I have never seen the association Janiform head / goat walking r., like on my coin, in any public collection, any catalogue or auction. The only reference for them is the Bulletin on Counterfeits. It seems that, in the first place, these coins were declared forgeries just because they obverse die matched with the unique gold coin that seemed so bizarre ("a curiosity", they said) to the Bank Leu experts in the 1950s. They could not know, at that time, that the association Janiform head / triple bearded head existed in silver, for it was only published in 1986 (SNG Levante 201-202), and that their gold coin was a double die-match with a silver one in Seyrig's collection that went later to the BNF. To sum up : is the janiform / goat coin a very rare coin, or a fake, or even a fantasy coin that does not even pretend to imitate authentic ones?
I would love to read Mr @Barry Murphy 's thoughts. The pics are all too small, so it would take someone worth inside knowledge of the types to give an opinion, imo.
Very interesting, @GinoLR. I'm not sure what to think. Like Ryro, I wish the pictures were larger/higher resolution.
Whatever it is.. I think it's worth keeping. So rare and difficult to confirm that the coin is not genuine.
