Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;robinjojo, post: 24593564, member: 110226&quot;]That&#039;s a great example!&nbsp; I find fourrée coins fascinating and a world of their own.&nbsp; Is your coin an imitation or a fourrée?&nbsp; I think it is both.&nbsp; The vast number of fourrée owls were privately made, as far as I know, with the exception of the plated owls produced by Athens 406-404 BC.&nbsp; I have seen plated owls being sold as Athenian in origin.&nbsp; I don&#039;t think that is the case though.&nbsp; Unless there&#039;s a die match with a documented plated Athenian owl, and there is none for the OP coin, then it was produced elsewhere, probably privately.&nbsp; Still, these are highly collectable coins.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s my fourrée core owl, with only traces of the silver plating surviving.&nbsp; This coin came to me from Israel, in 2019, highly encrusted, probably a local find, West Bank?&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>This coin is based on the intermediate style owls of the 4th century.&nbsp; The green sub-layer used to bind the silver plating to the copper core can still be seen in places.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1562040[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Now, there are instances where I think a coin is called a fourrée when in fact it is not.&nbsp; I believe this is an example.&nbsp; This is a coin that was listed at auction as a fourrée, no doubt due to the breaks on the surface and brown and to a lesser degree green deposits.&nbsp; However the breaks reveal silver beneath them on the obverse.&nbsp; I think these are laminations, separations of the surface metal from the core that can occur during the minting process (poor mixture of the alloy or low sliver content resulting in variations in hardness) during circulation causing metal to chip from the surface or by storage, where environmental factors (soil, water, air) acted on the obverse to cause the metal to become brittle and separate from the underlying core.&nbsp; This last consideration is almost certainly the cause for plating to separate from copper cores in fourrée owls.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>So, what we could have here is an imitation owl with obverse laminations, along with brown and green deposits caused by environmental conditions occurring during burial. </p><p><br /></p><p>15.7 grams</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1562041[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in