Antony/Octavian denarius silver or Fourree?

Hi,

I'm looking to purchase the listed Antony/Octavian denarius but it appears that it might be a Fourree coin which I currently try to avoid.
It's listed at a respectable site as a silver denarius. I'm a little skeptical, however, as it seems that the copper/bronze core is showing through right above Octavian's head on the Rx.
Could anyone please tell me if this seems to be a correct assumption or not?
Thanks in advance.

 

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Difficult to say what that is without it being in hand. Have you asked the seller?

 

To me, it looks like "it's" on the coin not under. Wait for wiser collectors to chime in.

 

As Jwt pointed out, the dark stuff looks like it's on the coin rather than an exposed fourree core.

The OP coin is offered for sale by Forvm. You should have comfort in that. The owner is knowledgable, diligent about assessing for fakes, and does not go for false or false-by-omission advertising. Plus, there is a lifetime money-back guarantee of authenticity.

 

It's on sale at Ancient Coins Forum shop:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/ca...&fld=http://www.forumancientcoins.com/Coins2/

so I posted a question about it on their Roman coins forum. So far no replies.

 

I think you fine with this one. I would have no qualms about buying from them. Pretty hard to beat a lifetime guarantee.

 

Almost certainly good silver. Joe at FORVM is pretty diligent about examining his coins and listing any potential problems, moreso than almost any other dealer I regularly buy from, and if a bronze core were showing he'd mention it.

 

Until you told me where it is for sale, I was going to say it looks tooled to me, expressly the portraits and the smiles on both. But since you say it is for sale on FAC, I'm probably wrong.

 

Thanks a lot Jwt and TIF!!
This is exactly why cointalk ancients has been my favorite social network for the past few weeks!
About to complete the purchase on Forvm with some of the money received back from the fake Janus didrachm purchase I posted about last week.

 

I don't think it looks tooled. The wear is uniform across the highest points. The mouths and eyes are lower relief, so they are preserved. If there were any hair details (other than at the borders, where the relief curves down to the flan), that would be a different story.

 

I agree, but the facial features look wrong to me. Almost like the smiles were added. When I look at the old pictures of my grandparents and greatgrandparents, no one smiled for the picture. Generally, I don't expect to see smiles on the likes of Marc Anthony and Octavian.

 

Go for it!

Please note though that while I (and many of us) are okay with people posting potential purchases when the coin is offered in a fixed-price setting, such as this coin, I strongly recommend against posting coins which are coming up for auction.

The reason:

Fixed-price coins (coins for sale in webstores) are available for purchase by anyone at any time. By posting here for an opinion, you only risk harm to yourself-- the harm being that someone else sees it as a result of your post, and buys it before you do.

If the coin is coming up for auction, there may be others here who are watching and planning on bidding. By giving it "free advertising" in public forum, it may cause other bidders to take interest, driving up the price or causing a forum friend to lose the coin.

Another negative: if I'm targeting an upcoming auction coin and you post it here, if I win it I'll look like I "stole" it from you.

If you want an opinion about a coin coming up for auction, it's best to ask a forum member by private message.

 

Smile for the camera, Mark!


(images from CNG's archives)

 

I agree.

My dealer always tells me that silver coins are very, very rarely tooled. Plus, most Marc Antony portraits I've seen seem a little bit cartoonish, and the quasi-smile to which Bing refers could have been worn in that manner from any of the coins posted by TIF above.

 

This has happened here just this week. One of the newer members posted two coins coming up for auction on Ebay, both of which I had in my watch list. One I was more than likely going to bid on, but since it was posted here for opinions, I will not. This time I can be okay with it, but there will come a time when I will still have to bid and look the schmuck.

 

Another thing to remember is that there are many, many lurkers on this site.

 

Thanks for heads up! I kinda figured that this might be the case that's why I planned on purchasing the coin as soon as my doubts were set aside (which is done btw). As far as posting questions about upcoming auctions, I might be a noob at collecting ancients but I'd like to believe that I possess enough common sense to not do something like that.

 

You know what, we don't know each other and we've never said we wouldn't do otherwise so I wouldn't worry about it.

 

I would say most of the members here won't pull something like that if you claim you want the coin. However, as said already, there are people lurking and new members too.

As far as the coin goes, my opinion and its really just an opinion, is the silver has reacted to the environment. It may also be horn silver which could have those black spots on there.

 

Please don't mistake me. There has never been any agreements (that I'm aware of), to not bid on coins posted for opinions. I just feel like it's bad form, or that it will seem so if I win a posted coin. I believe most of us here are friends or at least friendly with each other. Friends don't undercut friends IMHO. A better way to ask for opinions in this case would be to ask those you trust to know through PM. This is what I do when and if I have questions.

I suppose if I truly wanted one of these two coins badly enough, I could have PMed the member and had a discussion about it.

I will not say which member I was speaking of, but suffice it to say that it was not you @Jwt708.