The issue is that only trial strikes of the 1894 Birr were issued, highly rare and most likely in a museum. Now they did make a 1887 Birr, but all the pics I can find, the writing underneath the lion is different.
This is a modern fantasy issue. Attribution on the slab is wrong, it's not KM5. Also, the date would be the EE (Ethiopian era) date, so add 8 years - 1902 would be the date by our calendar.
While we are at it, does this 5 lire check out? I bought these coins for silver at an auction, but I don't want to list them if they are something they are not.
Another thing I just noticed, the Ethiopian coin has the denomination as 1/8 birr, which would be a small coin.
The 5 lire is an outright fake. The die crack across the truncation of the bust is an identifier for a whole series of underweight copies that were made. Here is one: http://www.delcampe.net/page/item/i...-DUE-SICILIE-RICONIO-FS-PP-BE,language,E.html And another: http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=127125
People say they were reliable in grading US coins. I don't know about foreign though. I just recently purchased two Japanese coins in the same old PCI slabs, both were genuine and actually under-graded. I would guess lack of expertise in authentication. They just graded them (and the grades are also way off) and didn't bother to authenticate.
Ok. The fake you showed me has a die crack between the I and the C, mine has it between the S and the I. Also, they both appear to be made from silver.
I'm talking about the crack on the bust, the neck. Might be silver, but these are underweight, so you never know.
