Hello ancient cointalkers, This morning I decided to go to a local coin shop, and asked if they had any ancient coins. He said he did and went to the back to retrieve the said box. He came back and rephrased his sentence by saying he had ancient coins. Another man came around a week ago and asked the same question, and after only looking at a few coins in the box, decided to purchase the whole lot. So a bit later after looking around, inside a display case of foreign coins I spotted this little beauty marked "Attica Athens Drachm." I immediately purchased this coin. I'm hoping someone could help me with the identification (such as date range), value, and authentication. Thanks you for any help you guys can give! Definitely my favorite ancient coin in my collection so far. Also she ways 2.72 grams. Thanks, Mike
I don't know Mike. That coin looks mighty fishy. The style is wrong, the metal looks like pewter, and 2.72g puts it suspiciously between a triobol and a tetrobol, rather than a drachm. What's the diameter? And what did you pay for it?
I hate to say this but the coin looks fishy to me as well. The coin is nearly perfectly round in addition to what John said.
I know little about ancient coins, but like Gil-galad I have never seen an ancient coin so perfectly round before. The details of the helmet on the obverse also worry me...
Thanks for your help guys, i'm trying to locate a ruler right now. The strange roundness could be do to my cropping of the original photos, therefore I'll include the uncropped versions. Though it still appears to be rather round. (Also the coin was photographed atop a 2x2)
The coin measures out to be 16mm. The coin shop has a primary focus on US coins, so could their labeling it as a drachm be incorrect?
16mm is OK for a drachm, but the weight is way off. It should be around 4g on an authentic piece. Do a magnet test. But as I said, the style is completely wrong, not to mention the roundness. Also, if you wanted to buy an authentic Attica drachm in THAT good of a condition, if you could even find one, you'd be out some serious scratch, as in AJ territory.
Here's one for sale for a mere $26,000... http://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/nom...ns_circa_467465_bc_drachm/424139/Default.aspx
I'm certainly no expert, but I think it's fake. For example, note what appears to be a spot of copper at the top of the reverse (it's more visible in the first set of pictures).
I agree with John. The coin is definitely not ancient and not worth $1. The edge markings suggest to me that it was removed from costume jewelry. For the record, I wouldn't pay $26k for that split tail drachm either even though it is a very nice example of a very rare early version. You may find wealthy collectors who disagree with me on that one but I feel 100% confident in the OP coin being modern. Something we say here over and over is that it is very dangerous to buy ancients from a dealer who knows nothing about ancients. I do not know if they are not honest or not informed. Would you buy a rare Barber from me? You shouldn't.
Thank you for your help & opinions everyone. I'm still learning with these ancients. Tomorrow I'll make a call to the store and return the coin.
