Byzantine fakes

The flan is very odd, looks machine-made. Odd modeling, ditto for the letters of the legend. That line below the M on the reverse is wrong.

Savoca and Lanz are very well-established reputable firms. It's a bit disturbing that something like this coin would slip by them.

 

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Gosh, I sure hope the Justinian follis I bought yesterday at vcoins for $395 is genuine. Does anyone here buy coins at vcoins? Is vcoins a reputable coin site?

 

Hello Experts,

I don't know if I am supposed to ask this question on this thread, but I couldn't create a new one, so please excuse me if I posted in the wrong place.

I have a byzantine coin that I would like to know if it is authentic or not and if it has any value. From my online research, it looks like it is a Maurice Tiberius follis.
Thank you for your help!

 

I am really curious to see a follis worth 400 USD. Vcoins should be fine for authenticity. Post a photo.

Cornholio - that is correct, follis of Maurice Tiberius from Nicomedia mint, Sear 512. Worth probably max 25 USD everywhere, except vcoins...

 

vcoins.com/en/stores/daniel/121/product/byzantine_empire_justinian_i_ad_527565_follis_nicomedia_mint_dated_year_19/1215130/Default.aspx I bought this coin because this was the best example I could find anywhere. Did I pay too much for it?

 

I have no comment, but you can make your own inferences.

 

Thank you for this link. I just spent several minutes looking at coins from your link, and noticed someone paid $950 (does not include buyers fee) for a fairly decent looking Justinian follis, auction 469 - lot 582. I will say my example looks a little better in some ways, but most of these Justinian follis coins are fairly cheap even for near adequate quality examples in the $100-$150 price range.

 

That is a very rare mintmark, NIKM.
Your link does not work. I am afraid you will not find a "right price", because there will never be 2 perfectly identical ancients, and many will have something special in one's eyes, who might pay extra for that "je ne sais quoi". For example, 19 has a certain personal meaning for me, and i will pay a premium for a year 19 coin, and that is entirely subjective.

 

I must apologize for my link not working. I don't know why that occurred, that never occurred any other time I provided a link at this site. Did you still type out all that lettering I provided to see my coin? The year 19 on my Justinian follis purchase does make it kind of interesting to me, too.

 

If anyone is looking for the famous NIK fake follis, Zeus is selling one in their auction 15.



I see a lot of byzantine fakes on ebay lately from sellers located in Spain and UK. Fortunately, they look rather funny / fantasy, so if they stay at that level should not be big problems.

 

Thank you for this thread and for everyone who shared the other examples. I noticed these as I've been looking for some Justinian Folles (or other denominations) to build up my dated coins of Justinian and my "Plague Coinage" collection (specifically, I need a Carthage YR 14 and Constantinople YR 15, but I've come to like all the big 'uns).

I registered something different (the rev. letters, esp. M looked too spindly?) but the scary thing is my brain reacted with "hmmm, that's interesting, better put them on my watch list and come back later," not "sumthinz wrong with those"!

Scary that there may be two at once on Biddr! It doesn't terribly surprise me. Savoca lists so many coins they can't be thorough on all of them, but the responsibility in that case rests with them to rely on people send in such messages & withdraw when notified. Zeus (and their "sister firm(s)") are rather careless (it's actually why I bid there, I've grabbed a couple rarities misattributed as common coins).

But that's why the internet/search engines (and, now, image recognition) are our friend, plus a bit of research. These come to light. Just hopefully not before we buy.

Luckily these two are from sources I trust (so far!): (1) Year 14/CON, 39mm, Ex-Ancient & Medieval Coins Canada via @TheRed (who may have posted it here) via FORVM; and (2) Year 12/CON, 45mm, from Kölner Münzkabinett (group lot):

 

That's a good point, that's why I don't suspect some on Biddr (with their 84,000 coins per weekend or whatever it is) of knowingly auctioning fakes, just careless mistakes due to high volume. I'm not usually bothered by that (cheap coins & group lots need homes too!), but I definitely take it into account and look harder at coins from high volume dealers/auctions.

As far as fixed price/dealer sales, none of them like to see their names mentioned in these forums for an accidental fake (and they're paying attention, many/most of them). I expect they manage it with a combination of: a sense of "how hard to look" at the coins coming in (based on who they got them from); having that sixth sense of which types and specific coins bear more scrutiny; keeping aware of trends in fakery (should be checking their Justinian Folles twice now); and -- measure of the last resort -- high vol. dealers are implicitly relying on the public to catch their mistakes and respond accordingly when informed.

I also hope that those with 1,000 new coins a month (i.e. 30-40/day) are the ones with a small staff, if you're thinking of say, LAC or Numiscorner/CDMA, not just 1-2 people (doing the photography alone, yikes!).

 

More anecdotally (since it got returned), at least a decade ago, I got a fake from a private seller on German ebay, very reminiscent of @catadc's and @Brian Bucklan's examples. It struck me as something that had likely begun life as an advertised reproduction. As in, not bad for having been as obvious as it was.

 

Guess what - there are two on Biddr right now. Second is from Soler&Lach.

 

Or 3?

 

Wow,@catadc, that one really underscores the earlier points of @Brian Bucklan and @Marsyas Mike on this thread, about fake patina. ...Yikes.
The takeaway from here is that, as with tooling, there's an ethical spectrum from arbitrarily 'enhancing' a real coin, and full-on fakery. ...Kind of gives a bad smell to either enterprise, regardless of the immediate context.

 

I also made a post but wanted to add my specimen fake. It was so fake to me upon arrival that I broke it in half with my bare hands!

 

I also made a post but wanted to add my specimen fake. It was so fake to me upon arrival that I broke it in half with my bare hands! View attachment 1465218 View attachment 1465218

 

Here's another well known fake that has been around for many years as noted in earlier posts. It came to me as part of a group lot of Byzantine bronzes.



This is a follis, Justinian I, Constantinople, year 12, officina epsilon. To a new collector this coin could slip by as genuine.

While at first glance the style of this coin is pleasant in its own way, but it is way off, when compared to a genuine contemporary follis, which is below, a year 13 follis of Antioch. Comparing the two coins reveals the crude nature of the fake, with its thick letters and rendering of the portrait. Further, the flan of the fake is narrow and significantly underweight, at 15.2 grams, compared to 22.7 grams for the Antioch follis. Because of the narrower flan, the die completely fills it. The Antioch and other early large flan folles of Justinian I have dies that are narrower than the flan, producing in most cases a nearly complete impression of the die, provided that the striking is well centered. Finally, the edge of the fake is oddly rounded, much more so than the edge of the Antioch follis, which is more angular.



So, if you encounter the fake Justinian I follis, year 12, Constantinople, don't consider buying it, unless you want to add a well documented fake to your Byzantine collection, which could be useful, if the price is right.

 

I just got a copy of Malter's 1995 Byzantine numismatic bibliography (the second vol. 27 years after the first!), and noticed that it included a couple photos of this same fake Justinian follis, NIK XII.



I hadn't realized how long these have been around, but it makes it even more disheartening that professional sellers were still being taken by them recently.

Once your fakes become recognizable, I guess you just have to hold onto them a few years until everyone forgets!

 

I bought one of these, 2 years ago, on Ebay, when I was a newbie. Wow, only 2 years ago. It seems like, it was a long time ago. I've seen one of these for sale on MA-Shops, and I've seen one of these for sale on Vcoins.
I only figured out, that this was a fake, after looking at the fake coin reports on Forum Ancient Coins, and also when I saw other examples on coin forums, in which the posts mentioned that they were fake.
The main distinguishing features, are the shape of the flan, and on the obverse, the raised slash on the right, just outside of the border.
In my microscope photos of the edges of the coin, there seem to be lines, which may be file marks, which may be covering a casting seam, but I'm not certain of that.
Here are photos of my example, which sits in my black cabinet.
Seller photos.


My photos.

FAKE Justinian I Follis Year 12. Maximum Diameter = 45.0 mm. Weight = 17.67 grams.
My microscope photos.