Cast Coinage

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by Gary R. Wilson, Sep 23, 2018.

  1. Gary R. Wilson

    Gary R. Wilson ODERINT, DUM METUANT — CALIGULA

    Hi everyone. Well, a while back I got burned on a couple of coins that I should have looked at closer but was careless. I need to remind myself that even though I've been collecting off and on since 1983 that I need to be careful. I got these coins off of Ebay from the same seller who I hadn't done business with before. I guess the morale of my story is to Live and Learn-you're never too experienced to still get bad coins. Here are the coins, both cast. If you look closely you can see the seams. Yeah, I know, they are easy to see. Carelessness. If you have any 'bad' coins to share, well misery loves company. :)

    Roman_Empire_-_Commo.jpg Roman_Empire_-_Commo_1.jpg Roman_Empire_-_Domit.jpg Roman_Empire_-_Domit_1.jpg
     
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  3. Marsyas Mike

    Marsyas Mike Well-Known Member

    Sorry to hear about your bad experience, Gary. Those are very attractive phonies, in my opinion (I am impressed by the patina, especially on the Domitian).

    Personally, I like the challenge of bidding on poorly-described and/or photographed coins on eBay. The problem is, I do get burned from time to time. The key for me is to low-ball bid so that I'm not out too much. And so far, the good stuff has far outweighed the disappointments.

    Here is a denarius of Julia Domna (seller's photos) that is a fake. In hand I was perplexed by the fact it weighed over four grams - I suspected something was wrong. Checking the ForgeryNetwork website, I found out it was a fairly common fake. I definitely should've checked before I bid!

    FAKE - Julia Domna Den. Concordia (1).jpg

    FAKE - Julia Domna Den. Concordia (2).jpg
     
  4. Gary R. Wilson

    Gary R. Wilson ODERINT, DUM METUANT — CALIGULA

    Thanks for the post Mike. I agree with you. I didn't pay a whole lot for either coin but maybe I should have taken that as a warning that other collectors wondered about the coins. Your Domna looks nice. I know a lot of the time the weight will tell you if an item is a fake or not. I stopped collecting for a time but when I came back I was amazed how many more fakes there were on Ebay. That venue is definitely a "Buyer Beware".
     
    Marsyas Mike likes this.
  5. Justin Lee

    Justin Lee I learn by doing

    I almost bid on one with a very similar obverse, but it looked strange to me so I PM'd someone here and they shared it was a known fake.
     
  6. chrsmat71

    chrsmat71 I LIKE TURTLES!

    I picked up two casts fakes turds this year! One is in a group of coins and I missed the pic of it on forums fake list, the other was a very poor photo and I took a chance. Was refunded on the later, and didn't bother asking for a refund for the former, the price I got the other coins in the lot for, I figured I kind of got it for free.


    The lot coin. Once I got it there were clear red flags, I was immediately suspicious and posted it here. Casting flaws (seams on the surface), it did have an edge seam as well but it was less visible. Turned out to be a cast fake of a coin that was a modern reproduction! (my coin top, "original" reproduction below)
    [​IMG]





    This one also has a small edge seam and was an almost exact match with a coin I found that had been in a auction a couple years ago.

    [​IMG]

    My coin is the bottom one.
     
  7. I'm still a newbie and learning a lot in this field so i looked and looked and tried to see those seams, but because my lack of experience (I guess) I don't see them. Could you please explain (or even better) show me what they are so I'll know what to look for in the future?
     
    Gary R. Wilson and Marsyas Mike like this.
  8. Justin Lee

    Justin Lee I learn by doing

    I've tweaked the OP pics to make the seams more visible. It's where the two halves of the cast are joined so there is a seam made. (think of it as lunchmeat peeking out between two slices of bread in a sandwich... An authentic coin "shouldn't" appear to be made out of two pieces of bread. It should be just one slice. Weird analogy, I know lol)

    Here's the 1st coin:
    20180929_084449.jpg

    And 2nd coin:
    20180929_084539.jpg
     
  9. Marsyas Mike

    Marsyas Mike Well-Known Member

    Very interesting topic. I thought I would share some more fakes, and a few thoughts on eBay, where I buy most of my ancients.

    Yes, fakes abound. Most of them, after a little experience, are easily detected. Some are trickier (such as the OP, and some others in this thread). A few rules I observe:

    1. Avoid the high-end stuff. I do this for budgetary reasons, but also because the fakes are abundant in this material. For instance, I rarely even glance at Tiberius "tribute pennies" - they have been faked so many times (sometimes skillfully) that I'd want an expert opinion before I'd bid on one.

    2. Avoid high-grade stuff. I like ancient coins because they are ancient, so my coins tend to have problems - wear, bad patina, off-center, etc. These kind of coins tend not to be faked (there are exceptions - the RR denarius with the coining tools has a very common low-grade fake - off-center, banker's mark, etc. It has been posted many times). The OP examples are an interesting case - these are fairly high end coins where some care has been taken to age them. They would've fooled me, but they were probably out of my price range anyway.

    3. Everybody says "it it's too good to be true, it isn't true." I agree with this most of the time, but one of the reasons I hang around eBay so much is because of the exceptions. A Calabria, Tarentum nomos came my way in a $30 "buy it now" auction from a world coin dealer who doesn't deal many ancients:

    Tarentum Mar 30 2017 (4).JPG

    This sort of deal can be found if you can wade through gazillions of over-priced, if genuine auctions and lots of (mostly obvious) fakes. Personally, I like the hunt and I don't take the fakes personally - if I get mad, then I am not having fun, and I am here for the enjoyment.

    So I stick to lower-end, more common material. But this being said, there are lower-end fakes on eBay, and I have been fooled. Below are three from recent years. Here is how they got me:

    Gordian III Sestertius - I found this in the jewelry section; the seller made no claims for the condition, and I thought it looked nice, despite being in a bezel. I had handled very few 3rd century AEs at this point, and I bid. As soon as I took it out of the bezel, I could see the very wrong edge - filed-down seam, I think - this and the fact it weighed 10.5 grams led me to conclude it is fake - a rather nice cast, but fake.

    Maximinus Follis - This was a $1.99 "buy it now" with a blurry photo. I was quite inexperienced with late Roman bronzes, but I liked the looks of this one (great portrait). The fact it is corroded led me to believe that it was ancient. Nope. I believe this is a museum replica of some sort - it has that antique pewter thing going on. The corrosion might be where it was glued to a card? Even the corrosion was fake!

    Hadrian Sestertius: This one really fooled me - who would fake such a worn specimen? Well, somebody did. This one has an obvious casting seam (see close up photo) and weighs 14.4 grams. The seller is a reliable world coin guy who said in the auction he wasn't sure of authenticity - the other two coins in the lot were genuine LRB of Valens in pretty nice shape, so for what I paid it was still an okay deal.

    Fakes - 3 Roman AE 2017-2018 (0).jpg

    Fakes - 3 Roman AE 2017-2018 (6).JPG

    Fakes - 3 Roman AE 2017-2018 (7).JPG

    All three of these coins were for me very educational - and not very expensive. Some find the idea of any fake to be so off-putting that they avoid eBay altogether. I respect that. But I like the hunt (and the bargains) found there.
     
  10. chrsmat71

    chrsmat71 I LIKE TURTLES!

    Here are the two coins I posted above.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
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  11. Silverlock

    Silverlock Well-Known Member

    Thank you for marking the photos. I’ve read about cast coins but aside from one that had filed edges have never seen one offered for sale. Or so I thought. I would have completely missed the signs on those coins.

    eBay is a sad place. I have some expertise in certain non-coin categories, and report obvious misclassifications when I see them. In some subcategories every listing is misleading at best and outright fraud at worst. I’ve yet to see a single listing taken down, regardless of how absurdly false the seller’s claims are. Caveat emptor indeed.
     
    Gary R. Wilson likes this.
  12. well thank you all that was very informative and i learned something new today :happy:
     
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