Roman Coin Authenticity How do experts confirm the authenticity of questionable ancient coins? Most of these old coins are relatively simple and crude. Metallurgy, tool marks?
the first step is probably appearance. Experts have seen many examples, so by nature they have also seen many counterfeits... knowing what to spot is probably top of the list. then you have weight and size - although this is probably difficult with ancient coins which were clipped, as common practice, in trade. So I imagine a lot of it is just plain experience.
In Numismatics, Knowledge is King The coins are not simple and crude. Go to www.coinarchives.com or www.wildwinds.com and look around. By analogy, go to a furniture store, and look at the "Early American" furniture, then look at the furniture in a museum such as Greenfield Village or Historic Jamestown. You cannot just knock out a replica. Your work will be "simple and crude" by comparison. Modern replicas are made by modern people with modern social contexts and therefore with modern "minds." Their work simply does not look ancient. When you look at an ancient Roman or Greek coin with a magnifying glass, you appreciate the skill of the workman in achieving these masterpieces. Roman coins are character studies. The answer is to see enough of them. Beyond that, it takes some practice, a little or a lot. Fakes just do not look real. Some are well-done. Modern machine tool technology can reproduce believable copies. If you start with reputable dealers, for instance, the advertisers in The Celator, or the merchants in VCOINS (www.vcoins.com), you can rely on their judgment to build your own. There are several good books, including the series on ancients by Wayne Sayles, and the Klawans/Bressett book on ancients. Kraay and Jenkins both edited large "picture books" of ancient coins. The Celator is the magazine for collectors of ancients. (www.celator.com is the website and my review can be found at http://www.coin-newbies.com/articles/celator.html)
Ancient coins tend to be remarkably uniform, all things considered. Archimedes wrote a book called "The Sand Reckoner." A grain of sand is a pretty exacting unit. Ancient coins were generally not clipped in trade. Medieval coins were.
I don't mind being corrected, but I don't think that's right - of course, I know you know more than me, so I am confused... I pulled a few things off the internet, researching the point: clipping Deliberate shearing or shaving from the edge of gold and silver coins. Was quite common from the Byzantine to the Colonial eras, so much so that many authorities employed edge devices in order to discourage this practice. _________ To illuminate the severity of the criminal act of inflation and coin-clipping, here is the law from the Roman Empire, in 343 A.D.: "All solidi on which appears our face (imago) and which have the same degree of veneration must be valued and sold at the same price, although the size of the image may vary. For a solidus that is extended with a greater appearance of the Emperor's face is not worth a greater price, nor must one that is compressed with a smaller image be supposed to be of a less value, when the weight is the same. But if anyone should do otherwise, he shall be capitally punished or be delivered to the flames or subjected to some other fatal punishment. That person also shall suffer this penalty who clips off a portion of the outer edge so that he diminishes the amount of the weight or who, when selling money, substitutes a debased counterfeit for a stamped solidus." Source: Law of February 18, 343 A.D., CTh IX. 22. 1, Pharr translation. Emperor Constantius II (337-361) to the Praetorian Prefect Leontius. See discussion in P. Grierson, "The Roman Law of Counterfeiting," in ERCHM, pp. 248-61. I didn't site my sources, which is bad form... but I just cut and pasted a couple items.
Recursive Education Apparently not. I did not know about the law of Constantine that you cited. I was thinking only of ancient Greek, and Roman Republican and early Imperial times, the "classical" era before the military anarchy of the mid-200s after Severus Alexander. Before there was a law stating that a coin had such and such a value, coins were valued by weight. So, there was no advantage to clipping. I printed off your post above and put it in a folder with other off-prints and xeroxes on ancient numismatics. You are in there with Jenkins and Mattingly. Thanks! Michael
My wife has what would appear to be a Roman coin of the Augustus period. She has taken it to two local coin dealers and each indicated that the coin was "real". Being skeptical of things that may be nearly 2,000 years old, I still have doubts. I may have to scan it and let you folks see it for yourselves. I believe that I have observed some of you discussing "slabbing" coins, or something like that. Then there is apparently some form of certification. Please tell me more about this. QD
To the best of my knowledge only one of the top 4 grading companies will authenticate ancients - ICG. You can read more about them - HERE
The Roman Coin I stand corrected. I believe that my wife's mystery coin was from the Vespasian period. I believe that the flip-side shows an unfortunate Jew in bondage. I have no idea about the little coins.
We've one or two around here, they just don't visit every day. Give it a day or so and you'll likely get an answer
