Good morning guys, I have the possibility to buy this Delos Didrachm. I know it's very rare and expensive, expecially in this quality. Do you think the coin is guenine or counterfeit ? I never seen a didrachm in this quality but everything is good : edge ans weight (9,62 gramms). Please help me It seems to beautiful to be real... Regards from France. Thierry Pruvost
The style looks wrong (childish, even), the fabric looks wrong (cast), "soapy" devices, etc. I'm no expert but would bet any amount of money on it being a modern fake.
@gsimonel Because Delos Didrachm are very rare and some other opinion are welcome. Nobody's perfect. Is there any problem if I ask some help ?
Do you need special license or education to be a professional numismatist? For all I know you establish a bussiness and you can call yourself professional numismatist.
Just to be clear. I never ask help for coins. But when a coin can possibly worth 30'000 or 50'000 dollars I have some doubts and it's natural. If there is any problem with the fact that I'm a coin dealer I leave the forum with no problem. When you look at international auctions, sometime you have lots that are withdraws because they are good fakes. But the numismatits didn't see it first.
Thierry: There is nothing to be gained by showing coins you doubt on CT. Most of us here are not experienced with $30,000 coins and others realize that you can never give a certain positive opinion from a photo. In too many cases commenting will just offend people. I'm done giving opinions on coin authenticity. Few listen to suggestions only to buy what you know and/or from people you trust. There are topics of value other than authenticity better suited for venues like Coin Talk. I hope you will feel like sharing your expertise on some of these with those of us who are not and will never be professional numismatists. I have an opinion about this coin and most coins but as a non professional who does not sell that opinion I have no reason to share opinions beyond whether I would buy the coin or not. This is a question for those who are interested in buying $30,000 coins or advising those who do.
Sorry if my question offended you. While there are some professionals who follow this group, along with some very learned non-professionals, most of us are just hobbyists. I was surprised that A) you, a professional numismatist, would ask a group of mostly hobbyists if a coin was fake or not, and B) that you would agree so readily that the coin was a "childish" fake after just one opinion for someone who admittedly is not an expert (although very knowledgeable). You have to understand that we often get questions like yours from unscrupulous dealers or counterfeiters who want to assess the likelihood of a known fake coin passing for legitimate. Fakes are one of the banes of this hobby, and most of us are very leery of providing any advice that might aid makers and/or sellers of fakes. I am sure that you share our reluctance to do so, too, so I hope you can understand why I asked the follow-up question.
The aesthetic style matches what I've assumed to be pressed fakes of a variety of rare Archaic silver, and the color, edge texture, metal/fabric and style of incuse reverse are the same as other coins sold by dealers of fakes in the UK, Spain, and Cyprus which all look like the same hand created them, though I don't know who's making them or where they're coming from. I can't analytically pin-down all the reasons, I just know that I immediately had images of all those other similar-looking fakes flash before my eyes when first viewing this example. That would be an awesome coin if it was real, but I'll join TIF in betting any amount that it is a modern fake.
As a professional numismatist, you know it is impossible to authenticate from photos. I recommend contacting the experts in that particular series and getting their first hand opinions. I’m sure there are several within a train ride of your location. The cost of a few train rides for a potentially $30-50K coin seems a sound investment.
Dealers and auction houses have the coins in hand and they do miss fakes and coin collectors are only seening the coins on pictures and they are able to see that these coins are fake and later even the dealer or auction house agrees and withdraws the coin. It is important that you have a good numismatic expert who is familiar with this issue if you want to have a realiable expertise and then it is not important if this expert has the coin in hand or if he sees the coin on a high quality high resolution picture. It is completely nonsense that it is not possible to authenticate coins from pictures! On high resolution pictures you can often see much better details than even with the normal magnification which most dealers and experts use. And pictures of the ege and weight, size, and die axis alloy should given, too. With a magnifier you can see only a part of the coin magnified on a picture you see the whole coin magnified and you can so even better compare the coin with other coins from the same dies on PC. It is well possible to condemn coins as fakes in pictures, cast fakes with twins if the host is know, modern die fake (sometimes even the dies are known), electrotype fakes, cast fakes, transfer die fakes ... And sometimes expert can have different or no opinion when it comes to one and the same coin. @ Thierry Pruvost You can look in museum collections if there are specimens form the same dies or die links to your coin ! Since when are coins from the same dies known? Is the style correct for issue, are more coins with same style from same artist know, artists generally made more than one die for the mint they were working. Is the fabric, struck or pressed? Is the alloy correct for issue? Are this coins struck at a specivic die axis? IS the weight ok for issue? Is the flan shape correct? And so on I can not tell with 100% certainty if it is a 100% die match to this fakes sold by fake sellers on ebay recently but I think it is a die match, some differences can be explained by striking and from different die state. http://coinvac.crabdance.com/26679/...oxes/0/search_title/on/period/all/period/all/ http://coinvac.crabdance.com/214705...oxes/0/search_title/on/period/all/period/all/ http://coinvac.crabdance.com/209662...oxes/0/search_title/on/period/all/period/all/ http://coinvac.crabdance.com/207765...oxes/0/search_title/on/period/all/period/all/ I do not like the coin and I would be very surprised if it would turn out to be authentic.
@Thierry Pruvost : sorry to say but this coin is definitely a fake, probably bulgarian. You can see here some other examples for sale: https://www.etsy.com/listing/179039...-greek-euboic-didrachm?show_sold_out_detail=1 https://www.cafr.ebay.ca/itm/Ancien...p-Lyre-Incubus-Didrachm-Cyclades/202393079092 As TIF said, you can tell from the appearance that something is wrong about it... @all: I really can't get why this forum is so unfriendly...
