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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 673533, member: 19463&quot;]<b>Owls, a primer</b></p><p><br /></p><p>Certainly this is 100% fake. Lets just run through a few points about these coins. Athens issued owls for many years with a number of distinct styles and the things were the trade coin of the day so millions were made. They were cranked out at a furious pace and still did not meet the worldwide demand so there are contemporary copies made in other places (and we do not know all the details of these mints) not to mention ancient fakes (sometimes plated rather than solid silver). </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Collectors of the real thing pay extra (irrationally so to some of our minds) for coins that show most or all of the helmet crest. This fake has a spread flan that you never see on a real coin and if you did, the thing would go for $10,000 at a minimum. Personally, I&#039;d rather lose the crest than to have the nose cut or crowded on the other edge but I&#039;m not the guy that sets market trends. You can get a nice owl with little crest for $1000. Under that price we start getting faulted coins. That could be a crowded nose, ugly style (perhaps one of those branch mints rather than Athens) or, most commonly, test cuts. In the day, a tetradrachm was expected to contain full weight of fine silver. Crooks produced coins with silver wrapped over a copper core making a half dozen coins out of the silver needed for one good one. Money changers tested coins to be certain there was not something wrong. This test was usually a knife cut which would expose the core of the &#039;fourree&#039; (French term for &#039;stuffed&#039; coins). </p><p><img src="http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/image/111730899.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The above coin was first tested with a delicate cut just left of the owl&#039;s tail. It was inconclusive and the tester was still suspicious so he whacked it harder across the body revealing copper below. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Athens went through some hard times near the end of the Pellaponesian Wars and even the government issued some plated coins. These sell for really big bucks and 99% of collector dealers owning plated owls like to think their coin is from that &#039;Emergency&#039;. 99.9% for them are wrong. A coin has to be precisely one style to be &#039;Emergency&#039; and the number of people who think they can tell them is much larger than those who really can. There are even people that believe the whole Emergency issue story is an old wives tale but that is another story. Don&#039;t buy a plated coin unless you are interested in contemporary counterfeits.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>After the &#039;Emergency&#039;, Athens continued to produce owls but the style was becoming more modern. Recalling the old day when people made plated fakes, even more of the 4th century coins got cut. Some testers were better at cutting than others. I selected this one because it is such a fine example of a test cut that found the coin was solid silver.</p><p><img src="http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/image/112633508.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>svessien says you can get one for $350 and I&#039;ll not dispute this but suspect this price will only get you a pretty nice coin with a cut or a dog without. </p><p><img src="http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/image/115516789.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>The last owls of Athens changed to what they call &#039;New Style&#039; and look very different from the classical coins. They are perfectly genuine (fakes do exist) but come from an era long after Athens was a major world power so demand for them is lower. These bear names of magistrates so you have a chance of dating them if someone comes up with the date they worked. Otherwize, owls are dated by style with the earliest being super expensive. Owls also were made in other denominations but the 16-17g. tetradrachms are most common and most popular. You should not buy anything smaller than an obol (.7g) because that is what I want and I don&#039;t need the competition. Below is an obol from an earlier period whch makes it worth as much as a tetradrachm in similar condition. </p><p><img src="http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/image/91787700.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Bottom line: If you are buying a commonly faked coin from a questionable source at a price 1/10 what a real one should go for, chances are you are buying a fake. I&#039;ll never understand why we have so much trouble understanding that. Generally, you get what you pay for --- or less.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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