A friend of mine is asking what info I can come up with on this coin. So i bring it here to the pros. Thanks for your time.
Images edited for ease of viewing: Caveat: I am not an expert in the Athens tetradrachms. That said, I see no obvious signs that it is a modern forgery but the blurry images could obscure signs of it being a cast fake. It does not match any known fakes in two databases I checked, although that is not definitive. These tetradrachms of Athens were issued over centuries and a collector could make a career out of specializing in these coins. Determining the date and precise attribution involves looking closely at many subtle style differences (decorations on Athena's helmet, her eye shape, owl style, etc). I haven't had the patience or desire to delve into these. Assuming it is authentic, the attribution is something like this: ATTICA, Athens AR tetradrachm, 454-404 BCE Obverse: Helmeted head of Athena right Reverse: Owl standing right, head facing; olive sprig and crescent behind; all within incuse square I don't know enough about the type to narrow an attribution reference, but it is one of the "classical" emissions, ~454-404 BCE. There are gobs of these on the market but they remain very popular and therefore relatively expensive. Often they have deep gashes or "test cuts", which generally lowers the price. This one doesn't have any test cuts, so that helps with price. When more of Athena's crest is visible, the price goes up. Her nose being partly off flan will keep the price down a bit. For price estimates you will need considerably more knowledge about the type in order to compare to various archives, but in case you are interested you can scan the thousands of examples in CNG's archives (that's just one auction house, so you can imagine how many other examples of the type exist), ACsearch (but as of today you have to pay a membership fee to see prices), currently for-sale examples on retail conglomerate Vcoins, and examples coming up for auction (Numisbids link). Note that the pages I linked for all of these was merely for the search terms "Athens tetradrachm" so a large number of hits are for other styles of tetradrachms.
Looks like TIF has nailed everything I could say. Looks authentic to me. Price wise, perhaps in the upper three figures would be my guess.
I think that's a fair guess for retail or perhaps even a bit more. Selling to a dealer would of course bring ~half of the retail amount.
I agree with TIF and Bing !! It certainly looks authentic and I could see it pushing the high three figures for retail as well.
Most collectors are not good with coin values, so I will toss in my opinion as a dealer. Athens tetradrachms are honestly all over the board when it comes to price, but generally the value is affected by condition (yours is good), surfaces (yours is good) and centering (yours is fairly good). The only detriment I can see with this is the portrait is a bit crowded at the edge of the flan, and that is what makes it a $750 coin rather than a $1,500 coin.
