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<p>[QUOTE="dougsmit, post: 3302195, member: 19463"]All this is just fine but we have to realize that there are many kinds of fakes and each require different considerations. </p><p><br /></p><p>If a coin is cast from a mold made from a real coin, the style will be just like the real coin so it will appear not only as a die duplicate but will also copy the centering, cracks, faults etc. A faker that knows his business can make the weight right. There is no reason to believe a coin made of good silver is safe especially if the coin being copied was from an issue that used poor silver. I have seen fakes of Pescennius Niger with much better silver than the best of his real coins. </p><p><br /></p><p>If a faker cuts new dies from scratch and strikes coins on well prepared blanks, the style will not be perfect. If he makes a copy die from a real coin and strikes fakes, none of them will have details missing from the original coin even if the flans he used had metal large enough to receive the details had they been on the die. </p><p><br /></p><p>If a faker uses real coins on which to strike his fakes (perhaps upgrading a Commodus to a Didius Julianus) the metal will be deceptive but if he melts down old modern silver coins, you might think it strange that his coins of the first century and of the third century look alike. </p><p><br /></p><p>If the faker strikes coin dies with a hammer, the coins will appear different than coins made by slowly pressing the dies together with a hydraulic press. Ancient people did not have hydraulic presses. </p><p><br /></p><p>We could go on and on listing mistakes that have caused is to recognize fakes. It is not a simple one variable question. I am fooled by more fakes than the guys who 'grade' ancients for NGC and have handled 10,000 times as many coins both good and bad. We can introduce beginners to the subject but we risk creating people who think they are safe when they have not even started on the study. All this is why we suggest buying coins from people whose honesty you trust and whose expertise you value over your own. We have to decide if the fear of a mistake on one in a thousand coins (or ten or ten thousand?) will keep us from enjoying the 999 good coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="dougsmit, post: 3302195, member: 19463"]All this is just fine but we have to realize that there are many kinds of fakes and each require different considerations. If a coin is cast from a mold made from a real coin, the style will be just like the real coin so it will appear not only as a die duplicate but will also copy the centering, cracks, faults etc. A faker that knows his business can make the weight right. There is no reason to believe a coin made of good silver is safe especially if the coin being copied was from an issue that used poor silver. I have seen fakes of Pescennius Niger with much better silver than the best of his real coins. If a faker cuts new dies from scratch and strikes coins on well prepared blanks, the style will not be perfect. If he makes a copy die from a real coin and strikes fakes, none of them will have details missing from the original coin even if the flans he used had metal large enough to receive the details had they been on the die. If a faker uses real coins on which to strike his fakes (perhaps upgrading a Commodus to a Didius Julianus) the metal will be deceptive but if he melts down old modern silver coins, you might think it strange that his coins of the first century and of the third century look alike. If the faker strikes coin dies with a hammer, the coins will appear different than coins made by slowly pressing the dies together with a hydraulic press. Ancient people did not have hydraulic presses. We could go on and on listing mistakes that have caused is to recognize fakes. It is not a simple one variable question. I am fooled by more fakes than the guys who 'grade' ancients for NGC and have handled 10,000 times as many coins both good and bad. We can introduce beginners to the subject but we risk creating people who think they are safe when they have not even started on the study. All this is why we suggest buying coins from people whose honesty you trust and whose expertise you value over your own. We have to decide if the fear of a mistake on one in a thousand coins (or ten or ten thousand?) will keep us from enjoying the 999 good coins.[/QUOTE]
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