The second in my Thanksgiving "If the tryptophan doesn't put them to sleep my posts will" series... "Is it real?" is the most common question on forums. It's a bad question. Not because most of the time the question can be answered by learning to identify fakes (lots of resources online, including my own attempt at an exhaustive list of criteria) and by only purchasing from reputable dealers. It isn't a bad question because it takes time away from talking about real coins. It isn't even a bad question because talking about fakes is boring (it is). "Is it real?" is a bad question because it isn't the right question. We speak of coins being Real or Fake, as if those were the only two options. Actually, every coin lies along a continuum from Almost Certainly Real to Suspect to Absolutely Positively Certifiably Fake. Some coins are certainly ancient. Coins from an archaeological dig with an intact soil profile and no subsequent finder shinanagans, for example. Others are certainly modern, such as those from the coin operated stamping machines in museum gift shops. Most coins are somewhere in the middle. The continuum from Real to Suspect to Fake looks something like this: Category 1 - Real Found by archaeologist in archaeological dig Found by poacher at archaeological site (please do NOT do this or support those who do!) Category 2 Passed through multiple expert hands (ex. Harlan Berk coin auctioned by CNG resold by Forvm) Standard reference work authors (books, articles, websites, etc) Standard reference work plate coins Recognized expert in his/her area of expertise Prominent museum collections Prominent individual collections Metal detector finds from appropriate strata Category 3 Implicitly authenticating dealers/auction houses/individuals (Forvm, CNG, many others) Implicitly authenticating services: NGC slab / David Sear certificate / Harlan Berk sticker (?) Category 4 Other VCoins dealers (not covered above) Other MA-Shops dealers (not covered above) Respected eBay sellers Serious ancient coin collectors (not covered above) Category 5 Knowledgeable individuals' opinions based on photos Respected modern coin dealers Respected antiquities dealers Category 6 Other coin dealers (not covered above) eBay sellers - ancient coins focus (not covered above) Category 7 NFSL member offerings (sometimes not all are fakes) Kid outside the Colleseum eBay sellers - other (not covered above) "Inherited from grandpa", pried out of piece of jewelry, etc. Category 8 Museum replicas Toronto Forger matches Bulgarian School matches Match to coin in fake reports Fantasy coins Renaissance pieces (collectible in their own right, but not ancient) British museum electrotypes from 1800s Coins failing fake tests Notes: 1. Categories 1 through 3 include entities who, for all intents and purposes, define what the community considers Real, in that the majority of collectors will treat their opinions as fact. 2. Contemporaneous counterfeits (fourrees) are included with official issues for purposes of this discussion. Most people draw the Suspect line somewhere between Category 4 and Category 7. I personally draw it between 4 and 5. I have no coins from Category 1, a few from Category 2, and the rest of my collection is from Category 3 and 4. I can't be bothered with Category 5 or below coins. I'm not proposing we use these categories, but hopefully they're helpful in highlighting the importance of provenance, and in recognizing that one person's Real may be another person's Suspect or even Fake.
