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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;TIF, post: 3218627, member: 56859&quot;]Like Nemo, I want to know the source of this because that can be very helpful.&nbsp; You said you bought it from a reputable dealer who guarantees authenticity so that is good.&nbsp; Perhaps our concerns are baseless.</p><p><br /></p><p>Like Sev, this coin makes me uncomfortable.&nbsp; Julius Caesar elephant denarii are plentiful, as are fakes.&nbsp; The elephant style has a great range and it is difficult for me to condemn the coin based on style alone.&nbsp; However, even though there is a tremendous range of elephant style, this one has some characteristics which raise questions.&nbsp; The elephant&#039;s head and how the head joins the neck is more like the most crude style of elephant (see coin below) but the body is of a different style.&nbsp; The very sharp straight &quot;wrinkle lines&quot; on the legs don&#039;t look quite right, especially given the wear on the rest of the coin.&nbsp; Also on the OP coin the elephant&#039;s trunk is only slightly higher than the eyes.&nbsp; I scanned through hundreds of these coins in archives and <strike>didn&#039;t find any with the trunk held that low.</strike> found only a couple with this trunk position (maybe this isn&#039;t important).</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://www.cointalk.com/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cointalk.com%2Fproxy.php%3Fimage%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fstatic.wixstatic.com%252Fmedia%252Fae43f8_2ebd7632d54445859792ca9a7c8e584d.jpg_srb_p_800_414_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_jpg_srb%26hash%3Dcbe5e4b95a7efed3d46cb8faaf166146&amp;hash=fb4555fba2f650359327c9a27d23d868" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>The lettering of CAESAR looks off too.&nbsp; Perhaps it is from wear but some of the letters have serifs and some don&#039;t.&nbsp; Perhaps there is similar inconsistency found in genuine coins... I don&#039;t know.</p><p><br /></p><p>The fabric of the OP coin looks off too.&nbsp; It is oddly lumpy.&nbsp; The patina looks odd as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>I didn&#039;t see any matches, either cast matches or die matches of pressed fakes, in the usual archives.</p><p><br /></p><p>I could very well be wrong about each and every suspicion raised but knowing that this type of coin is widely faked is and given the wide range of styles, it is good to have a higher degree of suspicion for the type.&nbsp; This is a coin that should be looked at in hand by an experienced numismatist.&nbsp; Perhaps the dealer who sold it to you is such a person.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s the OP coin joined for ease of viewing, and with the reverse orientation corrected:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]837457[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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