Hi all! I recently posted the thread about the new Katz auction, and how it was littered with fakes. Amongst the ones I posted were three identical antoninianii of Probus To me, they would look genuine, aside from the fact that they are know reproductions - and pretty good ones. After posting that thread, I remembered I had a coin similar to that, which I bought on eBay waaay back in mid 2019 (from a reputable London dealer with a physical coin store I might add) in a small lot of 8 coins. Alas, upon checking my coin, it appears it is another one of these fakes (sorry for my terrible editing) It's not a big deal, since the whole lot of coins was £8, and I've since sold the other seven coins from the lot for a profit. I guess this one just slipped through the net I am surprised at the wide range of 'patinas' these coins have. The ones from Katz look like 'regular', 'silvered' and 'partially cleaned with deposits', and my coin's patina is (now I come to think of it) suspiciously dark, and covered with hard green deposits. I'll keep my coin, but write 'MODERN FAKE' in big red writing on the holder, since it is still an interesting coin. I will just put this down to experience, and be glad it was only a cheap antoninianus of Probus, and not one of my Marius or Vabalathus coins lol
I seem to recall these being flooded onto the market back in 2009. I created a montage of several examples for sale from a single seller with the die linkages that I could spot. These dies were used in a fairly free form manner with dies used between different emperors and mints to create a bizarre set of fakes. Sorry but it is quite a large image but worth a look if one is interested.
