I’ve been looking for a certain coin for a while now. I won’t give specifics because are only three available across VCoins and MA-Shops, and the specific coin really doesn’t matter for this discussion anyway. There are 10 examples of this coin on Wildwinds, all seemingly from the same die pair. There are 9 examples on FakeCoinReports, all seemingly from the same dies as Wildwinds. There are 12 examples sold or offered for sale on auction the past year, all the same dies as the fakes and Wildwinds. Now to the conundrum. The three examples on offer on VCoins and MA-Shops are not of that die pair, and none of three are from the same obverse or reverse dies either. The three dealers aren’t the big names who define what we consider authentic, but they are well-established dealers with no history of problems that I can find. The coins all look fine in the pictures, with nothing to raise suspicion that they aren’t real. Except all three are new and unique die pairs. Have you ever been faced with this situation? Would you buy under these circumstances?
It seems the series you are interested in is heavily faked. I will not buy bronze coins of Greek Sicily without inspecting them personally. I have seen many fakes in the trays and catalogs of dealers, including fakes that are mold-mates to an example published by Wayne Sayles in Classical Deception. Consider waiting for a slabbed example or one with an older provenance. Consider buying in person after inspecting under 15x loupe. If there are three examples on VCoins and MA-Shops the coin is not a once-in-a-generation rarity and you can probably wait for an example that you will be more comfortable with.
Interesting coin-nundrum (sorry, couldn't resist). Are there any other resource you could leverage (friends, dealers or CT buddies that specialize in the type that you could PM?) Have you notified wild winds? Seems like they ought to know if all their examples are bogus or at least are listed as such. I'm still very much in the process of tuning my eyes in what to look for with fakes and would be very interested in seeing said coin if you pull the trigger. So, if you do please share.
We say it over and over again. There is a major difference between not being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a coin is fake and knowing with reasonable certainty that a coin is genuine. You have enough evidence to suggest care is needed. The careful answer is to buy something else and let the adventuresome among us buy the possible fakes. We each make enough mistakes by accident without doing things we know are not likely to turn out well. The fact that you feel the need to ask us here if you might be making a mistake is a pretty good sign that you know the answer. There are really four states of genuine. First is genuine and last is fake. In the middle are the coins we can't condemn with certainty but do not feel good enough about to risk the purchase. These are relatively safe because we walk away losing only the opportunity to own a doubted coin we don't really want considering the doubt that will always hag over it including when we decide to sell it. I walk away from a lot of coins and know some are probably genuine but I want to feel good and feel better not owning the coin. The other class is where we really have wanted it to be real but deep down we know better. These are the most dangerous because we will soon learn that we fooled ourselves and should have known better. Then we not only have a fake but we should have a desire to kick ourselves for not knowing better. 1. I know it is real. 2. I think it is real and see no reason to doubt it. 3. I doubt it is real but want it to be. 4. I know it is fake. I have a small enough budget that I prefer to buy class #1.
If you own the reference for that series, how does the coin you are looking at compare to the plated coin?
I came here looking for encouragement to buy, and instead got wisdom. Thanks a lot! Kidding aside, I do appreciate the thoughtful response. You’ve talked me off the ledge. @Ed Snible All three coins are all in Europe, so I have no way to examine them short of buying one. But even in hand I would never be certain. CNG had one last year, but bidding rose above my level. There shall be others, as you say. @Ocatarinetabellatchitchix Two of three dealers offer explicit lifetime guarantees, the third is implied by VCoins. I treat bad buys as expensive learning experiences; I’ve only returned one coin in a long collecting career. @Ryro I believe most/all of the coins on Wildwind are authentic, since some of them came from sources such as CNG. The fakers copied the same die pair because that’s all they had to go on. @dougsmit I don’t know if any or all of the three coins are fakes, but I have reason to doubt authenticity. Which puts them somewhere hovering near 3 on your scale. So yea, not a smart buy. It helps to quantify the doubt. I’ve only purchased two coins for my collection this year, and got excited the drought may be over. Back to doing the coin dances... @physics-fan3-14.19165 Your post reminded me to check a source I forgot, and I found a second die pair in the British Museum collection. But just my luck it matches none of the three coins on offer. My plan at this point is to reach out to the dealers and see what more info I can glean from them. I might try to work something out with a willing dealer along the following: I will buy the coin and send it off for opinions from other pairs of eyes, with the understanding that if they aren’t 100% sure I’ll return it and the dealer will get useful information for their trouble. Or I might just return to my other collections for collecting gratification this year...
