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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 5143930, member: 19463&quot;]The entire thing is scary in more than one way.&nbsp; I am most certainly not a specialist in the area or sophisticated enough to believe that the coin was special enough to deserve conservation let alone the amount of effort that was done to it.&nbsp; Some one was a student of the type and wanted to make this scrap into a whole rarity.&nbsp; It bothers me that the faker knew enough to see an opportunity here but not enough to realize that adding the OL in the wrong place would give it away if it fell into the hands of someone who was aware of the type.&nbsp; Further, only someone who was a ware of the type would be interested in the coin in the first place and the value added by those wrong letters would be minimal to someone who recognized and wanted the item.&nbsp; How sure are you that what is left is solid and original rather than completely consisting of repair?&nbsp; Again, I emphasize that I am not one who would consider buying the coin as shown in the first picture for any price approaching what it would cost to do that work.&nbsp; Is it a &#039;final exam&#039; piece from a school for coin alteration?&nbsp; That seems less likely that that the whole thing is a fake constructed from scratch.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>This subject interests me because of a fake/alteration in my collection.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1207539[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>My Zenobia is obviously not original and all the obverse legend was created by tooling. The reverse style leads me to believe that the coin started out as a Flavian as (Vespasian or Titus) but I am not interested in playing with it to see if it breaks, as yours did, revealing that there was material added to the original as to give a place for tooling.&nbsp; I believe the intent of this fake was to simulate an Alexandrian tetradrachm ant the reverse that started as SC was modified to read the date LE.&nbsp; I would love to know if that was accomplished by pushing metal around or by adding some material as was done on your coin.&nbsp; I do not want to know badly enough to place the coin in acetone or go picking at the letters to see if they pop off.&nbsp; My coin would fool no one who had ever experienced a tetradrachm of Zenobia&#039;s time give or take a decade.&nbsp; The fabric is all wrong.&nbsp; That leaves the question that bothers me most.&nbsp; To fool whom was the item made in the first place.&nbsp; There are thousands of people with more money than sense who might be attracted to a coin of Zenobia for their &#039;one per ruler&#039; set and might buy the thing.&nbsp; I paid $12.50 knowing full well that the item was fishy from a dealer who listed it as exactly what it is.&nbsp; In the case of my coin and yours, it would be wonderful to know what larceny was in the mind of the perpetrator that made it and when this happened (I assume both are within the last 300 years or so; neither would have been done in ancient times to make something to be spent.)&nbsp; Seriously, how many people exist on the face of the earth that would recognize that the incomplete item as it is today (not accompanied by the shards around it) would be worth going through that much trouble to elevate the market value?&nbsp; Is there a demand for or an awareness of the Provincials of the Philip period that would drive such activity? </p><p><br /></p><p>This certainly is one possibility.&nbsp; There must be more.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;It was quite scary indeed <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie57" alt=":jawdrop:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />&quot;</p><p>You said it well.&nbsp; Thanks for sharing.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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