I bought the coin pictured below at a coin show in Buffalo, NY about 40 years ago for the princely sum of $50.00. Did I get "Buffaloed" on this one? CoinTalk members please critique this coin. It was alleged to be a Tet from Alexandria, Egypt, struck in the reign of Nero, circa AD 67-68. The diameter is 25 mm, weight 12.90 gm. The color is a dark brown, appearing to have little or no silver content, & it has a few tiny spots of corrosion.There is no indication of casting on the edge of the coin, but the inscriptions appear to be blundered. I've only seen one coin remotely similar to mine pictured in the WildWinds web site as RPC 5296, dated Year 13, 25 mm, 12.93 gm. See their photos below mine. All comments welcome .
The top coin looks a bit soft to me. I had someone gift me a fake tet of Nero about 40 years ago with the common eagle reverse (they thought it was a scarce and valuable coin). I'm not sure why folks have decided to pass off fakes of these coins when apparently they were struck in huge numbers.
That's a hard one to judge, the things I notice is the lack of detail on the ship like no ores man, no port holes for rowers and whales don't look right also Nero's nose looks different overall I would be worried about it. Mine below for comparison.
Ocatarinetabellatchitchix, Many thanks for the great detective work ! It looks like you answered Doug's question too. My gut feeling after owning the coin for a while was it's a barbarous fake & your info confirms that. The example posted by Ancient Aussie looks very much like the WildWinds example except for the color. His example also appears to have little or no silver. Could it be a better quality ancient fake than my example ?
