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Message:: [QUOTE="gsimonel, post: 4006016, member: 82549"]Plated coins are called fourees. There were usually contemporaneous counterfeits. I don't think your Gordian III coin is a fouree. I think it's an official issue, a double denarius, usually called an antoninianus by modern collectors. By the time your coin was minted the amount of silver in them had dropped to around 25-30%. That's why some dealers who don't specialize in ancients assume that they are plated. I once had a customer write me an angry message stating that a dealer had assayed the silver in the Elagabalus denarius that I'd sold him and told him that, since it was only around 30% silver, it was obviously a fake. Fortunately, we got things sorted out. He ended up keeping the coin and learning a bit about the history of Roman coins in the process. The card said that your coin cost $30. Is that what you paid for it? If so, I think you paid a fair price, especially for the NYINC, where prices tend to be pretty high. So it probably worked to your advantage that the dealer assumed the coin was plated.[/QUOTE]