Well, electrum anyway. Here's my coin, which even made my top 15 from last year: Lesbos, Mytilene EL Hekte. Circa 454-427 BCE. Diademed head of youthful river-god(?) right, small horn over forehead / Bearded head of old river-god (or Dionysus?) to right in archaic style, within a linear square border. 10.5mm, 2.55g. And here's the example I came across at Forum: The flans don't match well enough for them to be casts. Is this just a double die match (including die rust), with almost exactly the same wear? Or could they be products of a transfer die? I nervously await your opinions.
I'm not sure but would bet that they're both authentic and struck from the same dies. Is that unusual for these electrums? Probably not, but I don't have Bodenstedt and don't know the estimated number of dies for various types, or whether Bodenstedt even estimates that information. Have you checked archives for other examples of this type? Maybe you'll find more from this die pair.
The flans don't match, so they're not casts. Double die matches aren't all that unusual, particularly in a hoard discovery.
Looks like Bodenstedt gives die pairings and there are other dies of this type (youthful head / bearded head) and archives examples of multiple coins struck from the same pairs (but different pairs from your coin). This is reassuring
OK, I am breathing easier... it was the nearly exact match for wear and "dings" that bothered me. Now I think the "dings" are not dings, but simply features of the die. I'll be checking out those CNG group lots for us, thanks so much, @TIF!
Listen, I had the same panic last year over this coin... I found die matches for the obverse with other coins, which made me panic, but some research showed that the dies for this issue were limited. Fortunately a limited amount of dies means that the different dies are well documented by scholarly research, and my dies, font and rear, were among those known for the issue. Die matches are not unheard of, especially for issues that were minted in relatively limited numbers. You should expect to find die matches more frequently for issues with only 50 or 60 pairs of known dies as opposed to more mass produced issues with hundreds of dies. Once I discovered that bit of info and that the dies for my coin were well researched as being among the genuine issues, I stopped panicking. Not that I should have anyway, as my coin has a pedigree over 50 years old and has seen the hands of some well known and reputable dealers of years past. To further ease your mind, here is another which I've found die matches for obverse and reverse. With a short minting period, and relatively small quantities, those of us who own these coins know and expect to find die matches for them. In fact, I'd worry if I had one with unknown dies as that would be a bad sign. So no my friend, so not worry. Finding an obverse or reverse die match is not unheard of, even in more common coins. Remember, each die struck hundreds, if not thousands, of coins before it was so worn out that it was discarded. Most ancient coins in existence today should have a die match in existence here or there. That's nothing to worry about. As long as there not a perfect match to another coin (which no hand struck authentic coin will be), no need to panic.
I'm suspicious. I would post to Forvm. I'd like to hear what Din X and djmacdo have to say. I can't imagine the wear being that similar.
Posting it to Forvm sounds like a good idea. A hasty check of ACsearch using search terms "bodenstedt 52" gave 650 hits, mostly other types, but scanning for reverse matches yielded a dozen coins. There may be more in mixed lots which didn't show both sides. The reverse figure on your coin has a two distinctive long locks of hair in back. Not all of the Bodenstedt 52 coins have the long-in-back hair. I used that feature to quickly scan for matches. I haven't scrutinized them further, particularly the obverses, but at a glance some of the obverses are from a different die. There are some duplicates in the results pictured below which I failed to notice when making the composite. SevAlex's coin is top left and the Forvm coin is to the right of it. Most have similiar degrees of wear. I'm not expert enough to know if any conclusions can be drawn from this. The oldest example shown below was from a 2002 G&M auction. Most were from 2015-2017.
OK, I will post on Forum, hopefully I'll get a chance to do so later in the week. @TIF, do you mind if I use your image, maybe with the two duplicates removed? A lot of hektes of this era and region have come to market in the last few years. I wonder if similar questions have arisen for any other types... Thanks, everyone!
Let me do some work on it to make it easier to digest. I'll remove the duplicates and add the auction house and year of sale.
Wow, thank you!! I'm truly humbled by your generosity. With all my friends here to help, it won't seem so bad if this turns out to be a fake.
I hope you’ll get some more clarity on further questioning and share it with us here, Sev. It’s really interesting (and of course disconcerting) to have so many coins all exhibiting the same amount of wear if the wear we’re not on the dies themselves.
