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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 8056536, member: 128351&quot;]I have had for many years, probably for 40 years, this nice small silver coin:</p><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><p>[ATTACH=full]1395904[/ATTACH]</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p>AR 11-12 mm, 2.63 g</p><p>Obv.: janiform head, left bearded, right unbearded, in circle of dots</p><p>Rev.: goat walking right</p><p><br /></p><p>I do not remember how much I paid for this but I am sure it was not much because I am an old miser. Unfortunately, somebody later told me it was a fake, a double die-match with 3 coins published in the <i>Bulletin on Counterfeits</i> of the International Association of Professional Numismatists. The only difference was that my coin was much heavier : 2.63 g, the 3 fakes being 1 g or less. These silver coins were declared fakes because they were obverse die-matches with a bizarre gold coin Bank Leu experts declared a fake in the 1950s : on the obverse the janiform head, on the reverse a triple bearded head. OK... But this gold coin put in Bank Leu&#039;s forgery trays &quot;as a curiosity&quot; is a double die-match with a silver coin of Paris BNF, from the Henry Seyrig collection! And from 2003 to 2021 four other small silver coins, from the same obverse die, have been auctioned by well-reputed houses, all with weights of c. 1 g.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1395921[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>There are other coins, one in the ANS collection, others in trade, with the same types Janiform head / Triple bearded head, but from other dies. Are they authentic? I don&#039;t know. But I have never seen the association Janiform head / goat walking r., like on my coin, in any public collection, any catalogue or auction. The only reference for them is the <i>Bulletin on Counterfeits</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>It seems that, in the first place, these coins were declared forgeries just because they obverse die matched with the unique gold coin that seemed so bizarre (&quot;a curiosity&quot;, they said) to the Bank Leu experts in the 1950s. They could not know, at that time, that the association Janiform head / triple bearded head existed in silver, for it was only published in 1986 (SNG Levante 201-202), and that their gold coin was a double die-match with a silver one in Seyrig&#039;s collection that went later to the BNF.</p><p><br /></p><p>To sum up : is the janiform / goat coin a very rare coin, or a fake, or even a fantasy coin that does not even pretend to imitate authentic ones?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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