Some Fakes Can Be Very Expensive

I have to agree with IdesOfMarch and jamesicus about the use of bold and italic for the body of messages. It's just as off-putting and abrasive as reading a message typed entirely in capital letters.

Perhaps in personal emails it is fine because the message is probably not surrounded by other fonts, but on a forum such as this it jumps out and is visually disruptive. I feel it is better to use the intended font weight, style, and size for the bodies of messages, reserving other weights, fonts, styles, and colors for special uses such as headings.

As for the collectibility of modern fakes, some have their own place in history and their own appeal. Here's a Robert Ready electrotype I enjoy having:


KYRENAIKA, Kyrene
modern copy by electrotypist Robert Ready
host coin, c. 410-400 BCE, acquired by the British Museum in 1872
AR "tetradrachm", 27 mm, 16.64 gm
Obv: Bearded head of Zeus-Ammon, wearing tainia with uraeus-like ornament at forehead, facing slightly left within laurel wreath
Rev: silphium plant; K V P A N A (split between fields, retrograde K)
Edge: initials R R
Ref: BMC 77 (host coin); B.V. Head. A guide to the principal coins of the Greeks, from circ. 700 B.C. to A.D. 270. London. 1965 pl. 20, 61 (host coin); host coin BM accession number 1872,0709.361; B.V. Head. A Guide to the Select Greek and Roman Coins Exhibited in Electrotype, London. 1880. Period III C #44.

 

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Perhaps you are correct. It was a Rosa (Sayles, Classical Deception page 182 number 321). It may have been one Rosa added to his Beckers.

In the time I have been participating on CT and before that on Coin Community, I have seen more than one of the Pescennius Niger I showed and the matching Pertinax. We get increasing numbers of people with money to spend and no inclination to learn. In every case the coins had been 'aged' making a beat up $100 item out of a coin that would be many times that in mint state but also many times more suspicious to most people. Slavey only fools people who want to believe at this point. After a few more years, who knows? My Pertinax is toning nicely but there is nothing to help the style or fabric which are just plain old wrong. Maybe it would sell better if put in a slab type holder of no particular brand (any plastic is better than none???).

 

Wow, some wonderful, though provoking comments!

I wonder how Daniel Carr will be perceived, say 200 yrs from now?

 

My father suspected "recent" fakes in ancient coins and never had any. He passed this fear on to me. I once asked a very knowledgeable ancient collector about it. His advice was "If it looks too good, then it's probably fake" . This was not very encouraging.

If they remelt old metal and cut their own dies. How could you tell?

 

Personally, I see no big problems in a collector having a Paduan or a Becker in their collection as long as they "true", if he has not been fooled. Nor do I see no harm in an electrotype “plugging a hole” in the collection that will never be filled unless you are a wealthy Chinese businessman or a sheikh of oil. But for forgeries, I only collect the old ones that actually circulated (e.g. Fourrées), although I have seen some paradoxical responses from members who condemn fourrées, but accept to have a Paduan in the collection. It is a matter of taste and opinion. I personally would not spend my money on copies, even if they have their numismatic value (I have them as medals, not coins), but I respect whoever does them. Maybe, I even paid for that Pacatian antoninianus, made by Becker, struck in a real denarius of Antoninus Pius, as Doug Smith showed a few days ago.

 

The following photograph of a bronze copy of the famous ten aurei multiple (RIC VOLUME VI, TREVERI, No. 34), the original of which presently resides in the museum at Arras, commemorates the restoration of Britain to the Roman Empire by Constantius in 296. It depicts the personification of Londinium (LON) kneeling and supplicating to Constantius (on horseback) outside of the City Fortification while a galley with Roman soldiers waits on the river Thames. The inscription REDDITOR LVCIS AETERNAE proclaims Constantius as the restorer of the eternal light (of Rome). The Treveri (Trier) mint mark (PTR) is in the exergue.


FL VAL CONSTANTIVS NOBIL CAES ............. REDDITOR LVCIS AETERNAE
LON (right) PTR (exergue)

Bastien records the original (unique) coin as No. 218 in his book on the Arras Hoard and mentions that galvano copies were made and sold by the Paris coin dealer Bourgey. At a weight of 23.0 grams I think the copy depicted here was cast in bronze from one of those galvano copies. There appears to be numerous other copies in circulation in a variety of metals - brass/bronze, silver, gold, gilded copper, etc.

 

CNG listed a gilt cast copy for sale a number of years ago - the original is described as a medal, although it is in fact a ten aurei multiple coin (RIC VOLUME VI, TREVERI, No. 34), and the listing erroneously includes "..... the now lost medal from the Arras Hoard, discovered in 1922". The coin was never lost.

 

His advice was wrong and I think you're giving whoever this is far too much credit calling him a "very knowledgeable" ancient collector. The fact that an ancient coin looks good is not a reason to doubt it. There are plenty of beautiful coins out there

Like anything else, you study the coins well enough to spot inconsistencies in fabric(the physical characteristics of the coin) and the actual engraving style of the dies, along with the telltale signs of various types of fakes. This takes time and practice and handling plenty of good coins so that you can develop this skill so a big part of avoiding fakes is buying from people who have spent sometimes decades professionally selling and studying these coins and not from "ancient coins 4 u" who setup shop on eBay a month ago offering way better prices than those other guys.

Honestly, it's not something that can be explained in a paragraph or two on CoinTalk, just as I can't tell you in a paragraph or two how to figure out if you can safely eat the mushroom you found growing behind your house earlier. I might be able to tell you if a particular mushroom is safe based on a picture but even then maybe not, it might require a spore pattern to tell. The best I can do is tell you that when I cook beef Wellingtons on Christmas I pay my grocer to figure out if the mushrooms are safe or not.

 

Andres2, This Naxos tetradrachm SCREAMS fake. Attached below are photos of an interesting creation by Slavey Petrov I bought long ago. This is a tribute coin not meant to fool anyone. It's a style copy of the famous tetradrachm of Tenedos, c. 160 BC, however, this coin is struck in pure gold & weighs 20 gm. As you can see Petrov indeed has artistic talent despite all the baggage he carries. There is a micro inscription on the reverse at 10:00 o'clock, just inside the wreath.

 

Two nice looking coins. Obviously the tetradrachm is way underweight, which is common for Becker fakes.

 

Mr. Kowsky, this is more negative feedback.

 

This is a very interesting thread! When does an imitation become a fake?
Once I asked a question about a coin in a different numismatic forum, and I immediately got an answer from a very knowledgable and helpful member saying it was a fake. However, I looked it up at the British Museum and there I found under the museum reference B.12967 (one can see it here:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?museumno=B.12967
the following description:
Copper alloy medal; Renaissance invention of a Roman coin type.
Obverse: Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Lucius Verus, right;
Reverse: Quadriga rushing left. School / style Paduan, Giovanni da Cavino, 16th century or later.
Curator's comments: There are no Roman coins of this type, but the reverse image is similar to those on Syracusan decadrachms.
Bibliography: Klawans 1977 2, p.99, Klawans 1977 5, p.96

in this case the BM doesn't refer to it as a fake, but as an invention.

I like my "replica" (or whatever one can call it) of the BM very much. It has a nice quadriga and a nice patina. Is it a fake? Well, I really don't care, I just like it

 

Bravo! That is the spirit.

 

OK, the negative feedbackers win...

 

Thank you for conforming. Conformity is always good! What's the worst that could happen?



Anyway, here is a cast fake I have which I think probably may not have any value to it. I can't even figure out who made it, nor how long ago, but if I had to guess I'd say probably a few decades old at least.

 

That's a pretty good fake despite not showing any trace of silver. You have to wonder why anyone would fake such a common coin...

 

Some months ago I labelled this denarius as a fake and set it apart, because of its low weight 2.92 g and also because there have been fakes reported for this type. One more reason was that it was bought in Ephesus by a dear friend of my father, who gave it to him as a present. So I thought that his friend may not have known what he was buying.
Today I was looking at coins and found this denarius, 3.08 g quite low also, at https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=76234

Now, I am not sure anymore. Maybe there is some very slight probability (1 % ?) that mine is not a fake ? what do you think?
Obverse: DIVA FAVSTINA, draped bust of Faustina right, hair waved and coiled on top of head
Reverse: AV GV STA, Fortuna, veiled, standing left, holding patera in extended right hand and long ruder set on globe in left
16 x 17 mm, 2.92 g

 

cmezner, I wouldn't declare a coin fake on low weight alone, however, the overall appearance of your denarius triggers suspicion. The pitted surface, low weight, & indistinct features indicate it could be a cast fake made from an original denarius. Why not send it to NGC for certification?

 

Thank you very much Al for your input.

It would make sense if I would be doing something with the coin, but it will be sleeping in its coin flip as it has been for the last 20 years. What difference would it make if the label doesn't say fake ? I am just trying to organize and attribute my late dad's collection. I enjoy very much doing this and learned a lot, not only of coins but also about history. He did not have the time left to attribute his coins, some are labeled and attributed by him, but most of them are not. This particular coin just has a note saying that it was a gift from his friend who had been in Ephesus. Knowing my dad, it is kind of a warning: I did not buy it, I don't know if it is real...

I also tried to find this denarius type at the British Museum but they don't list it and the attribution given at acsearch RIC 72, 372 is not in numismatics.org. The attribution BMC 63, 447 (acsearch) is for an aureus, maybe this denarius type had never been struck.

Chris