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Message:: [QUOTE="Terence Cheesman, post: 3576816, member: 86498"]I have been collecting ancient coins since 1972 and have owned at one time or another something like 3800 coins. Most have come  reputable dealers with perhaps 100-200 coming from EBay and perhaps 20-30 from dealers who did not specialize in ancients. Less than 10 from these two sources would be classified as being expensive (over $200). Out of the rest I have been hit with 4 fakes. One from a V Coins dealer, the second from an auction house the other two at a coin dealer. In all three cases my money was returned promptly, and in one case ,the auction house, they contacted me  about the problem.  I began my collection dealing with reputable people and when I would get the coin, I would study it carefully looking for features that would tell me that this coin was genuine. Over the years i have figured out a number of "tells" that would help me identify perhaps the easiest fake to spot a cast copy.  When EBay came on line and the problems with forgeries began to surface, I developed a strategy to protect myself from fakes. When ever I saw a coin that i liked from a dealer that i never had dealt with before I studied the rest of his coins as well as the material he had sold in his feedback section. If I saw anything I did not like eg. an obvious fake or tooled coin or that his feed backs consisted of mostly cheap novels, I did not buy the coin and looked elsewhere. Currently if I am buying a very expensive coin (above $2000) I tend not to purchase such a coin unless I can study it "in the flesh" or have somebody whom I trust look at it for me. This policy helps protect me from forgeries as well as other unwelcome problems.  A little bit of due diligence  can do a lot to protect you from problem coins. Despite all the modern advances the best defense is the good old MK 1 eyeball and a good lens[/QUOTE]

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