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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Tejas, post: 4202763, member: 84905&quot;]I shall re-check the weight. My Chinese scales are not reliable. If I put a coin on it, the displayed weight usually adjusts for as long as I leave it on the scales. But then again, the piece is heavy with all the excess metal on the edge, and it is unusually thick as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for detectability, I think ancient forgeries were often passed on by mixing them into large payments, which could not be checked thoroughly on the spot. Gold was usually used to pay taxes and to pay soldiers, including barbarian auxiliaries and federates. Mixing a couple of these into a payment of say 3000 solidi for a unit of federate Gothic warriors may have been a nice little scheme to reduce the costs of their service. While they may not have been able to verify the authenticity of all the coins in the payment (and in fact may have liked the heavy ones most).</p><p>In fact, a lot of subaerate solidi have been found in Ukraine, where the Goths lived at the time.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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