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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ab initio, post: 2538449, member: 80317&quot;]This Trikka hemidrachm used to be one of my favourites and I am glad it went to a good home! What is interesting about it is that it has been &quot;tested&quot; in ancient times (see the small gouge on the obverse and the &quot;attempted piercing&quot; on the reverse) but found to be &quot;good&quot;. Trikka hemidrachms were extensively forged at the time, I have seen (and also owned) a large number of plated coins from this mint, some struck from crude, &quot;home made&quot; dies but most looking quite credible from the stylistic point of view. The ancient Thessalians must have been really good in detecting fakes that looked perfectly genuine (except perhaps for the weight, but nobody was carrying electronic scales under his chiton these days) because many of these coins had their silver coating intact even when they reached us. The only way to confirm that they were bad was to give them a chop mark and if the proper chisel and hammer was not available at the time, a gouge or an attempted piercing would be perfectly adequate. Another, very interesting fact connected with Trikka hemidrachms is that some of the genuine ones have come down to us countermarked with a small K which signifies KALON (&quot;good&quot; in ancient Greek). This tiny countermark appears always on the edge of the field on the obverse, as if the tester did not want to disfigure the coin type. Forgeries of these coins must have been really a serious problem, hence this countermarking from some central authority or &quot;banker&quot;.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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