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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1014220, member: 19463&quot;]Randy&#039;s Mesembria bronze is the same style as the silver from that city but everyone needs to be especially careful buying the silver since there are many more modern fakes of this coin than there are real ones.&nbsp; About 20 years ago, the fakes hit the market amid great controversy including some rather high end experts swearing they were good.&nbsp; After the dust settled a lot of dealers had egg on their face and the coins were proven bad.&nbsp; Today we still see the fakes coming to market from people who may not have been around the first time.&nbsp; The coins were called the &#039;Black Sea Hoard&#039;.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>My photo shows a silver weighing 1.0g (a bit light for a diobol and a bit heavy for a trihemiobol).&nbsp; It is fake because the dies are included in the several sets that produced the fakes.&nbsp; No coin in the hoard was die linked to a coin known before the hoard was found.&nbsp; The best characteristic to look for is that the helmet should have eye slits but most of the fakes show a bit too much shaping to the slits like they were eyes rather than slits.&nbsp; I&#039;d like to show you a certainly good one but I only have two and am less than 100% certain of either (although they are not included in the known bad dies).&nbsp; I strongly suggest no one buy one of these little silver coins except from a dealer that is both very knowledgeable and who offers a lifetime guarantee.&nbsp; The bronze ones are probably good.&nbsp; Do note that the correct reading of the reverse legend is META not MESA.&nbsp; The same hoard contained fakes of Apollonia Pontika but I don&#039;t own one.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.ancients.info/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/3005" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.ancients.info/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/3005" rel="nofollow">http://www.ancients.info/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/3005</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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