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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1722758, member: 19463&quot;]There are people out there who collect fakes on purpose.&nbsp; Admittedly most are made and traded to deceive but there are categories that become collectible to a certain degree in their own right. </p><p>[ATTACH]267313.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p>I don&#039;t have a striated electrum but my earliest plated (fourree) is this 1/3 siglos of the Persian Empire with the early style archer drawing bow.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]267314.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p>In the Renaissance period demand from collectors caused the production of rarities that just did not exist in quantities great enough so every rich collector could have one.&nbsp; Mine is later than that (late 1800&#039;s???) but still was made more to fill a hole than to deceive although I&#039;m sure some have been sold as genuine.&nbsp; It is the only way I will have a Divus Pertinax sestertius.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]267315.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p>This fake is not a fake or a coin but a token made by the Sterns bicycle company in Syracuse, NY, dated in Roman numerals 1898 copying the famous dekadrachm of Syracuse in Sicily.&nbsp; In 1898, many more people would have got the joke and recognized the Syracuse connection.&nbsp; I am told that these were given out to participants in bicycle races.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]267316.vB[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>99% of the Syracuse dekadrachms that we see are fakes.&nbsp; If you search the archives of Coin Talk you will find several different fakes posted by hopeful newbies who found the thing in grandpa&#039;s sock drawer and tell us he brought it back from the war.&nbsp; This one is new manufacture in the Czech Republic and sold struck in tin for about 8 euros and in silver for 107 euros (it weighs well over an ounce so part of this is melt).&nbsp; How well done you think this is will show how familiar you are with the real thing but this is 1/100 to 1/1000 the price of a real one depending on grade.&nbsp; I am not fooled by it but this is many times better than some of the fakes we are shown here and on eBay.&nbsp; Are these &#039;collectible&#039;? Perhaps they will be when they are the age of the Pertinax.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Fakes are fakes.&nbsp; Some fakes are more equal than others.&nbsp; Original Cavino medals of the late Renaissance sell for as much as the coins they copy.&nbsp; Original Beckers of 1800 can bring good money.&nbsp; I value my copy of the original card offering the Black Sea Hoard fakes by a major dealer back in 1989.&nbsp; The study of fakes is part of numismatics.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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