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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 941542, member: 19463&quot;]L is some coin.&nbsp; It is such a great coin that there was demand for them as far back as the Renaissance when great artists like Giovanni Cavino in Padua, Italy, made copies of them to meet the need.&nbsp; His normal profession was the making of medals and originals of his work are worth money.&nbsp; In the late 1800&#039;s a catalog of his works was released based on the dies that still existed.&nbsp; This coin is not one of them (but coin C is!).&nbsp; The status of coins like L is not certain.&nbsp; The style is wrong to be ancient and the workmanship is closer to the &#039;Paduan&#039; than other known counterfeits.&nbsp; It is unlikely that Cavino was the only 1500&#039;s Italian artist meeting the demand for such items or that others did not continue producing such items in later centuries.&nbsp; Most seen are casts rather than struck and the current sale value of such items depends on how obviously the coin is a cast made later.&nbsp; Coin C is a low grade product; L is better.&nbsp; I found great interest in the following entry on acsearch:</p><p><a href="http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=126749" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=126749" rel="nofollow">http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=126749</a></p><p>This item sold for $5750 on an estimate of $750.&nbsp; The important line in the description is: &quot; Although this coin has an extensive pedigree, our opinion is that this is a Renaissance era copy, not an ancient sestertius.&quot;&nbsp; It would appear that two bidders disagreed with CNG and backed up their opinion with $5000.&nbsp;&nbsp; My coin L is not in any way questionably ancient (and I agree with CNG that the one they sold was Renaissance).&nbsp; The question here is whether there is a value to fake ancient coins based on their being 100 to 500 years old?&nbsp; Cavino and other artists of the period made their copies not to deceive but to meet the demand for those who appreciated antiquity.&nbsp; They did them in the then current style and sold them openly as replicas (as today do some copiests like Slavei [coin E] and Antiquanova).&nbsp; Somewhere along the way, some of these works have crossed the line and been sold as &#039;real&#039; ancients.&nbsp;&nbsp; Do they belong in your collection?&nbsp; That is the question this post asked in the first place.&nbsp; At least don&#039;t pay $5750 until you think you know enough to back that move.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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