65 years ago puts it at 1952. Italy had the same antiquities laws back then as it does today: anything found in the ground, that is more than 50 years old, belongs to the State and the State has the right to annex it, unilaterally. Found items have to be handed over and examined by a certified expert and be declared fit for export before you are allowed to take them out of the country, and there is no way in the world that the Italian government would allow the export of a genuine Syracuse Euainetos decadrachm; I believe there are only a few dozen genuine coins of this type known, and most of them are not in Italy anymore.
So if it were a genuine coin, it would have been a valuable antiquity illegally dug up and smuggled out of Italy. Your friend should be thankful their coin has been confirmed as a fake, because if it were genuine, Interpol might have been knocking on their door soon.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Posted 03/23/2017 10:42 pm
