Trajan Virtus Denarius

@bid, first welcome to CCF. Second, you will see that I've changed your thread from a poll to a regular thread as this is more in line with a typical post. Folks will weigh in with their opinions about this coin and fake vs. real. Perhaps you can help by adding the diameter and weight. Thx.

Based on the pics only, looks OK to me.
A careful check of the edge with a 10X loupe should confirm.

Pity about your two LCS's

It looks fine, although it's not really possible to say something is genuine from a photo. The metal looks ok, the weight is right, as you can tell by looking your coin up on this website http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2.tr.355. The design is correct but if this was a fake it would be cast from a real coin, so you'd expect the design to be right. If it was cast, there might be signs of a seam around the edge, or file marks where someone tried to hide it. There would also likely be a specific type of pitting in the surface.

ebay isn't such a terrible place to buy ancient coins. You can get some good deals you wouldn't get at VCoins. (Many VCoins dealers are also on ebay anyway). But you want to at least have gotten familiar with the type so you can tell if a coin doesn't look quite right (and so don't buy it). Some of the fakes are laughable when you know what you're looking at. You also wouldn't buy anything that you can buy at VCoins for a similar price. (If it's a lot cheaper, then there is less risk, but there might be a reason it is so cheap).

Don't buy from anyone claiming a coin is 'unresearched' (unless it truly is hard to tell what it is), or from a 'house clearance' or from an estate, or left to them by their grandparents, or found in an attic. Ignore authenticity certificates unless they are from a grading company like NGC. Anyone who goes on about authenticity ('these are genuine') is probably doing so to falsely reassure you. Most auctions of expensive coins starting from zero are fakes - if you bought a coin for $500, you don't want to risk someone getting it for $50.

Look at who is selling the coin. If they are from Bulgaria, or Cyprus, be very cautious. Check the coin doesn't 'ship from' a different country to the one the seller claims to come from. If they have any feedback at all that mentions 'fake' then do not buy from them (although 100% feedback doesn't mean they are good, since sellers can have feedback deleted). Look at the other coins the seller has - some might be more obvious fakes, so do not buy anything from them. Check the ebay fake seller lists for sellers who are known to sell fakes and do not buy from them:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/b...opic=18502.0
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/fakesellers.html

Three image resources, with which to compare the style against OP's coin:-
1. Wildwinds: Trajan denarius
2. Google Images: Trajan denarius
3. Vcoins ancient: Trajan denarius

To all posting, an open question: It looks like the coin started at $1 and sold for $172. It had three bidders up to over $150. My question is am I missing something? Why did it sell for so much?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/195544160808

Oh and my opinion, the coin is quite real. So it is a great coin but that is a price I would think was high but others might say this is a rare variant perhaps. To me it is a shocking price.

@bid, it looks to me like this specific ebay seller has been mentioned three times in prior threads. Overall, the opinions expressed about ancient_treasures were mostly positive, but here are the links so you can read for yourself:

http://goccf.com/t/258197
http://goccf.com/t/149793
http://goccf.com/t/175368