Fake?

Any one by itself I could accept as poorly struck but the group togheter all show the same odd look and striking issues with lettering looking just plain odd. While I would be fooled by one, the group stikes me as most likely modern copies made with copy dies. I would not buy them.

if I give 100 dollars they are mine so I would buy 3 or 4

i didnt saw doug's comment so I am right that something its wrong with them?

These are coins that may be good but there are oddities in the high points of some legends and raised dots in the reverse field of Domitian that I just don't like. The fact that several coins have the same overall look but should come from a range of time periods makes me wonder if they were produced together rather than just found together. I can not convince myself that the coins are good so I would simply spend my money elsewhere. I am not in the business of selling expert advice so I am not required to produce a definite opinion. The coins are not obviously enough genuine that I would buy them.

In the first post was the statement:
"Seems to me that the all coins are fake but...i am 99% sure so what you think?"

I am not as much as 99% sure that they are fake but neither am I even 50% sure they are real. If the coins were something special that I might feel like taking a risk on, I would want to be more than a 50% feeling. These are rather ordinary coins of types that can be found elsewhere so my action would be to use my money elsewhere. I would not accuse the seller of selling fakes; I just would not buy them. I do admit I would like to know what a better 'expert' than I am would have to say about the coins. Perhaps it would be more obvious one way or the other if I saw the coins in person but the proper course would be to show them to someone who is more aware of the current stat of affairs in fake manufacture.

I know nothing about the political and legal status of coin ownership in Bulgaria. Is it possible to show such coins to museum experts or would that open the coins to being confiscated? The authors of a book on "Cast Forgeries of Classical Coins from Bulgaria" by Ilya Prokopov and Eugeni Paunov might seem a place to ask but I do not know their policies on such inquiries.
http://sp-p.net/authors.htm

I am no expert but I do know that I would not buy this lot. The Gordian III is the one that concerns me most.

The Osca coin is very soft, indicating a copy.

Dougsmit: You have noted most of my thoughts and feelings on these, and have put them more eloquently than I would have.

That is why I have been a bit cagey so far on what I have posted in this thread.

With these sorts of coins, I ALWAYS want to examine them in hand before deciding to buy. If I have an uneasy feeling about them, the gut feeling says: 'DON'T'.

I always check for silver crystallisation, which simply cannot exist on a newly made fakes less than 100 years old. The problem with crystallisation is it is often hard to find. I check the edges very closely with a loupe, looking inside any edge cracks for metal distress, and for signs of metal flow across the surface.

I now have a small digital scales, but I don't know how sensitive they are to being carried in the pocket. I also like to check the VCOINS and WILDWINDS Sites for comparative styles and pricing.

All of this goes into my decision to buy. Even then, I like to buy from people I know.

I came across a set of about 20 Rhodian didrachms a couple of years ago, that I could not fault, a coin show. The price was only slightly below what I would have expected. They did not have much patination on them, all were in about VF. The seller said they were part of a hoard, recently discovered in Bulgaria. From what I remember of them, the original dies were all slightly different.

I was just not happy with them.
In that case, the same reaction:
The gut feeling said 'DON'T'.

I only saw that seller once. Never again.

dougsmit: You CAN run with the big dogs, but you need the professional services of a dealer who knows his stuff to do it.

The VERY first ancient Greek coin I bought was a gold stater of Philip 11 of Macedon, way back in 1978. This is one of the most commonly faked of all ancient Greek coins. I still have it.

At the time, I knew virtually nothing about Greek coins. 15 years were to elapse before I considered to have accumulated enough knowledge and confidence on Greek coins to make a purchase decision of my own volition.

The dealer I bought it from?

Spinks in London, through Noble Numismatics in Australia.
I still have ALL of the documentation and polaroid photographs to prove it. THEY will be sold with the coin, if I ever have the need to sell it.

I have not seen any matches to other coins in any of the fakes databases that I am aware of, which is always my starting point.

Stylistically thay all look good.

The surfaces are very worrying. They have a common, matt, almost satin finish to them, which is something we see on pressed fakes.

The conclusion is that these are pressed fakes made from modern transfer dies, which were created from real coins.

Martin