Decadrachm - Authentic? Fake?

'Style' is the art of the die used to strike coins. 'Fabric' is the sum of technical details that make up everything else about the way our coins were made. These are mostly details of planchet preparation that have left artifacts on the final product. More:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/do.../fabric.html

In the earliest years of the 1800's a young German Karl Becker bought a fake gold coin of Commodus from a shady noble collector. When he discovered that he had been cheated, he went to the seller who told him that that was what you get for meddling in something you don't understand. In the day, collecting ancient coins was largely reserved for the aristocracy and a commoner showing interest in the hobby was 'social climbing'. Becker took it as a personal challenge, taught himself die engraving and produced a large variety of very deceptive fake ancients which he sold as genuine to aristocrats and museums that knew less about the subject than he did. His dies were used to strike reproductions for many years after his death and copied by later fakers including Peter Rosa into the 20th century. Original Becker fakes are worth something approaching the cost of the coins they copied (or more). Most fakes don't have the pedigree or the quality of Beckers but they have been in constant production since years before 1800 (remember Becker got started because he was cheated by a fake coin).

The modern country (kingdom) called Greece was not founded until after Becker had been making fakes for 25 years. I would love to be able to suggest your coin might have been a Becker used to defraud a Greek noble but his fakes are much better than this one. Unfortunately cheating people who should not be dabbling in something they don't understand is an attitude not restricted to the Baron who cheated Becker. That is why I say that anyone new to ancient coins should buy from a trusted source. I am not terribly proud of my attitude on the matter but I do believe that anyone who buys a $10,000 coin like this dekadrachm without either a trusted dealer or a lot more expertise than I have deserves what he gets. I have to wonder if any fakes have made their way into my collection without my knowledge (I have a few that I bought as fakes so they don't count).

Unfortunately this is not a good photo, but there are many similarities between the OP coin and this one.

Found at Dr. Ilya Prokopov's Fake Ancient Coin Reports. I would put a link but I can't ever get Forvms links to work....?

Wow! I'd like to thank all of you!
Doucet, thank you for the photo! What does OP stand for?
dougsmit, I really enjoyed reading the story, thank you!

By the looks of the fabric of the genuine coin, there appears to be a casting sprue on opposite ends of the diameter. This is normally the case with the genuine coins of this famous type.

That being the case, it is very probable as dougsmit has suggested in his notes, that the blanks for the genuine coins have perhaps been cast in horizontal shallow, interconnected stone cup shaped pits, in a horizontal stone slab.

Taking this line a little further, I would speculate that some sort of pre counterweighted balance may have been used, that would easily and accurately gauge the amount of molten silver that would have been poured into each mold. The moulds would have been interconnected across their diameter as the remains of the casting sprues suggest.

The blanks would have been struck hot, immediately after initial solidification.

There does not appear to be any evidence of casting sprues in the pictures that Red_Drop has kindly provided.

Perhaps it might be worth explaining what the word "fabric' has to do with ancient coins, or any other coin, for that matter.

Obviously, it has nothing to do with textiles.

I once had a car, and on the tire was marked:
"Fabrique en Angleterre" - translated means "Made in England".

Often, we are not exactly sure how a particular type of ancient coin was made.

Nevertheless, if a fake of that coin was made from a different method of manufacture (fabrication), that method will betray the coin to be a fake if you know what to look for.

In the case of the subject coin in this discussion, the fake was revealed by the lack of the remains of casting sprues at opposite ends of the diameter.

Hey all,

I've recently obtained this coin that corresponds to the same coin shown in this forum. Although it is highly rusted, I would like to know if it could be an authentic coin or if it's just a fake copy.

Best regards,

Thank you for your answer Medieval.

Yes, it's true that is not the same than in this thread. It makes sense that it is from Sicily since I got it in Cartage, Tunis, which is pretty close to Sicily (and there were lot of trading between Sicily and Cartage).

The coin weights 20.34g and it has a diameter of approximately 3cm.

Does it help? What else would you need to have a better idea of the authenticity?

Cheers,

Nicolas

to the community

Sorry to say but your piece is not a real coin. A genuine Dekadrachm weighs in at little over 43 grams, and is made of silver. It would be well struck in high relief, and well defined, not like this piece. What you have is most likely a tourist piece and not very old at all.