This Coin Can Be A Decadrachm Electrum! Fake Or Real?

Thank you for showing pictures, particularly of the edge.

I have never heard of an electrum decadrachm in this series. I do not recall seeing anything in the numismatic literature in this series as regards gold being used in the alloy of Syracusan decadrachms.

8 ct gold used in the alloy should go a long way in helping to protect against corrosion, and so I find it difficult to understand why one should see corrosion to the extent shown in these pictures.

The edge pictures show evidence of tooling to remove a circumferential casting fin. I can understand your reason for letting us comment in this area. The file marks show no evidence of corrosion at all.

I agree that pitting indicates bubbles characteristic of low pressure casting.

a silver decadrachm from Syracuse has a weight of 10 (deka) drachms = about 42 gr and and 37 mm .
The gold hemistater of AU decadrachm weights about 4 gr and is 16 mm . albert
.http://www.coinarchives.com/a/resul...&results=100


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Certainly keep this piece. If it is solid 8ct gold and not plated, it should have a little over $300 in gold value.

If it is gold plated, it has only educational value in learning how to identify fake coins. That is OK. I have quite an extensive collection of fake ancient coins, the existence of which is to educate myself on them, for my own protection.


If it had been very thin plated many decades ago, the purity of the plating will decline over that period.
I had a .925 silver coin plated 40 years ago and it appears to be a lot paler gold color than when I originally had it plated.
I was told the the reason for this, is that at the interface boundary of the substrate silver and the gold plating, a cross migration of gold and silver atoms has taken place, and so with very thin plating, some of the silver atoms have made the gold plating look paler than when it was originally plated.
The same sort of natural process may be happening with this piece also.

Hi Ow3qa,

If not too late you should return it to the person you bought it from.

If you cannot do that and you are certain it is electrum, then get someone to melt it down. There will be one less fake coin in the world and you will have precious metal you can hold onto or use for something e.g. jewellery.

The coin you bought is one of the most commonly faked coins. Fake coins are what scares people away from this hobby.

However if you have an interest in collecting ancient coins, stick around, and you'll learn about how to safely buy ancient coins from reliable places.
Hope to see you here again.

Peter

That's a good point where decent coin dealers / collectors are concerned.
However fakes which are not marked as fakes or copies always have the potential of re-entering the market which is not a good thing.

Fakes turn people away from this hobby and regrettably major auction sites act like bystanders and let it happen even when known sellers of fakes are reported to them.

Of course! I've never seen a fake sold as authentic marked as such lol!

But I've seen coins sold as "reproductions" and not marked so.
Then you have coins identified as fakes, kept in someone's possession and if not clearly labelled as fakes can easily make their way back into the market place one day.

Interesting conversation. With apologies to Ow3qa (the OP), whose thread is in danger of being hijacked:

In printmaking there is a tradition of the "cancellation proof." When a printmaker has finished his or her edition of prints from a matrix - typically a metal etching or engraving plate - he or she mars the surface of the plate with an "X" or other scratches, then prints the final proof, documenting the end of the series. The idea is that the marred surface precludes future reuse. (It's a historical practice that today's tech can work around, of course - via photomechanical processes). A Degas cancellation proof of an engraving here:


Why don't keepers of black cabinets simply scratch (deeply) "FAKE" onto the surface of their coins? Granted the scratches could be smoothed away, but that might be more effort than potential resellers of the fakes might be willing to put forth in the future. And the smoothing they'd have to do would perhaps be evident and off-putting for potential future buyers.

"FAKE" on the surface would not mar a coin so much that it loses its educational value. The coin's features would still be evident to use for spotting similar fakes.

Just a thought.