Underweight Old German Thaler (Saxe-Alt-Weimar)

@albert

thanks for the detail responses and the sample picture. Looking through a loupe the irregular surface of the field becomes more apparent. The silvery area seems to be above the darker troughs in the field and while there are no blobs at all, I think the troughs I see are the pits you describe. On the reverse, no bumpiness of the silver-colored areas as with the obverse, although I find it very strange that not the entire surface is silver colored. Pockets of dull, earthy-grey are interspersed with the silver. I don't know if toning on such old coins happens this way, but my personal thoughts are that it is indeed silvering on some sort of base metal, perhaps brass? Now that I think of it, I have a 1780 1/2 Thaler of Maria Theresia and it exhibits the same sort of dull brassy color with trace silver! My god.... I think I can expect the worst now can't i?

@paulCT

thanks for your observations too. I'm not acquainted with the visual differences between corroded and better cast surfaces, since cast surfaces to my mind exhibit prominent blobs and clearly porous surfaces, which in my case aren't present as far as I can tell. So it is safe to say that in no circumstance should I expect such a weight deviation of an early german thaler?

Now I'm in need of another form of advice. How can I possibly persuade/argue with a seller who has a no-return policy to refund me? He says all coins are 100% guaranteed genuine, but as it stands now this coin very likely isn't. Will the seller have the upper hand since he is a long time dealer with only 1 negative( not on grounds of genuineness) among over 10k positive feedback?

Strangely, someone on another forum opines that the toning is nothing to be concerned about and that the trace reeding is a sign of mount removal which speaks for its authenticity, but I'm wondering what could possibly be stopping counterfeiters from doing exactly this to fool people. It wouldn't be difficult after all.

If you bought this on ebay, I understand the ebay return policy for this type of item is routinely forced on the seller regardless of the seller's stated policy. The coin is significantly underweight -- that should be a good enough explanation for you believing it is not genuine. In the future, I recommend you request an accurate weight from sellers before bidding/buying.

sg93 Ask for a refund,open a case against him stating that the coin is not genuine!If the seller accepts the return or not is irrelevant as you'll 100% get your money back,sooner or later!Ebay always backs the buyer, I know that from experience.You can contact customer service for more details if you think it's necessary.I would not rely on someone's flawless feedback because some dealers do sell fakes from time to time so you should always ask for coin's parameters before buying!Weight aside , I don't think you should purchase a coin with that obv. surface ,especially when the item is not rare at all!Coming back to your question I have to say that I'm not aware of any German thaler type that has a 2-3 grams weight variations !
I have a 1-1/2 1655 taler that's 2.5 grams underweight( 40.6 instead of 41.5- 43)and was very concerned until I had it checked by Kunker!

I have seen some really deceiving fakes of European large silver coins.
This is not one of them.

For a cast forgery your coin has certainly achieved some interesting tone. It certainly looks like a cast based on details and the fact that it's really underweight does not help, but I can't say it's a cast with a high degree of certainty just yet. Modern casts wouldn't really look like your example and I'm not convinced this is a contemporary circulating counterfeit. Can you post some better images, especially of the reverse. So you are saying this coin weights 25g? Have you tried performing an SG test? Where did you acquire this piece, and how much did you pay for it?

It's important to remember that thalers were struck to a very exacting standard, much more so than you might expect for coins minted 200-400 years ago.

Unless the coin is severely worn or heavily damaged, the weight should almost always be close to standard.

ok, that does it for me then. I can confidently hold these two thalers for not genuine. I had already had my suspicions about the first one i'd got but had decided to trust the seller given his 8000+ reviews back then. I'll probably stay away from such coins for a long time... thanks everybody for your advice, much appreciated.

ok, i'd typed a long response but I get this message that I'm sending something prohibited, no idea if it's my naming that popular China website that sells counterfeits. But the gist of my message is that I've seen counterfeits with this exact toning, sadly only after my purchase, but the finer details differ somewhat. The legends are flatter and wider on the originals, which mine exhibits.

The seller has also replied, saying that it is due to a smaller than usual flan and corrosion on the obverse that the weight is lacking. Then this begs the questions: what is the average size and the usual size range of Thalers from this principality? IIRC for the whole of 16th and 17th century Germany and Austria it ranges from 40 to 45mm, and mine measure exactly 40mm, except one is lighter than the other.

Also, how much in weight could corrosion of superficial nature possibly remove? It hardly looks as severe as the seller implies.