Forgery: Parthian Teradrachm Of Gotarzes II, E**y

Just to warn my fellow members that if you see this coin in your browsing of that site "whose name begins with the letter e and ends with the letter y" do not bid on it, even if you are tipsy.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...111004603429

It is imitating a Tetradrachm of king Gotarzes II, and thus a forgery.

See here:


I made the mistake of bidding and winning it last week.


It arrived on Saturday.
Instinctively I went to weigh it.
It weighed at 8.59 grams. Heavy?
Not enough.
A real Tetradrachm of king Gotarzes II should weigh around 14 grams.

Also silver is not orange in colour, i.e. the base metal core is showing on the surface of both sides and has even corroded because of verdigris.

The coin has a square indent on the reverse, in the centre.
This seems to be quite old and not a fresh cut.
It may have been done to test the coin to see if it was real or just to mark that it was a forgery.

Forgeries of Parthian Tetradrachms were made during the period of their empire.
A base metal copy was made, such as bronze, then plated with silver.

Now, I had no intention of keeping a forgery, not at the price of £40.
Since in his listing it stated that Returns were accepted, I told the seller I would send it back by Special Delivery on the following Monday and forward him the tracking number, which I did.
Did he reply? No.

Three working days after receiving the forged coin I was well within my rights to open a Buyer Protection case, since checking to see if the package had been signed for, it had not, it seemed that the seller was shirking responsibility.
However yesterday I checked my e**y messages to see a reply from him, all cordial, that he had refunded me, so I checked my P*yP*l account to see he had refunded me in full.

Case closed?

No, he has relisted the coin, without any improvement to the old listing information, most important of all, not stating that it is a forgery.

I reported it to that site "whose name begins with the letter e and ends with the letter y" and yet it is still open for bids.