New To Coin Collecting.... How Do You Know If The Are Real?

to the community

I think you did OK with this coin. It appears to be genuine. With that in mind there are many fakes out there. Before you buy anything you need to learn a little about these coins. There is a sticky section here about, Books, Downloads and Websites that you should go through. You will find tons of information and books that you can download and study.

This particular coin is very difficult to determine authenticity. "Black Sea Hoard" fakes are very common. They were made in the '90s, in order to fool experts and collectors. They were struck from fake dies and used Real silver. Acid testing would tell you nothing.

Wow Nathan, I never knew that! Care to expand (please!) on the things to look out for other than the obvious, wear & patina. I have seen quite a few struck copies on the later Roman stuff and am 90 percent confident I could spot a duff one but I am pretty new to this particular coin type as well and could certainly use a few pointers! I would, actually, run a coin of this type by you guys first but it's good info for everyone to be armed with.
I presume they would get the weight about right by simply measuring out the silver.

The way I did it is I treated every coin shop like a museum. Just be sure to patronize them with a minimum of $5-10 so that they respect you the next time you roll in. Also, strike up a conversation with your coin dealer. The more coins and paper you look at the better you become at discerning fakes from the genuine. It´s not easy at first, and even now the fakes are getting astonishingly good. The best fakes I´ve seen so far are the duck\mallard coins from Canada (recent).

If it came from a Notorious Fake Seller, then it's authenticity is on doubt.

Please do not test ancient coins for silver content, for two reasons: (a) if it is actually genuine, you've done damage to a unique ancient artifact, and (b) just because it's made of genuine silver does not mean the coin itself is genuine. Slavey and other fake-masters make fake coins out of real high-purity silver all the time.

If you're new to ancient coins, I'd strongly suggest staying away from ebay. There are far too many fake sellers on there. Find a genuine trusted guaranteed-for-eternity ancient coin dealer like Civitas or FORVM, or use a venue like VCoins where all the coins offered for sale are vetted.

If you post a clear picture of the edge of the coin we can see if there's a seam that would suggest it was cast.

I can't see a green camera option?

lol I think I need to try again!