Lucilla Denarius, Fake?

I haven't checked any of the fake reports, but from what I can see it looks OK.

Well, you raise great points, Belisario. There are no guarantees, of course. A struck fake of good style, with convincing wear and patina (or in this case, tone), can fool anyone. It's clear you already know what to look for and you're being vigilant. That's all any of us can do. But even the best goalies let some slip by.

Just to share a quick story: In 2012 I won a lot (an Osroes I Parthian drachm) from one of the world's major auction houses...I won't name them here. I had no hesitation at the time about the coin's authenticity. I trusted the auction house's numismatists. More than that, frankly, I trusted my own experience with Parthian coins; I've handled many, many hundreds of them over the twenty or so years that I've collected them, and I've regularly assisted several VCoins dealers who I know well with Parthian attributions and questions of authenticity regarding these coins.

At the beginning of this year (almost three years after the auction), I discovered the Osroes was a fake - a coin from the same dies had been published in the Bulletin on Counterfeits back in 1994. It was sheer stupidity on my part that I didn't vet the coin more thoroughly prior to bidding. After the discovery I was in a bit of a panic since this was a rather expensive coin, and I was well past the firm's stated grace period for returns based on challenges to authenticity. To their great credit, the auction house did fully refund my payment after I presented them with the "evidence" (side by side pics of my coin and the image from the Bulletin). I was thoroughly impressed with them (I did not really expect them to refund my money this late in the game); they would have been within their rights, I believe, to deny my request for a refund.

That coin was absolutely convincing to me. Stylistically it was fine. Tone was good. It was clearly struck, not cast. Weight was right. So was the die axis. Etc., etc. I am hopeful my collection contains no other fakes, but I will never know for certain, unfortunately. Perhaps this is why I rarely sleep well at night?

Btw, I know you checked ForgeryNetwork. Fyi, I checked Forum's Fake Coins Reports and don't see a match there either, which is a good sign.

Welcome to CCF!

Irbguy,

Well, to be clear, the auction house - like me - was initially unaware that the coin was a fake. When, three years later, I brought it to their attention, they did not dispute the fact (to their credit). They were totally professional and I was impressed.

As to your second question (about being certain that the coin was indeed a modern forgery) I guess I cannot be entirely sure, but the fact that it was published in the "Bulletin on Counterfeits" as a fake, and that a noted expert (Dr. Alan Walker, who currently serves as senior numismatist for Nomos AG in Switzerland) was the one condemning it, was enough to at least raise doubts for me. And, in good conscience, I would not have been able to sell it (when the time comes) without full disclosure to a potential buyer. which would have made resale difficult, to say the least.

As to the third question: you bet. If the auction house were to relist the coin, knowing what they now know (that it was condemned as fake in a noted periodical), of course I'd lose respect for them - and I'd likely raise a fuss about it here and over at Forum. But, like I said, I've been really impressed with the way they handled the matter.

As Wayne Sayles states in "Classical Deception," "Any longtime collector who says they have never purchased a forgery, or any dealer who says they have never sold one, is probably being overly optimistic."

A lot of people with way more expertise than me gave their opinion already. But it looks fine to me, I think it's genuine.