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 Replies: 10 / Views: 9,394 |
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New Member
United States
1 Posts |
Not really sure where this came from. I was told that my grandfather had it, but they don't know where from. Its not a perfect circle, and I can't see any dates. Any ideas? It weighs 2.8 grams   Edited by calebson
10/22/2015 3:18 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
This is an Athena/Owl silver coin (tetradrachm I belive) from ancient Athens, Greece. This is one of the most popular coins of all time among collectors, so it is *very* heavily faked--so much so that it is best to assume these are fake until proven otherwise.
I believe yours to be a fake, but will let the experts chime in.
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Valued Member
United States
234 Posts |
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Moderator
 United States
23731 Posts |
 to the community I agree it's a cast fake. If you look at the surface of the piece you can see all the casting bubbles. Look at the edge, if there is a line going around the edge it's another sign of being cast. |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2624 Posts |
At 2.8 grammes it is not pretending to be a tetradrachm. A drachm would weigh around 4g and a Tetradrachm around 17g and the reverse features an owl but is clearly not copying the reverse of those coins even if the front is similar.
My first impression was that it isn't right (looks like a casting line at the 10/11 o'clock on first photo) the casting bubbles (porosity) could be pitting from its great age but I think more likely they are casting bubbles...
I wouldn't throw it out just yet but I think it will turn out to be a fake.
Maybe the first thing that should be figured out is whether or not it is silver and what it is supposed to be (probably Athens since an owl was a symbol of that city... and sister cities like Kamerina etc) I have not seen a coin with an owl that looks like that (no Olive sprig, no A O E, no list of magistrates, no incuse square)
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1316 Posts |
I agree that it has the vibe of a casting and is not original.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7066 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4963 Posts |
Quote:
I can't see any dates. Although I believe some Greek coins carry a sort of date, modern numeral dates were not used until the 16th century. The first dated English coins were issued in 1547, not sure about other countries. |
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Moderator
Australia
16849 Posts |
Just confirming that, with the "melted-looking" eye and the wings that look like two planks of wood, this is indeed the mass-produced fake coin linked to by Bob L above. We don't really know where they came from, either, but there are so many of them out there - we see about four a year here on the forum, many of them inside identical-looking round coin holders - that I've assumed that they were part of a Reader's Digest type of mass-mailout advertisement.
And I'm going to add the words "Edvard Munch" to this post, so I can find this thread again the next time someone posts one of these. Do a forum search for "Edvard munch owl" and you should find all of the others.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2624 Posts |
Well I stand by my words that it is absolutely nothing like the coin it is pretending to be. The wrong size, the wrong weight and a completely different reverse.
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Pillar of the Community
Belgium
1194 Posts |
this is indeed a cast copy,I think.Concerning the owl , other mints imitated the Athen owlcoins , like in Egypt and in Arabia,I believe.Maybe check there to find the original coin.albert
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Replies: 10 / Views: 9,394 |
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Posted 10/22/2015 4:48 pm
