Video: Hollywood Gets Ancient Coins All Wrong

Most people don't even notice the coin props. I would be amazed if they did come up with the real thing.

It is true of many subjects where you have specialist knowledge that the film people do not. I was in an advert which contained a casino scene and when I saw the layout of the tables they had people where they would not be allowed in a real casino for instance.

My favourite example is Neil Degrasse Tyson wrote to the director Cameron over the night sky shown above the Titanic. It was incorrect (wrong hemisphere or wrong time of year I think) and Cameron asked him what it should look like and they ended up changing it on the directors cut...

I recently watched a film "A simple twist of fate" where Steve Martins character inspects a gold coin with a loop and its grade is discussed, later on in the film he is shuffling the coins together, something no right minded collector would do for fear of scratching the surfaces.

It wouldn't hurt for them to make a phone call once in a while to people with specialist knowledge.

I'll give 300 a pass considering that the main character fights a giant wolf in the first 5 minutes and the villain is an 9 foot tall hermaphrodite.

My favourite ancient coin movie gaffe is still in "Troy". The scene where coins are placed on the dead hero's eyes during the funeral? I give them +5 points for recognising this particular ancient Greek ritual, of "paying the ferryman" with two obols on the eyes. But I give them -100 points for forgetting that the Trojan Wars, if they happened at all, happened sometime around 1200 BC - five hundred years before coins were invented.