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A Suspicious Ptolemaic "Tet"

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Sap's Avatar
Australia
16868 Posts
 Posted 12/04/2015  11:36 pm Show Profile   Bookmark this topic Add Sap to your friends list Get a Link to this Message Number of Subscribers
Hi all, I've been asked to help out a local dealer ID a batch of ancients they've just bought in. Most of them I've got a pretty good idea on, but this one worries me. But I really don't have enough experience handling late Ptolemaic pieces to know whether or not this one might be "within tolerance".

It looks like a base-silver tetradrachm of Ptolemy XIII, Year 2 (which would be circa 50 BC), or maybe Ptolemy XII, but it's much lighter than any I've come across in my references: only 9.41 grams according to my balance. It doesn't appear to have lost enough metal by corrosion, damage or wear/clipping to account for that much weight loss. There's also a very odd "rust" spot on the edge which worries me, though if it really is debased silver it could just be the "red death" Egyptian debased silver alloys are prone to.

My magnetic silver tester says there's probably a tiny bit of silver in it, though nowhere near as much as the Alexandrian tet I used to calibrate it with.

Opinions? I'm guessing "fake" at this stage, but I'd hate to condemn a perfectly good though heavily debased "Cleopatra coin" based purely on a suspicion.

A-Suspicious-Ptolemaic-

A-Suspicious-Ptolemaic-
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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echizento's Avatar
United States
23731 Posts
 Posted 12/05/2015  01:41 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add echizento to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
I'm not liking the look of this one at all. I know that by the time of Ptolemy XII and XIII the silver content had become debased quite a bit but not to the point where it looks like a silver wash as this one does. It general overall appearance just doesn't look right to me.

For comparison here is a Ptolemy XII from my collection.


A-Suspicious-Ptolemaic-

A-Suspicious-Ptolemaic-

24.2MM
13.77 grams
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