How Do Auctions Identify If Ancient Coins Are Real Or Not?

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It takes a lot of study and examining thousands of coins to be able to tell if a coin is genuine or not.

Decent auction houses usually have an XRF machine so can throw out most fakes purely on the signature of the metal used.

Obviously they have tonnes of experience too and theres no substitute for that.

That is quite a good question for your first post. Not that we rate the quality of questions, but most of us like a challenge.

Great points made above, although admittedly sometimes even the experts get duped as well. Gold is especially tricky, since it is impervious to normal patination, and many use harsh acids to clean gold, removing any deposits that could be carbon dated.

One coin comes to mind especially:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egy..._gold_stater

There are only a few of those known, most provenanced to the 19th century. When they sell at auction once a decade or so, they tend to fetch about as much as a reasonably expensive sports car.

A small group of experts maintains that these coins are nothing but a 19th century forgery; that their rarity and purported heiroglyphic inscription makes no anthropological sense (Why did one of the richest kingdoms of the ancient world produce so few that fewer than 10 survive today? Why does the inscription praise the purity of the coin, and not the excellence of the god-king who ordered its minting?) Bottom line is, we don't know, and probably can't unless we find the "missing" hoards of these coins that ought to exist.

Part of the acquired skill in identifying fake coins lies in the knowledge of the various methods in how they are made. It is the (sometimes tiny) telltale clues characteristic in their manufacture, that you specifically hunt for.
That is why I have an avid interest in the detailed manufacture of fake coins.

I knew of only one person who knew of people that knew how to make very deceiving fake coins. He made perhaps a million dollars out of his selling fake coins, person to person.
For some of his fakes he commissioned employees inside the Royal Australian Mint to make fakes. For models he borrowed extremely rare originals from museums.

He ended up doing a five years in jail. Every experienced collector in Australia has since heard of him.

"Mister Midas" - most experienced Australian collectors know to whom that title has been ascribed.
That is one person only.

These days, most of the very deceiving fakes come from China.

"Most Fakes come from China" makes sense since China and the US don't have an extradition treaty so even if they get caught they can't be prosecuted but then again it's probably illegal to sell counterfeit coins in China also so.

Hippity;

You can also use common sense on low priced coins. For example, even very fine late Romans, there were millions made easily. And you hold a handful you purchased for 2-3 dollars each and no two are alike. Now imagine the manufacture of these as a counterfeiter: You want to sell them cheaper then the $2-$3 they go for real. So you will have a system to make them all the same that is cheapest. But that is no good, people will spot the same die was used. Then you say OK I'll use a bunch of dies and strike them by hand but some off struck so they look different. We will still see that. Plus the real batch you purchased to copy from, that cost you $2-$3 each.....they have encrustation or some aging. So you say, hey you better get some of that encrustation going or no one will believe you. Want to use a chemical? You just get black cupric oxide or a green or blue sulfate or nitrates. Plus that is fresh, so it comes off and the coin is just damaged. So what you want to try next? Bury them for a year? Put them under the sea for 10 years? Remember you have to get them down to $1 each and now you are no longer a counterfeiter, you have made it to artist stage. So what is your time worth? Certainly not the $20 each you end up spending time wise to make the $1 coin. So you know those big lots of ancients that are full of real patina encrustation, those are real. It's the higher level coins, those are the ones the calculus starts to make sense to fake. Just my opinion of course. And my disclaimer is stay the heck away from Chinese ancients. They did in fact fake everything even the most common coins. Chinese coins, unless you are Chinese and have a real history of dealing with them, they are like investing in biotech stocks. Buyer beware.

No, it is not illegal to make fake ancient coins in China. The only coins that are illegal to make and sell in China are Communist China coins; anything else is fair game. Which is why the fake-factories in China are mass-producing coins of the old Republic and Empire periods, as well as foreign coins.

China is not, however, a major source of fake ancient Greek and Roman coins. Eastern Europe is still the primary source for these. In several of these countries, selling genuine ancient coins is illegal, but selling fake ones is perfectly OK.