Replica Widow's Mite Or Not?

I'm leaning towards reproduction. It looks cast. Also, most of the mite's I've seen are pretty trashed, unlike this one.

These were struck under Alexander Jannaeus. They have anchor one side, eight rays star on the other. I've seen many examples online, in my references books like David Hendin's Guide to Biblical Coins, online dealer sites like Vcoins, CNGcoins. They all have eight rays star. Yours is only six rays, wrong crude design. It's not genuine. It could be one of many fake coins made to sell to tourists when they visit Israel, Turkey, Egypt or just a replica.

Forger's use several methods to make fakes including casting, electrotypes, make fake dies to hand strike fake coins etc. Your mite does appear to be cast.

Cast coins can have small bubble crevises, rough sandy surfaces, edge seams. Genuine coins can have corrosion and pitting from being in the ground for centuries. Sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference between a cast fake and genuine corroded coin. The style of the design, size/weight, using a magnifier helps determine authenticity.

The Greek word used in the earliest Bible manuscripts for widow's "mite" is "lepton" which was the small bronze coins of the Jews. The exact type or ruler on the lepton the widow had is unknown, so it could have been one of several types circulating at the time.

Here is one of mine. I bought it from well known dealer Harlan J Berk years ago. It's wise to buy ancient coins from trusted dealers unless you are experienced. The Hebrew words around the anchor translate as King Alexander.

Thanks Marve65, replica. It's sad if replicas are sold as genuine to cheat people.

While it is clearly different from the machine-struck mass-marketed replica widows mites, it is nevertheless derived from them - the shape of the flan is identical, as is that odd "hook" sticking off from the rim, which is like nothing I've seen on any actual ancient coin.

I have speculated in the past threads on why these machine-struck replicas look like this, and my best guess is the design is copied from an old drawing or rubbing of a widows mite, rather than from an actual coin.

My assumption for your piece would be someone obtained one of those machine-struck replicas, and then proceeded to make a cast replica of that, "improving" the design in the process.

That is an excellent idea, Livingwater! This project is getting bigger and staying organized has not been the priority it should have been 'til now. Thank you!