Posted 12/21/2009 03:54 am
As you might guess from the word "COPY" stamped into the reverse, it's not a genuine coin. It's a modern replica of an ancient coin; every year one or two of them pop up here on the forum. They were apparently produced as part of a promotion for a Reader's Digest book on Ancient Greece; the large hole in the middle of the obverse was added to these replicas so they could be glued onto a piece of cardboard. There are several entries of this coin on the FORVM fake ancient coins database; this listing explains their origin.
The genuine ancient coins these were copied from are silver tetradrachms of the city of Gela, on Sicily. Wildwinds is down right now, but Click here to see a poor-condition genuine example of this coin in the FORVM sales database.
These replicas only ever seem to turn up in North America, so I assume the promotion was limited to there. I have one, sent to me as a "freebie" by an American forum member when I bought stuff off him.
The genuine ancient coins these were copied from are silver tetradrachms of the city of Gela, on Sicily. Wildwinds is down right now, but Click here to see a poor-condition genuine example of this coin in the FORVM sales database.
These replicas only ever seem to turn up in North America, so I assume the promotion was limited to there. I have one, sent to me as a "freebie" by an American forum member when I bought stuff off him.
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
