Some of the
Forum members were aware of my efforts to obtain a terribly
rare dupondius of
Antoninus Pius, but let me introduce the story first:
When Antonine
had become emperor, he was visited by all the diplomatic staff from all parts of the Empire and perhaps even from beyond the frontier. They did not come empty-handed, but brought loads of gold and other precious things to pay tribute. Antoninus was honoured and flattered and commemorated the visiting provinces with thw emission of a series of bronzes. In this way
Africa,
Alexandria,
Armenia,
Asia,
Cappadocia,
Dacia,
Hispania,
Italia,
Mauretania,
Parthia,
Phoenicia, Scythia,
Sicilia,
Syria and
Thracia were depicted on reverses. The
sestertii are the most common and the occasional
dupondii and
asses are extremely
rare. The
Sicilia dupondius is only known by one example in the
collection of the Bibliotheque National in
Paris. A second piece was recently offered by a dealer which I hold highly for the exceptional coins and high service. I bought the coin, be it at some expense.
The official description of the
reverse is:
Sicilia, draped, wearing triskelis on
head, standing left, holding crown in right hand and poppy(?) in left. No-one except Henri
Cohen and Paul
Strack had the coin in hand and therefore comparison to another example was impossible, but the picture provided by the seller was clear enough and showed all details as described.
The coin arrived a few days ago and my anticipation was great, but quickly turned into anti-climax when I saw the edge of the coin and some more clear
evidence of casting on the surfaces.
I contacted the seller and he revealed the (highly esteemed) source of
his latest batch of coins, the
Sicilia being one of them and questioned my ability to spot this coin as a fake, in view of the reputable source. But if I were as foolish as to doubt its genuiness, he would give me my
money back.
I considered for a moment to do so immediately, feeling somewhat ashamed as a fooled 'experienced' collector, but I decided to make you all
part of my ploit as a lesson of how careful we should be.
Moreover, there are some mysteries to be solved:
as there is only one example of the
reverse on a middle bronze, the faker must have
had access to the/an original. If he was skillful enough to produce a newly cut
reverse, he could have made a new die and made the fake even more convincing. Looking closely at the coin, there is some real (hard green)
patina, but most surfaces seem to be painted and on both
obverse and
reverse, some 'bubbles' can be seen. So the conclusion is that the item was cast and artificially patinated, but that the job was not done yesterday. The main question remains where the forger got
his mould from.
