A number of doubtful coins

[tejas552]

The auction house (name deleted) is offering a number of coins in their current auction (79) and in several previous auctions, which I find highly doubtful.

Below are a few examples of higher value coins from the current auction. Higher value coins are however, the exceptions. E....... often offers low quality nummi which are either mis-attributed to rare rulers (Avitus, Odovacer, Gundobad) or modern forgeries.

Best
Dirk

PS just removed the name of the auction house

[okidoki]

Dear Dirk,

Its about the coin and not the seller, please remove the name of the Seller.
against the rules here

[tejas552]

Ok, thanks for the hint. I just removed the name.

Best
Dirk

[peterpil19]

Hi Dirk,

For everyone's benefit, can you advise why you believe the coins are doubtful?

Peter

[tejas552]

Hi Peter,

I think its three things: 1) the style and fabrique of all of them is way off. 2) its pricing. The coins are oddly cheap. The Maximus Siliqua was offered at EUR 450. A genuine Maximus Siliqua costs upwards of EUR 4000. The third point is what is called "Vergemeinschaftung" in German. The coins are surrounded or grouped with numerous modern forgeries of similar style in the same sale and in previous sales of the same auction house.

Best
Dirk

[stevex6]

So you started this thread to try and warn us not to bid in this auction? (I missed seeing what auction-house you were talking about) ... I'm too slow

=> but thanks for the heads-up

 

cheers, Dirk

[tejas552]

Hi Steve,

I'm not saying people shouldn't bid, I'm only saying that people interested in any of them should be very careful before bidding and do a lot of research and style comparisons. I personally am convinced that these coins are modern forgeries.

I tried to add more examples from the same auction, but always get error messages. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. The file sizes are very small and the files are in the correct format (png)


An Error Has Occurred!
Theoderic_5.png.
You cannot upload that type of file. The only allowed extensions are jpg, jpeg, gif, png.



An Error Has Occurred!
Justinian_fake.png.
You cannot upload that type of file. The only allowed extensions are jpg, jpeg, gif, png.

Best
Dirk

[Hydatius]

They are all fake. They are neither official nor local Germanic copies. One usually sees such coins on e-bay.
  Richard

PS While saving the photos I noticed that the same dealer offered the same Galla Placidia tremissis in April (below).

[tejas552]

What is particularly odd is that the auction house seems to be working with the forger. They have sold hundreds of late Roman nummi in recent years all of the same strange style and fabric. Often they attribute these coins to rare rulers such as Avitus, Gundobad or the Gepidic king Turisint. In the case of the latter they try to substantiate their attribution with a reference to a 1920 publication of these coins. But when you look up the publication as I did, you find that the coin is completely different, i.e. different metal, different design etc. Also the modern forgeries of this particular style belong not only to one period, but they appear also among Greek and earlier Roman material. I have notified the auction house on several occasions, but their numismatist insists that the coins are all genuine.

Best
Dirk

PS Unfortunately, I cannot post pictures anymore, but to give you an idea about the style of their late Roman and Byzantine nummi

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=3747981

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=3747980

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2735425

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2427150

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1950262

[tejas552]

The coins in my first post have all been sold by the auction house (except for the Galla Placidia). The prices range from around 1000 to 2700 dollars. I had warned the auction house that these coins are doubtful, but they refused to listen.

Best
Dirk

[Joe Sermarini]

Unless they know your expertise, or you successfully explain to them why they should respect your opinion, you should not expect them to listen.

[tejas552]

Given that the coins are pretty obvious modern forgeries, they should have taken action on my mere suspicion. Instead, their replies were very strange and indicated to me that they knew already that the coins were fakes.

Anyway, I submitted the fake reports.

Best
Dirk

[Joe Sermarini]

Thanks for the reports.