Help with Unusual Vespasian showing Colosseum

[Chris H]

Vespasian bronze with Colosseum as reverse type
I bought this coin in North Africa years ago and have never been able to find anything similar in any catalogue. All kinds of facts don't really add up - Vespasian Cos II would date it 70 CE, but the Flavian ampitheatre wasn't started until 72 CE. The reverse type image of the Colosseum can be found on some coins issued by Titus, but the obverse legend seems to refer to Vespasian. The die axis is not 0/180 but about 10 degrees off.
All in all I suspect we are looking at a composite forgery, but perhaps somebody can help me with more expert knowledge.

[David Atherton]

I'm afraid to say that is a tourist fake. It's a fantasy piece as well since Vespasian never had a colosseum reverse!

[Chris H]

Thank you for the reply - I thought as much - seems a lot of trouble to go to, though, when there are so many coins to copy directly !

[David Atherton]

I suppose the people who make these type of copies don't really care about accuracy. They may never have been originally produced to deceive anyway, but once in the hands of someone looking to make a quick buck...

[maridvnvm]

Here is an example from our fake reports for comparison:-

Regards,
Martin

[Chris H]

Thank you, too.
I should have looked there - it confirms what I suspected, but you always hope that somebody is going to tell you something different !!

[Rupert]

Thank you, too.
I should have looked there - it confirms what I suspected, but you always hope that somebody is going to tell you something different !!

I can understand that very well , I also play the lottery sometimes, although the chances of a big win there are about as slim as the chances to get a real Colosseum sestertius in North Africa!

Rupert

[Chris H]

My chances were that remote, huh ! And the man who sold it to me looked like such an honest-but-downtrodden, simple salt-of-the-earth peasant, with a dirty scrap of cloth in which nestled a pathetic collection of stuff from World War 2, a few rusty slugs ... and the Vespasian. What a performance - he should have won an Oscar for best foreign actor in a work of fiction !

[berserkrro]

Who knows, maybe he was really a humble man. The poverty is something you understand only after a personal experience. Being never a poor man in a poor contry could lead to wrong conclusions.

[Varangian]

I had the opposite experience...I was buying some tourist souvenir fakes in Petra, and one turned out to be genuine!

[Chris H]

I'm sure that you are right. My words were written with a wry smile of good humour, not with any feeling of being "wronged". I have, however spent quite a bit of time in Arab countries, and everybody, I think, knows that bargaining is a formal game inherent to the culture, and which demands a certain degree of "theatricality" on both sides. Hence my comments about the Oscar and the unwritten rules which open the bargaining at twice to three times the reasonable price.

[Chris H]

That could be a first, Varangian ! Maybe sometimes innocent optimism goes rewarded - I'll remember that with my next Colosseum sestertius !

[Numerianus]

Hi, Chris, in fact this could be not a local fantasy piece but a Paduan or a copy of
Paduan. You can find some information here:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25904.25

[Chris H]

Many thanks for that, Numerianus. You've lifted my spirits considerably. There's something so completely depressing about a "tourist fake ", whereas even a copy of a "Paduan" puts one in to a different league altogether ! The link you sent was terrific - I've put the coin back in to the tray, after having banished it to the bottom drawer yesterday evening.