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Author Topic: Philip II Tet--overweight, high relief, appears struck?  (Read 1072 times)

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Offline Equity

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Philip II Tet--overweight, high relief, appears struck?
« on: September 14, 2021, 10:26:29 pm »
Observed recently on a well known auction site, this purports to be a Philip II Zeus/horseman tetradrachm.
Weight is listed as 16.9g, whereas the Macedonian standard of the time was ~14.4g
Prior fake coin reports seem to indicate that forgeries of this type are often overweight, for some reason.

To my (inexperienced) eye, there appear to be flow lines. I also see some blobs of metal below the ear on the obverse, but they're presumably not casting pearls?

Curious as to opinions--machine pressed or electrotyped-die-struck forgery?
Auctioneer claims it assays as near pure silver with a 'Thermo Scientific analyzer'. From a web search, this may be an XRF analysis tool.
Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Offline Din X

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Re: Philip II Tet--overweight, high relief, appears struck?
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2021, 02:26:29 am »
I wrote the ebay seller,and hoped he would then relist it correct as replica and so giving me the chance to buy it for a fair price.
It is a well known pressed replica from Greece from modern hand cut dies with wrong stlye and weight.
I assume that this replica was marked too likely there where is now a hole in horse.

I wrote them some days ago

"The weight of 16,9g is impossible for an authentic specimen.
Correct weight would be about 14,4g (local Macedonian standard)
You can of course ask NGC or any other expert who is familar with this coins.

Weight standard of Philip II tetradrachms was local Macedonian weight standard at 14,4g see Studies in the Macedonian coinage of Alexander the Great - Hyla A. Troxell page 17 (last sentence) +18 (first sentence)

https://issuu.com/sonjcemarceva/docs/studies_in_the_macedonian_coinage_o

You can have a look for example at acsearch, coinarchives and cng archiv and you will see that authentic specimens will weight about the 14,4g.

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=philip+II+tetradrachm+zeus+horse&category=1-2&lot=&thesaurus=1&images=1&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=usd&order=0


I have found another one (same dies) of this replicas here (it was sold as repilca).

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/fakes/displayimage.php?pid=2867

If you have verified that the coin is actually fake and relist it as fake I would be interested (I collect fake and authentic coins)"

I received this answer from ebay seller

"My manager is still reviewing all the information. If it proves to be a replica of some kind we would end the listing immediately. Some Greek tetradrachms have been know to range up to as high as 17.2 grams."

Offline Equity

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Re: Philip II Tet--overweight, high relief, appears struck?
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2021, 10:20:16 am »
Thanks Din X for the comprehensive response.
I too wrote to the seller and they said “ This is very heavy for a coin of this type. Most coin are between 14-15 grams.”
For what it’s worth I asked them to label the listing as a modern replica.
Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Rasmus B

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Re: Philip II Tet--overweight, high relief, appears struck?
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2021, 02:46:15 pm »
If sold as a replica, who wouldnt think it was a gorgeous coin? I'd buy it, too!

Offline Din X

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Re: Philip II Tet--overweight, high relief, appears struck?
« Reply #4 on: December 08, 2021, 12:12:07 pm »
I have bought many new fakes and by chance looked what I have and guess what I have a die match bought as replica from a nice Greek guy a little bit over Silver value.
Mine has this replica stamp, too.
And another one appeared on ebay where the Replica stamp was removed like one the replica on frist post and where now is a hole where the stamp was.
An extremely obvious replica/fake that should not fool anyone, who has at least a little bit knowledge about ancient coins.
The weights of some of them are wrong an the planchtets are totally off and they look rather pressed than struck and style is wrong too.


Offline Din X

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Re: Philip II Tet--overweight, high relief, appears struck?
« Reply #5 on: December 08, 2021, 12:13:49 pm »
The ebay specimen, for sale as "copy" again these are really obvious but beautiful replicas if you like modern style replicas.
Hole from removed replica stamp under hore´s front leg.
Weight is wrong too of ebay specimen 16g58, mine has too high weight too

Offline Joe Sermarini

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Re: Philip II Tet--overweight, high relief, appears struck?
« Reply #6 on: December 09, 2021, 01:27:20 am »
Fake coin reports please (if we don't already have them).
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