Forgeries based on the 1973
Sirmium gold
hoardDuring excavations in 1973 in Sremska Mitrovica (
Sirmium, today in
Serbia, then in Yugoslavia), a
hoard of 33
gold coins and medallions was found and taken to the Srem Museum. In 1975, the
hoard was published by Miloje
Vasic and Vladislav
Popovic (Un Trésor de Monnaies d’Or de
Sirmium. Mélanges de l’Ecole francaise de
Rome. Antiquité. 1975,
vol, 87, no. 1).
When I visited the Museum of Srem in 2015, copies of the entire
hoard were exhibited. These copies are
cast, not struck, and presumably used in the exhibition so that the valuable originals can be kept safe.
However, in spite of being excavated by archaeologists and kept in a museum, the
hoard became available to forgers. It is now clear that forgers, presumably the
Bulgarian infamous
Lipanoff brothers, produced transfer dies of probably every coin and multiple in the
hoard (the
Lipanoff brothers are implicated because among their dies sold on
eBay are several
Sirmium hoard transfer dies).
To my knowledge, this copying by forgers of an entire
hoard is unprecedented. Numerous
forgeries produced by the
Sirmium hoard transfer dies have been sold by anyone from reputable
auction houses to
eBay sellers.
Many of the dies produced by the
Lipanoff brothers were sold on
eBay (in 2015?) and are
still around. Others were reportedly sold to the USA. Several are damaged today but some may
still be used to produce more
forgeries. And
as is often the case, the
forgeries themselves are used to make new
forgeries.
In another
thread on
FORVM, some of these dies were kindly posted by Din X. It is my
hope that more of the dies will be posted. My intention is to compile a list of the known
forgeries based on the
Sirmium hoad, and the more dies that can be included the better. I will then present the data at the Warszaw Congress. And then there will be a publication.
It may be noted that none of the
Sirmium hoard transfer dies are listed in Ilya Propokov’s 1916 book: “
LIPANOFF STUDIO:
Catalog of all registered coin
types”.
Any
help is appreciated. The better the data, the more
complete the publication.
I here post the three plates from the
Vasic &
Popovic 1975 paper, showing the
hoard.
/Lars Ramskold