Gela Tetradrachm Real or Fake - Your Opinions Please

[Rupert]

Hello friends,

these days I received a Gela tetradrachm which I think may be fake, but I'm not sure at all. So I would like to know what you think about it.

Tetradrachm, Gela / Sicily, about 450 BC
Obv. Charioteer wearing long chiton in slow quadriga right; above, Nike flying right, crowning horses
Rev. Forepart of man-headed bull right; below, letters C-E-L-AS (last two letters behind the bull) retrograde; die break? at 8 o'clock

Diameter 22.4 to 25.0 mm, weight 16.76 g, die axis 2 o'clock

The obverse is rather shallow in strike, but this often happens on genuine coins too due to worn dies. The fields on both sides seem to have been smoothed. Also, there is light filing all around the edge. The reverse seems too sharp to be a cast - or is it an excellent one? The manipulations of field and edges, and maybe some polishing, might be consistent with a piece which was set in a frame as jewellery? The weight is at the lower edge of the normal weight range.

I hate to say this, but I'm really 50-50 on this one. I hope the pictures are conclusive; if there is any detail that you want better pictures of, just tell me and I'll try.

Thanks in advance,

Rupert

[dougsmit]

I see edge polish, scraped fields and style that might have been pepped up with tooling making my odds less encouraging than your 50-50.  The sharpness lost in casting could be restored to some degree with tooling and the coin obviously has had work.  If it were a very worn real coin tooled down to appear this grade, how much should it weigh?  I hate to vote for 100% fake but I'm closer to that than the answer you might have hoped for.   If not a fake fake, it has had enough work to be a problem coin at best.