Marcus Antonius Legionary issue - but AE Bronze?

[Prieure de Sion]

Hi...

I have received this AE bronze "denarius" of Marcus Antonius and I am currently researching or finding out a bit about the background. The dates of the auction house are as follows:

Mark Antony. 32-31 BC. Ae Denarius (bronze, 1.95 g, 16 mm), contemporary imitation. Legionary issue, mint moving with Antony in Greece (Patrae?). ANT AVG-III VIR R P C War galley under oar right with triple ram prow and scepter tied with fillet. Rev. [LEG-?], legionary eagle (aquila) between two standards (signa). Cf. Crawford 544/14; CRI 349 for prototype.

Now I would be interested to know if these "bronze denarii" were a contemporary forgery, an imitation or even regular issues?!

There are also contemporary forgeries - but these look somewhat like the originals. There are also enough Fourree examples. I had a look at acsearch (thanks also to Shanxi) - but these bronze denarii don't look as if they had once been coated with silver. That these bronze denarii were once the core and coated with silver - that doesn't seem to have been the case.

Were the "AE denarii" meant to imitate the original silver? But they are much lighter than the silver denarii - and smaller too. Anyone who got hold of these AE denarii at the time might have said, what is this? Aren't the real ones made of silver, heavier and bigger? What do I want with something like that?

Could the "AE Legion issues" therefore have been regular issues? As small change, so to speak?

Does anyone know more about the bronze denarii? Has anything been said about them in a publication?

Thank you!
 

[Ken W2]

That is an interesting little coin. The style is so off that I don’t think anyone would have been fooled if it had been plated. And, the G seems to be missing in AVG.  I have searched for and looked at many MALs over the last two years and have seen many plated fourrees, but have never seen one like this coin. My guess is it’s a modern novelty piece that has become corroded.  Would love to hear thoughts of others. 

[Prieure de Sion]

That is an interesting little coin. The style is so off that I don’t think anyone would have been fooled if it had been plated. And, the G seems to be missing in AVG.  I have searched for and looked at many MALs over the last two years and have seen many plated fourrees, but have never seen one like this coin. My guess is it’s a modern novelty piece that has become corroded.  Would love to hear thoughts of others.

I find 2 other examples from other auctions - Shanxi helped me and he find 3 of this AE "Denar" types:

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=8615191

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5869834
 
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=10937658
 

[Altamura]

There are even two more out there :
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1679212
https://www.sullacoins.com/post/coins-of-the-second-triumvirate  (last third of the page)

There are also imitations of other Roman coin types made in the "barbaricum", so I guess that these here are not something special. Many of these can imediately recognized as not genuine, but obviously they had some function despite of that.
Generally imitative coins are not so well researched as original ones .

Regards

Altamura

[Prieure de Sion]

There are even two more out there :
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1679212
https://www.sullacoins.com/post/coins-of-the-second-triumvirate  (last third of the page)

There are also imitations of other Roman coin types made in the "barbaricum", so I guess that these here are not something special. Many of these can imediately recognized as not genuine, but obviously they had some function despite of that.
Generally imitative coins are not so well researched as original ones .

Regards

Altamura

Oh because of the (money) value it is not for me. I also only paid a few euros for it. It's more the interest in it. Is it a foreign imitation? A barbaric imitation? Is it (though rather unlikely) even an official edition?

The question is - was there contemporary silver on it or not?

If the small bronze was without silver, counterfeiters would have had less chance of getting these coins into circulation as "genuine". But as worn as these bronzes are, it is probably difficult to tell from pictures alone whether there was silver on the surface. One would probably have to do a metal examination - whether silver particles could still be found on the surface?

But again - it's not about the value - I find it interesting in general - where do these bronze issues of the legion "denarius" come from?

[Altamura]

... Oh because of the (money) value it is not for me. ...

I didn't speak about the value (with "not so well researched" I meant that there has not much scientific work be done about these coins ).

Regards

Altamura

[Ken W2]

The style is pretty good on three of those examples. (And all of them appear to at least have complete legends, but the style is still way off on two). I didn’t check those three against CRRO or Schaefer’s but they could be casts from molds made with genuine coins.  When plated they could have passed for legit coins for a while. In other words, the manufacturer of those three in particular was good enough to make sense— they could likely be passed off as legit. The coin under consideration, assuming it was plated, would not pass even cursory scrutiny. I suppose there was some commerce the context of which made scrutiny of each coin impractical and thus even really bad fakes were passed.