Dear Mario, Joe, and Board,
The first two sets of photos again belong to one coin, which show it before and after it was carelessly cleaned, possibly with the aid of a harsh chemical. The clumsiness is perhaps best seen in the butchered rho in "ΓEP" (at ~10:00) and altered kappa in "KAICAPEΩN" (at 6:30), which may actually dip slightly into the realm of tooling, a suspicion supported by certain details in the portraiture as well. There is no reasonable doubt in my mind that the coin is genuine and there was ample time between the two
auctions (almost exactly one year) for the cleaning/tooling to take place.
Concerning the other photos, they are of two coins struck from the same die pair in almost the exact same way, as noted. However, the shape of the flans are different as a well as other details that eliminate the possibility of a
cast. Again, there is nothing in my mind to suggest that they are anything but genuine. In fact, there is a reassuring feature on one of the coins that I commonly look for which I believe forgers often overlook. But I will not tip them off by posting it here.
In any event, I
hope some of this was helpful, and I think you are doing the hobby a service, Mario, by your efforts.
Best regards,
Mark Fox
Michigan