Augustus dupondius: Roman bronze forgeries - the same fabric, the same seller

[vs1969]

This is the last of the four posts (and by far the most important for me) describing the coins offered now or some time ago by the same seller.

This is the common text which applies to all:
The die matches for this and the other coins can be found in the fake reports or online as fakes, but, in my opinion,
they look much better than most of these matches from the point of view of the fabric: a lot of effort has been put to make them look as they are.

This particular coin fooled me (being on very different flan and bearing quite different wear as compared to the known fakes) until I found the other specimens referred to in the other three posts sharing the same fabric (they appeared much later). Before that I even considered sending it to authentication.

[djmacdo]

This is certainly a better  ( or worse?) fake than the others.  I can see how one could be fooled, particularly since real specimens are rare, so one has little chance to be well acquainted with the style.

[vs1969]

Many thanks for your feedback!

Fake report submitted.

[vs1969]

I would like to ask for advice here.

My contact with the seller went not very smoothly as he insisted that the coin is genuine citing his experience in dealing etc. and firmly refused refund on the grounds of 14 days return policy he has (the coin was purchased in the middle of May). I still have time to open paypal dispute (the window for that is 180 days now i.e. it expires in mid-November), but I believe with such an attitude I will need to provide some substantial evidence that the coin is fake to get any action from paypal.

So what could be my options here?

I looked at coin grading and certification services, but submitting the coin there with the predefined outcome of getting "not genuine" verdict seems to be a bit too much for me and not very cost-justified (I am in Europe and most of them are in US). Or maybe this is an only option?