Indeed, the
Basiliscus tremissis does look more than a little suspicious, as does the
Anastasius. But even if the dies in these cases are modern, I can’t agree that the letters are machine cut, or even cut with a mechanical engraving device of some sort – to me they are simply too uneven, and for the moment I have no reason to doubt that they were cut (i.e, gouged) with a simple chisel, rather than a modern tool. Which is of course the kind of technique that ancient cutters could also have used.
As to the incidence of
serrated letters and curves in
ancient coins, the pattern is not simple. This feature is common with
Constans II gold issues in the 7th century, as here:
[LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN]
(you may need to blow the image up) and there are
plenty more like this in the
CNG archives, for example. On the other hand serrations seem to be absent from (say)
Anastasius II coins in the 8th century (where curved letters seem to have been drawn as short arcs). It should be noted that the
style of the
Constans II’s on offer these days is otherwise impeccable, with examples from a large number of dies.
In earlier times serrations are not so common, but they do occur, in (e.g.) this
Anastasius I tremissis:
[LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN]
and in fact in this
Basiliscus solidus:
[LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN]
which to me at least looks genuine (although these
types are not my
field).
These various coins are also shown below in the same order.
On the whole I’m not yet convinced that we have to assume that serrations (and particularly the irregular serrations that we actually see) necessarily mean modern
fakes.
But if they do then there are serious consequences. Collectors (and resellers) should be asking for their
money back, and an awful lot of these
types have been, and are
still being, sold in recent years, many, in the first instance, by the major
auction houses. (It would of course be interesting to know where all these 6th and 7th century solidi are coming from in the first instance, but nobody’s likely to tell us. The rumour is a large find which is now being exported from
Syria, but if they are
fakes this may just be a cover story).
Ross G.