Thasos tet genuine ?

[antony]

Hello people,
here another Thasos tet 16,4 g., AR-33 mm .
What do you think about it please?
Is it a fake or is it genuine?

thanks
Antony

[cogito]

Antony,

It looks like a contemporary barbarous issue.  The style is a bit too crude and there's that strange dot in the curl of Dionysus' hair.   

Last month's Celator had a cover article about these non-Thasos Thasos tets.  I would recommend contacting Reid Goldsborough to see what he thinks...I believe barbarous Thasos tets are of particular interest to him.

Regards,
Jeff

[antony]

Thanks Jeff,
it looks to my eyes too as a barbarian version (Celtic ?), but I hope a genuine one ....
How can I contact Reid Goldsborough please?

Thanks
Antony

[cogito]

Go to the following URL and scroll to the very bottom of the page for Reid's contact link. 

http://rg.ancients.info/guide/ancients.html

[Reid Goldsborough]

Thanks Jeff,
it looks to my eyes too as a barbarian version (Celtic ?), but I hope a genuine one ....
How can I contact Reid Goldsborough please?

Thanks
Antony

Looks good to me, good in the sense of authentic. It's in the right range for weight and diameter, and the style is correct as well for these coins. It's very worn, of course, which though it hurts the coin's aesthetics is another factor that points to it being perfectly authentic. Finally, it's not a cast of any of the common replicas, which forgers often, not always of course, use because they're less expensive to obtain. You'd need to have the coin in hand to know with relative certainty, but I believe from the picture that there's little doubt that it's not perfectly authentic.

I believe these coins are Thracian imitations of Thasos tetradrchms, which I'm calling Thracian tetradrachms. You can find out more than you probably want to know about these coins at this site:

http://rg.ancients.info/thracetets

[cogito]

Thanks for chiming in, Reid.  I figured that you would be the "go to" guy on this one, especially after having read last month's Celator cover article and your earlier Celator contribution on the subject of Thracian tetradrachms.

Jeff