Fake pertinax

[Odoacer]

Dear list,

This coins was sold as a find and as a Septimius for 30 euro. Is it genuine? 18 mm, 2 gr

Thank you!

[SRukke]

Dear list,

This coins was sold as a find and as a Septimius for 30 euro. Is it genuine? 18 mm, 2 gr

Thank you!

Probably a cast.
The obverse bust is a known cast that looks to have been mated to a different reverse.

[curtislclay]

The coin looks authentic to me, mint of Alexandria not Rome.

The other cast was merely made from another authentic coin struck from the same obverse die, but differently centered and combined with a different reverse type. We should be wary of condemning genuine coins, just because a forger used another coin from the same authentic dies as the seed coin for his reproductions! It is only an exact correspondence in centering, wear, and damage, such as that between coins 2 and 3 in Romanorvm's illustration above, that clearly condemns a coin as a cast.

[Joe Sermarini]

Not that it is necessary after Curtis has expressed his expert opinion, but I agree. I don't see anything suspicious. If you did not buy it from an eBay seller on the NFSL, it is probably genuine.   

[dougsmit]

Curtis mentioned that this was a coin of the Alexandria mint rather than Rome but possibly could have elaborated on how many Alexandria mint Pertinax denarii have hit the market in the past 20 years and how many of them are on poor enough metal that those with traditional values learned before that time would question the 'look' of the coins.  I believe these Alexandria mint denarii outnumber the Rome mint ones and they certainly outnumber the Septimius Severus Alexandria mint denarii if what we see on the market is any indicator.  Of course dealers will always promote a common Pertinax over a rare Septimius but this might just be one case where you would have been better served if the dealer's original ID had been correct.  I can't say I believe any Septimius denarius is worth more than an equal Pertinax but I can say that I wish I had not been so quick to buy my Pertinax coins from Alexandria when I first became aware of their existence and wrongly thought they were rare.