I quote
Robert Kokotailo on
fakes of this
type...unfortunately, the jpgs on
Robert's page is no longer there.
Discussion below:
Here is the entire coin:
http://www.snible.org/coins/surfaces/s1673.jpgTrying to photograph the spots has proven the inadequacy of my scanning
setup. I'm
shopping for an inexpensive digital camera and adapter
tubeto take photos through the microscope.
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When I first saw only the
reverse of the coin, I assumed the coin was
genuine, but struck from a deteriorated die that
had pitting and resulted
in small raised silver bumps on the coin. Now that I have seen the
obverse, I have have come to the conclusion that the coin is a
modern forgery.
What first made me suspect the coin was the
obverse style. In ancient
Mesembria, the celators knew exactly what a helmut like this looked like,
as they could see soldiers wearing them on a daily basis. This intimate
knowledge of the helmuts allowed them to cut dies that clearly looked like
a helmut. Modern die cutters (forgers) lack this intimate knowledge and
just copy genuine (or even
fake) coins, and sometimes get it wrong.
A genuine helmut has eye holes to look through that are just slits. Look
at the specimen of this coinage illustrated by
Sear in
Greek coins and
their values (page 166, #1673) and you will see what I mean. The eye hole
is an eye slit on that specimen.
Ed's specimen (
http://www.snible.org/coins/surfaces/s1673.jpg ) has an eye slit that looks more like a human eye, with eyebrows and a lower eye-lid clearly visible on the right eye. What the due cutter has done is creat an
image that looks far more like a theatrical mask, than a helmut. This does
not sit well with me.
Since this list is about learning about
fakes and their detection, I would
like to do this in three stages, although I have already presented the
first
part in my discussion above about the stylistic problems (often the
first clue to a possible
fake).
The second stage is research by comparison to to other specimens that are
either known to be genuine, or may be other suspect pieces. When I did
that research on this specimen, I was lucky enough (a
complete accident) to
find a source of images for a group of these coins that recently came on
the market, that just happened to include Ed's specimen (I have confirmed
it is the exact specimen, and not just an identical one). You can see an
image of four of them at
http://www.calgarycoin.com/tempmesembria2.jpgAt a glance they all look a little similar, but slightly different. Some
show clear evidence of the incorrect eye slits, and others do not. They
have very different centering and strikes. But on closer examination there
are striking similarities that bothered me enough to move on to a third
stage of investigation.
Before I go on, think about this series of coins a moment. Genuine
examples are very common, and always have been, and thus we know it was a
huge issue that
had to involve many hundreds, and possibly thousands of
dies. A hoard of freshly minted coins might have significant numbers of
coins sharing an
obverse die, but after years of circulation (5 to 10 years
to wear to VF) the coins from different dies should be shuffled like a deck
of cards. In a hoard of several hundred circulated specimens it should be
difficult to find two coins from the same die, but how about three. How
about picking four coins at random and finding they all marched.
Here we being the third phase of this investigation. Proving that the four
coins which looked do different on my first image were in fact all struck
from the same die. To do this I made a set of composite images which can
be seen at
http://www.calgarycoin.com/tempmesembria1.jpg . On the left
column you see the four coins as presented on my first image. The right
column has a set of composite images, each of which has the left
side of
Ed's coin, the the right
side of the other coin in that row. Please ignore
the right
side image on the top row, as it is repeated on line three.
Note how each of the composites fit togeather perfectly. If there is any
difference in the spacings of the features, it is by less than 1/100 of a
millimeter and within what one might expect due to either metal stretch
during striking, or even lighting during photography. Matches like this
from two genuine coins struck from differnt dies is unlikely, but four such
matches virtually impossible. I feel this is clear evidence these coins
were all struck from the same
obverse die, and someone has taken the effort
to make them all strike and center differently, and worked them over to
make look worn and patinated.
My conclusion is thus that they are modern
fakes. However that does not
change my original opinion that the small silver bumps that Ed first asked
about on this specimen are due to die
pitting (modern dies pit too).
Unfortunalty the use of this die long enough to creat such
pitting suggests
thousands of coins have been struck from this die.
Some years ago a large hoard of simliar Mesembrian diobols was proven to be
fake, and published in
the Celator Magazine by Frank Kovak. He showed that the entire hoard was struck from only six sets of dies. I do not have that article at hand, but I do remember the same "theatrical mask" appearance was one of their give aways. I would appreciate it if anyone could check that article to see if there is a die link for Ed's specimen and it. I
suspect we are looking at the
work of the same forger, if not the same dies.
If you can find any fault in my analysis of this coin, please feel free to
do so on the list.
Robert Kokotailo
Fake Coins and Notorious Fake Sellers
