Constantine SIC X SIC XX aureus from Serdiko

[Heliodromus]

Our friend serdiko has just listed this one (top coin below).

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This is a cast copied from a coin that sold at Numis Lanz earlier this year (bottom coin below).

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Note the mark in front of Constantine's nose, the dot before the B on the mintmark, etc.

Ben

[Hydatius]

Yup. Hopeless.

Richard

[ROMA]

wow what a deal! why pay 13k at a auction house when you can wait for Serdiko to sell one on ebay for the half the price! And while your at it pick up this Agrippina for a bargain price of 2k! 

I wanted to add that this makes absolutely no sense to me! Not long ago I listed a baseball card from the 1920's that turned out to be (unknowingly to me) an old reprint issue. Turns out the border is slightly(and I mean slight, you have to really know what your looking for) different.  Ebay pulled my listing almost immedietly after someone informed them. How is it that this guy(and other habitual fraudsters) continually lists fakes without this happening to him?

[gibfrog]

Another possibility is that both are struck/pressed from modern dies.

[Rupert]

I don't think one coin is a cast of the other one because their flan shapes are different. The Serdiko coin may well be a cast of a specimen from the same dies (incl. die flaws), but not of this very coin.

Rupert

[Hydatius]

I don't think one coin is a cast of the other one because their flan shapes are different. The Serdiko coin may well be a cast of a specimen from the same dies (incl. die flaws), but not of this very coin.

But we have seen many cast (or struck/pressed from cast dies) fakes on these boards that have quite different flan shapes from the original. Flan shape is no guide to host/copy.

Richard

[Rupert]

Not a completely reliable one at least, that's correct. But if somebody copied the original Coinarchives specimen in order to produce the Serdiko coin, he would have had to add a part of the beaded border on the obverse at 4 to 5 o'clock.

Rupert