What I miss, perhaps just out of ignorance, is numismatic support for the fabric and style of the coins: is this what a coinage produced by a usurper in Cologne in 280 AD should look like?
Yes, I think that is what one would expect a coin of an usurper in northern
Gaul at that time look like.
Aurelian had closed the regular mints of Trier and
Cologne in c. 273-274 AD and moved them to
Lugdunum, leading to a lack of supply of coinage in
Britain and northern
Gaul. Partially as a result, we see these countless imitations of Gallic Empire coins, which continued or maybe even increased to be struck after the fall of
Tetricus. So if a short-living usurper would set up a new
mint in that
area, without having access to regular die cutters, one would expect the
style and
fabric of
his coins to be in line with better
quality imitations of that
area (assuming he will have hired the more skilled artists rather than simple and
poor quality forgers), as the two
Proculus coins are, but not in line with
contemporary official coins from
Lugdunum,
Rome etc., especially (but not only) since they did not circulate in greater numbers in the
area.
Considering this, I find it hard to believe that a 15th Century (or somewhat later) forger would a.) know of the context of what were considered barbarian imitations for a long time and b.) produce a
fake of this
quality, with
style and
fabric perfectly fitting in what one would expect from original coins of an usurper in that
area, with convincing corrosion, surfaces and strikes c.) the
fake only showing up twice, in the late 20th and early 21st Century under such circumstances as we see it here.
Style, surfaces and find circumstances thus seem to be convincing to me and I so far fail to see a reason to doubt the authenticity of these coins - other than that the extreme
rarity, which understandably raises initial doubts. But if the name on the coins is the only reason to doubt them, while everything else seems to be pointing towards authenticity, I don't think they can be condemned.
As for the
price, I agree that 50-80''000 £ do sound challenging, but I wouldn't completely rule out that it might sell. If people believe in the authenticity, the coin certainly would be in a 5-digit-price range as a minimum in any
auction.
Lars
