Gut Feeling Proven Right: $1,100 Byzantine Fake at CNG Triton

[TheTrachyEnjoyer]

This coin offered at triton struck me as an obvious fake. I shared my opinion and reasoning but the coin wasn’t removed and it later hammered for $1,100 USD plus juice.
 

As is often the cases with forgeries, you can’t prove something as a conclusive fake. If something is a one off cast or forgery, auction houses will offer an “unique/unpublished” (aka fantasy) coins. That is not to say all or even many unique/unpublished coins are fake but rather that new fantasy fakes when unidentified are sold as such. Even if it is a mushy cast with an unusual gunmetal flan thats too heavy, it can always be a “unique” example unless other examples come along to prove the forgery as such.

Roman and Greek collectors are lucky in that most numismatists will remove poor forgeries with out needed “concrete” proof. Evidence of casting, pressed dies, etc suffices. For the more niche areas, there is no such ease.

“Authentic until proven otherwise”. 

Cue a better cast example that appeared today:

Lanz forgery above, CNG Triton forgery below. 

[seth77]

I think it's the same hand that did the casting for the fake basilika of the 14th century that were floating around a lot on ebay and biddr.