filolif Posted April 30, 2023 · Member Share Posted April 30, 2023 (edited) I purchased this Philip II tetradrachm from a reputable dealer a few days ago but I have had a few people questioning it's authenticity. I don't want to prejudice any responses by mentioning their reasons. Does anyone here have any reasoning for or against it being fake? I'd be very curious to know your thoughts. Dealer tag states the following: Quote Philip II 359-336 BC Pela 325-315 BC Tetradrachm, 14.26 g, 6h, 24mm, Bearded head of Zeus with Laurel wreath I within beaded border/ youth riding horse r. with shield and snake below, legend above and r. Le Rider 531b CNG websale 7/2001 Thank you to anyone who takes a look! C59A1992_MOV_AdobeExpress.mp4 Edited April 30, 2023 by filolif 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Cazador Posted April 30, 2023 · Member Share Posted April 30, 2023 48 minutes ago, filolif said: I purchased this Philip II tetradrachm from a reputable dealer a few days ago but I have had a few people questioning it's authenticity. I don't want to prejudice any responses by mentioning their reasons. Does anyone here have any reasoning for or against it being fake? I'd be very curious to know your thoughts. Dealer tag states the following: Thank you to anyone who takes a look! C59A1992_MOV_AdobeExpress.mp4 36.91 MB · 0 downloads Hi Jeff, seems ok just some rusty dies on the obverse 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deinomenid Posted April 30, 2023 · Supporter Share Posted April 30, 2023 This is just a guess, as it looks ok and nothing strikes me as odd from say forgerynetwork, but is it the lettering between the horse's head and raised foreleg? Looks different to the rest of the lettering (and I've no idea how common it is to have ΠΟΥ there instead of what is shown.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Severus Alexander Posted April 30, 2023 · Supporter Share Posted April 30, 2023 (edited) Looks fine to me. There are several die matches on acsearch which seem to indicate that any potential issues are on the dies. None of these appear to be sources for transfer dies either. Here are 3 of the die matches: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5026688 https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=7451686 https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=7758084 I sure hope it proves to be authentic… lovely coin!! Edited April 30, 2023 by Severus Alexander 2 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deinomenid Posted May 1, 2023 · Supporter Share Posted May 1, 2023 @filolif so what's the answer? I saw you posting something about Barry Murphy and this same coin on another thread. Sounds like we all think it looks ok - what's the tell that it might not be? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
filolif Posted May 1, 2023 · Member Author Share Posted May 1, 2023 27 minutes ago, Deinomenid said: @filolif so what's the answer? I saw you posting something about Barry Murphy and this same coin on another thread. Sounds like we all think it looks ok - what's the tell that it might not be? Sorry for not updating. I had posted the photo/video of the coin elsewhere and had several people weigh in. Barry Murphy (NGC certification guy for those who don't know) had this to say about it: Quote There are fakes of this issue that are cast and are not very deceptive. The one on Forgery Network is authentic in my opinion. These come from a fairly large hoard of these that came out in the late 90’s. The one on Forgery network was uploaded by Cliff Laubstein who really didn’t know a lot about forgeries. He was active on CFDL but had very little experience in ancients. He’s been awol now for about 15 years. He saw lots of these showing up in auctions and assumed they must be fake. I’ve handled probably 300 of these and I have no reason to doubt them. The one that started this thread looks fine to me. So, that more or less clears it up to me. Others had questioned it's legitimacy because of the postings on forgerynetwork and the the fact that it was listed in Prokopov 'Coin Forgeries & Replicas 2006'. To be clear, if this is a fake coin or part of a fake hoard, then there are probably a couple hundred other coins that would also be questionable. It's not a cast. So if we accept it as struck, then it's part of the legit 1990's hoard and NGC would likely slab it as authentic should it be sent in for certification. Hope that explains. I appreciate everyone who weighed in. It was quite an adventure with all the extensive analysis done by many people on facebook, discord and here as well. 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deinomenid Posted May 1, 2023 · Supporter Share Posted May 1, 2023 Glad to see Barry Murphy agrees with me 😀 Delighted you have nothing to worry about too! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romismatist Posted May 2, 2023 · Member Share Posted May 2, 2023 It looks authentic to me as well. Looks struck not cast, nice patina (although that doesn't always validate authenticity) and some metal crystallization (?) on the cheek. I see nothing to be concerned about. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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