Foolish Purchase or Fantastic Bargain?

[The_Collector]

I stumbled across a lot of really rough coins about a week ago and saw this hiding amongst them. I narrowed its identification down to an imitation of a drachm from Massalia. It weights 2.67g and is about 15mm across. When I looked at other examples they varied so much, that I looked at overall style which it seemed to match with the swirls in the obverse. So, the question I have is, is it real and a fantastic bargain or fake and a foolish purchase? Thank you!

[Ryro]

My left eyebrow did raise looking at it. And I know nothing about the type. Meaning, I would not purchase this as I'd always have suspicions. Hopefully someone familure with the type chimes in. 

[shanxi]

I also do not know enough of these types. 

 

This is the closest I found on acsearch:

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=128876

Same  type of characters

Edited December 24, 2024 by shanxi

[Alegandron]

12 hours ago, Ryro said:

My left eyebrow did raise looking at it.

DUH- Duh- dummm........

Edited December 24, 2024 by Alegandron

[The_Collector]

Thank you @shanxi that is the closest one so far the other examples I have seen have slightly more lion looking lions haha. I agree @Ryro it does raise my eyebrow a bit. I almost exclusively collet Roman coins which have a different standard for judging whether it is real or not so it was tough not to judge it on those standards. But it was cheap and came with two denarii albeit busted denarii but denarii still so I gambled (I know a really bad habit lol).

Also looking back at my photos, they are pretty bad the surfaces are not nearly as soft nor as rough. Sorry I am still trying to work on my picture skills they always look fine on my phone but when I post them🥴

Thank you to you all again for your responses hopefully someone familar with celtic coins can chime in and solve this mystery for us!

Edited December 24, 2024 by The_Collector

[John Conduitt]

This is very tricky as the style of Insubres coins degraded a lot, so this could be some late imitation, although they were usually in a much more realistic style. The weight is very low, usually 3.2g, but then so is the example linked by shanxi.

There are a few other questions about it. The edge is very smooth, rounded and unbroken, which is not typical, although again the Leu coin is similar. It is also pretty flat, while usually they are a little dished. The inscription is going in the wrong direction, although again this is hugely degraded. It comes from MAΣΣA, Massalia, so those C shapes should face up the lion’s back and end in an A shape. I’m wondering if the Leu coin is genuine or not now 😂

[The_Collector]

@John Conduitt Thank you and those were some of the issues I had diffuclty with but for each issue I found an example on acsearch that showed a similar feature. The main issue being no one coin had all of the characteristics. I have found examples of comperable weight https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=130231 and https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6802593 but the reverse is not even close in style to mine.This example starts to show a little bit of the sign of the ΣΣ turning into Cs ontop of one another https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=8862836  but the edges are more ragged and the reverse again does not match. Some other examples of ΣΣ turning into Cs https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6850835  and https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5310178 . I will aslo add because my picture is not the best that before the Cs there is the remenance of an A. The other issue is that aside from @shanxi example there really is not a close lookalike for my reverse. Mine looks more like a derppy dog or wolf than a celtic lion. I am wondering if it is just a random example of a lated degraded example? Thank you all for indugling me in this it has been so much fun getting to investigate and wonder about a coin. It is what first got me into collecting ancients so even if this is not genuine I think it was worth the buy. Maybe we can solve the mystery!

[Sulla80]

While I don't like the look of this coin, I can see that there are others that could be genuine (Celtic Imitations from Northern Italy):

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=+massalia+Veneti&category=1-2&lot=&date_from=&date_to=&thesaurus=1&images=1&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=usd&order=1

 

[The_Collector]

Thank you @Sulla80those are definetly way lcoser in style, construction, and weight to the coin!