| ANCIENT HORSE Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Mediaeval coins from the Balkans Milenko Art Studio, Charlottesville,Virginia milenkostudio@earthlink.net www.artsandcoins.com |
| Ancient Coins Forgery |
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| STRICKEING |
| This method is the most dangerous. The dies, which are used to struck the flans, are carved with modern tools or molded in hard plastic. A flan could be prepared by hand in any new metal including silver and gold. But some forgers used old ancient low grade coin to prepare flan. If that is done by a skilled artist or crafter, the result could be very dangerous forgery. |
| The basic idea is to imitate the work of an ancient celator, to create the dies in ancient style, prepare the flan in old metal and strike the "coin" by hand. |
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| WARNING SIGNS |
| Look for the wrong weight. Look for the wrong style of image. Look for the wrong metallic composition. There are traces of modern metals not used in Ancient times. This method is known as spectroanalysis. Look for crystallizacion on the surface and edge of the coin. That is good sign of authenticity. A specific gravity test could give more information about the merit of the coin. |
| Just a note: Specific gravity of gold is 19.3 and SG of copper is 8.96. For example: if you have a gold coin and the SG is less than 19 or near to 9 , you probably have just another junk, plated forgery or forgery made of some alloys. |
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| This is an example of the wrong style from the Bulgarian school of forgery. See the strange mouth and eye, which give a strange looking face. |
| The "coin" is struck with carved die, and is an imitation of a coin of Caligula A.D. 37-41 |
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| Nero A.D. 54-68 For this forgery we know who made it. He is from Bulgaria and his name is Slavey Petrov. He still works legally. In Bulgaria it is legal to make forgery and sell fake coins,but if you sell real coins you can go in jail. |
| Those two "coins" are struck in silver and in gold from same fake die. This is also Slavey's work. |
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| Constantius II A.D. 337-361 Fake die struck in gold from Beirut, another world center for ancient forgery. |
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