Can I ask for help on a collection of ancients I might purchase

Morgan13

This is a photo of the group. Typically U.S. coins are what I collect but if I can purchase them I might add a few to my collection and sell a few.
Thank you!
I dont know what they are worth. Just curious if there is anything here valuable. It also comes with the case if I want it.

Morgan13

Research and the seller told me the gold coins are a Byzantine Solidus and a British gold Sovereign. I dont know what they are worh though. Same with the rest.
The British coin is ruined. Someone harshly cleaned it at some point.

OnlyGoldIsMoney

Can you provide a closeup shot of the solidus?

Morgan13

Sapyx

Some of the ancients are definitely replicas, visible even from this zoomed-out picture:

3 down 4 across: a "tourist copy" of a silver tetradrachm of Antiochus IV.
3 down 5 across: looks like a copy of a Paduan (so, a modern copy of a Renaissance-era fake).
4 down 3 across: a very commonly encountered "tourist copy" of a Byzantine follis of Justinian I.

Some of the others are suffering form guilt-by-association. For example, 1 down 2 across is a "Temple of Janus" dupondius of Nero- a very popular coin with collectors, and very commonly faked.

Some of the others, such as 1 down 4 across, 2 down 2 across, 3 down 6 across, 4 down 1 across and 4 down 2 across are relatively cheap, common coins which wouldn't normally be faked and if faked would probably be better-looking than these examples; I would tend to assume those are genuine.

The fact that the tray is a mixture of definitely-fake, probably-fake, and probably-genuine coins makes me think that whoever assembled the collection was, like yourself, not very knowledgeable at detecting fake ancients. I hate to say it, but it looks very much like a "tourist collection" of ancient coins picked up by someone doing a tour of Europe and the Mediterranean.

Given the dubiousness of at least some of the coins, I'd want to get the two gold coins checked by an expert before paying any kind of bullion-value money for them.

Morgan13

Thank you. Your response have helped me alot.
Im just going to the seller its not for me.
I dont want to get in some kind of argument with him.
I also dont want to be the one who gives him the bad news.