What is this coin?

newbuddy56258

I purchased a coin collection and I found (2) of these in it. They are not identified and I've had no luck finding them online. Can anyone else here help? Do you recognize these? It appears to be a copy, but of what?

Greenstang

It is a copy, it says right on it. Has no. value.

newbuddy56258

@Greenstang said:
It is a copy, it says right on it. Has no. value.

I saw that too, but I'm more interested in knowing what it is a copy of?

WillieBoyd2

Looks like ancient Greek.

Is there a picture of the other side?

Sapyx

This is a very, very common copy of an ancient Greek silver tetradrachm from the Greek city of Gela, on the island of Sicily. You can see a genuine example in this Numista database page: https://en.numista.com/184081

I do not know precisely where these replicas came from, but they appear so frequently on the coin forums (usually 4 or 5 times per year, on the four coin forums that I am active on) that they must have been mass-produced and mass-distributed in considerable quantity. I suspect they were used as some kind of Reader's Digest style advertisement-giveaway for a book on ancient Greek history. The presence of the prominent "COPY" stamp indicates that this all happened after the passing of the Hobby Protection Act in the US in 1973, which required that specific word to be stamped onto all replica coins.

I do know, from experience, that the obverse of your coin will feature the same man-headed-bull that appears on the ancient silver original, but on your copy, there will be a giant hole or void in the middle of the coin, where the bull's neck should be. This hole was apparently deliberately put there by the replica-maker, and my best explanation is this was in order to hold a blob of glue which presumably originally held the replica coin onto a piece of paper or cardboard with an advertising blurb. I have never actually seen one of these replicas still attached to the card, so this is only a theory... but a plausible one.

Though these replicas are not common here in Australia where I live, I do own one of these replicas - @LordMarcovan gave it to me as part of a trade with him, some years ago.

Sapyx

A couple of older threads with more of these replica coins:

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1087808/opinions-on-this-found-tetradrachm-gela-coin-with-chain-mail-in-the-center

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1078262/need-some-help-horse-manancient-greek-coin

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1048802/id-foreign-coins