Linda clues up + Please help identify this coin/token

labrams

I started this thread twice, then couldn't find it, then this week, FINALLY realized there is a BOTTOM HALF to the search form .... wow, I can read all the threads now and even find things. No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I'm that slow.

Can anyone tell me what this coin/token is? I've had it about 6 months. It's very 3D, it's bigger than a half-dollar, bronze, slightly irregular, not round. If it's ancient, it's in terrific shape, otherwise, it's an odd thing to counterfeit or make into a token because it's so large, the bronze had to cost something if it's modern-made. I got it in a box of all sorts of coins and tokens this guy had at a flea market.

I hope this works. It SHOULD be a small picture of it.



Please CLICK HERE for larger picture.

Thank you for any help and thanks to everybody who tried to reply before when apparently I couldn't get the pictures to post.

Aethelred

That is a bronze copy of a Dekadrachm from ancient Syracuse.

labrams

Wow, thanks for the super rapid great reply! I've been hanging onto this thing for months. It's almost become my lucky desk talisman, which apparently is about all it's good for since it's a copy.

My next question is why anyone would go to the trouble to make a copy of such a big, heavy coin? I do not for a second doubt you, this is a serious question. It seems like a lot of expense for nothing, given that it's bronze, which isn't cheap, and it's big. What purpose do such copies serve?

Thanks again!

AuldFartte

Hi Linda

I may not have this right, but I think most of these type of copies were made for the tourist trade rather than to fool collectors of "the real thing". Sort of a souvenier, I guess.

cladking

There is another search on each forum above the list of threads. This one actually seems
to work better most of the time and is always much easier.

labrams

Aethelred posted:

<< <i>That is a bronze copy of a Dekadrachm from ancient Syracuse. >>

You've sent me on a reading and viewing excursion. I now know a lot more than I did about Dekadrachms (is that the plural?) from 350-330 BC. Amazing amount of info and pictures about them on the web. Thank you again.

AND, again thanks to you, I also figured out that the reverse at the bottom, was nothing like the real thing. It is, if you will, "signed" on the lower reverse and not by Kimon. I think I translated it correctly, but I don't read Greek writing or Roman numerals (another giveaway, Roman numerals?) but here's my best shot and if so, we now have the year. Ahem. You nailed it.



Oh, and there's a company that made a bunch of reproductions and has a website, high up in google, about it and other fakes it reproduces, so there must be money in it. Tourists have peculiar collecting habits? http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prweb227021.htm

labrams

cladking wrote:

<< <i>There is another search on each forum above the list of threads. This one actually seems to work better most of the time and is always much easier. >>

Oh, lordy, I've barely gotten the hang of the one I found (much less a second one) and I don't know if it's the forum one or the other one. Thanks for warning me, lol.

Sapyx

<< <i>My next question is why anyone would go to the trouble to make a copy of such a big, heavy coin? I do not for a second doubt you, this is a serious question. It seems like a lot of expense for nothing, given that it's bronze, which isn't cheap, and it's big. What purpose do such copies serve? >>


It's not just the cheap, crude fool-the-tourist fakes that you find with that design.

These coins (the original ancient silver coins, that is) are regarded among the most beautiful ever made, anywhere. They are therefore widely copied by medallic artists and ancient art enthusiasts. Some coin collectors who can't afford a real one will happily pay more than a few dollars for a realistic reproduction.

Peter Rosas is one of the more famous (and prolific) ancient coin reproducers in the US; he's also a bit of a rebel when it comes to compliance with the Hobby Protection Act. As far as he's concerned, prominently stamping "COPY" on the copies (like the act requires) ruins the artwork.

labrams

Sapyx wrote:

<< <i>These coins (the original ancient silver coins, that is) are regarded among the most beautiful ever made, anywhere. They are therefore widely copied by medallic artists and ancient art enthusiasts. Some coin collectors who can't afford a real one will happily pay more than a few dollars for a realistic reproduction. >>



Just checked eBay and the Antiquanova site (that makes reproductions) Antiquanova - the company in the PRweb article

Looks like it's worth anywhere from about $35-$85, except the higher end ones seem to be silver, which apparently the original is (mine definitely is not silver).

I'm now beginning to consider it may well be copper over lead, not bronze, having found this is a popular combination for various 'medals.' Hmmm. Can you tell I am *not* a medal or copy or token collector, lol?

Sitting just within glancing distance on my desk it looks remarkably like an Oreo and makes me hungry.

Sapyx

<< <i>Sitting just within glancing distance on my desk it looks remarkably like an Oreo and makes me hungry. >>




Now, I didn't see your third post when I made mine, so I didn't know about the "signature" and date. The date looks to me like MDCCCXCVI, or 1896. The last "X" doesn't look quite right; it may be the copyist's monogram rather than part of the date.

Back then (1896), when all things classical were "trendy", lots of places made "store cards" or advertising pieces in the form of replica ancient coins. This could well be such an advertising piece.

labrams

<< <i>The date looks to me like MDCCCXCVI, or 1896. The last "X" doesn't look quite right; it may be the copyist's monogram rather than part of the date.

Back then (1896), when all things classical were "trendy", lots of places made "store cards" or advertising pieces in the form of replica ancient coins. This could well be such an advertising piece. >>

You're right about that last letter, the squiggly 'x.' I had my doubts about it but had no idea what else it could be. It's got a distinctly long and curly top left arm that doesn't resemble the other 'x' at all. Age-wise it looks about right to be a late 1800's piece.

I'd like to figure out how to find out what it's made out of. I'm now guessing it's a copper-coated lead.

On the obverse, there's copper colored bits in some of the nooks and crannies. Not sure if they showed in the scan. Now this *could* be rust. What metal rusts orange colored?

The edge has what looks like an irregular seam line at one point, as if it were originally two planchets melted together, but the remainder of the edge is solid, and the whole edge is pretty much the color of a brown copper cent so the whole thing could be copper but I'd expect it would have green crud, rather than rusty crud. Hmmm. Those are technical terms.

All ideas and thoughts appreciated. Thanks very much for deciphering the date.

labrams

Rust on metal -- I just answered my own question. Had out a handful of zinc-coated steel war pennies and one of them has orange rust. So steel rusts orange, eh? Or is it the zinc coating?

Sapyx

<< <i>On the obverse, there's copper colored bits in some of the nooks and crannies. Not sure if they showed in the scan. Now this *could* be rust. What metal rusts orange colored?

Rust on metal -- I just answered my own question. Had out a handful of zinc-coated steel war pennies and one of them has orange rust. So steel rusts orange, eh? Or is it the zinc coating? >>



Copper can "rust orange" under the right circumstances, too. Those fool-the-tourists fake ancient coins you often find in the markets in the Middle East are often artifically aged, usually in an oven of some kind. They come out with orange in the cracks and crevices.

Iron oxide ("rust") is reddish-brown in colour; a thin layer of it can look orange. Zinc oxides are white.

Lead can turn red, but you need some pretty strange chemistry in the environment for that to happen naturally. It's probably just the copper coating.


<< <i>The edge has what looks like an irregular seam line at one point, as if it were originally two planchets melted together, but the remainder of the edge is solid >>


That's what cast coins and/or electrotypes often look like - two half-coins glued together, with a seam between them. The more convincing cast counterfeits have had this telltale edge filed away or otherwise removed.