Comment on Authenticity please

JZrarities

eBay Link to Tetradrachm

- Style ?
- Fabric
- Edge ?
etc

lordmarcovan

That ain't Alexander. He'd be wearing the skin of the Nemean lion, unless I'm mistaken.

More likely one of the Ptolemies?

The apparent "seam" around the edge of that thing, particularly visible in the third photograph, worries me. It's not an obvious casting seam and could have resulted from something else, but it's a red flag. If this is a cast copy, it's better than average in appearance, but for $2.5K? Ha. Fuhgeddaboutit.

I wouldn't touch it with a 300-foot pole.

Sapyx

If you look further down in the item description, you'll see that some kind soul has identified it for him as Demetrios Poliorketes, king of "rump Macedonia" 294-288 BC. The coin is Sear #6764, cataloguing at £650 in 1998. The helpful fellow on eBay reckoned "that this coin seems ok", with the caveat about authenticating coins from photos, etc..

The "seam line" worries me, too - particularly the way the edge nicks, breaks and cuts seem to stop at the seam - as if either the die alignment has been changed or the obverse and reverse from two different coins have been combined.

It could be the "wrong obverse" - our informer notes "that Demetrios's Tetradachms usually have a more youthful portrait, but that they do sometimes come a bit more jowly as this coin is." Here's a similar "youthful one" from the Wildwinds list of coins of this ruler:

hockeyfan9

I am not nearly as wise as these other folks who responded, nor am I knowledgable in anciet coins, but the coin looks fake to me.

spoon

Just doesn't look right.. but I've been wrong before.

And while many people have their "don't bet on sellers in China" rule, I tend to add the "don't bid on coins from people who sell China" rule. The guy has listed a set of China and a bunch of vintage soft-core books... and one 2500 dollar coin.

STLNATS

Wonderful style but I don't know the series so don't know if the obverse is proper for the reverse. All the other examples I came across in a quick look look like the WW coin.

The edge makes me wonder if this is an electrotype (sp?). On the enlargement of the obv there seems to be a hint of copper at the wear points but this could just be the photo.

A big red flag (tho not definitive) is that the weight seems very low for a high style tetradrachm at 13.9 gm. There's one of the same general type (diff obv style) on CNG at the moment that is at 17.3gms. cng

The rule "don't bid on coins from people who sell China" is a very good one I also use. This coin just doesn't seem to be in place among the other items the seller has.

No doubt caveat emptor.

Aethelred

I would not bid on that item!

JZrarities

It just doesn't look right to me either.

The gap in the Rim leads me to believe it's a Toronto Group cast fake

DesertRat

As little as I know about these coins, that seam would scare me off before the price did.