Sasanian AR Drachm of Shah Varhran II NGC will not grade??

Windycity

I sent this to NGC for authentication and grading... they returned it as "ineligible type" - apparently they do not grade Sasanian coins at all. My purpose is submission was primarily for authentication. Hoping the ancient experts here might render opinions.

lordmarcovan

See the second-to-last paragraph on this page.

So nope- they don't do Sasanian.

Too bad, I guess, if you were dead-set on plastic, because that's a cool-looking coin.

But not the end of the world, since most collectors prefer their ancients raw anyway.

I can't help you at all on authentication except to say that has the right sort of general "look" for an ancient coin. It's no crude tourist fake, anyway.

If you don't get any help here (though I suspect you might), you can try the Forum Ancient Coins boards, where ancients are a primary focus.

STLNATS

Agree with Lord M that you should inquire at Forum Ancient Coins site. This is a specialized area and I think there's a couple of folks that could comment on this. There are fakes of this popular type - along with just about everything else it seems - altho a search of Forum didn't reveal an image.

That being said, I do think that this coin exhibits some immediate red flags for me: the orb over the kings head is usually more circular, the lettering below the bust is usually more distinct, the figures on the reverse are very different than the images I've seen (eg CNG archives), the fields look odd and the whole thing looks machine struck. But just my less than expert opinion and someone at the other site can probably nail it down promptly for you either way.

Windycity

Thanks... I'll post on Forum Ancient Coins board and get some opinions there. Appreciate the help.