Anything here cry fake?

ajaan · November 5, 2014 11:30AM

I have someone, not a forum member, interested in this coin but he is wary of fake ancients. Anything here cry fake to you?

Aethelred · November 5, 2014 11:32AM

Looks kosher to me.

ajaan · November 5, 2014 11:36AM

<< Looks kosher to me. >>

Roman coin from Judea?

lordmarcovan · November 5, 2014 11:38AM

Philip the Arab.

A common silver antoninianus, but sharp enough. These come pretty nice. I've always liked 'em for their relative affordability. Pretty good bang for the buck.

NiceCurrency · November 5, 2014 11:41AM

.

bronzemat · November 5, 2014 11:41AM

The coin is OK.

Its Philip II, legend ends with CAES., not AVG like daddy.

lordmarcovan · November 5, 2014 11:49AM

<< The coin is OK.

Its Philip II, legend ends with CAES., not AVG like daddy. >>

D'oh. I knew I was gonna get schooled here.

I stand corrected.

STLNATS · November 5, 2014 12:32PM

<< The coin is OK.

Its Philip II, legend ends with CAES., not AVG like daddy. >>

+1 and no beard on the portrait combined with the reverse (prince of youth) would be more appros for Jr as well.

LochNESS · November 5, 2014 5:31PM

Good ole' Philippus

But are we all talking about the same dude?

Bronzemat said "Philip II ... not like daddy" implying his dad was Philip I, but Philip II of Macedon was the son of Amyntas III not Philip I ... he was also father to Alexander the Great and is know for having coined (haha) the famous phrase "divide and conquer" ... I thought maybe bronzemat was referring to the Seleucid king Philip II Philorhomaeus (whose dad was Philip I) except according to wikipedia "no coins of Philip II are known" ... hmm

Philip II of Macedon had a beard:

lordmarcovan · November 5, 2014 5:50PM

Nessie, you're thinking of a much earlier Greek, Philip II of Macedon, who was assassinated in 336 BC, as you no doubt knew.

But in this particular context, we're talking about a Third century AD Roman emperor (well, Caesar * ) with the same title: Philip II, who was supposedly murdered in 249 AD at the tender age of eleven, despite looking older in the coin portrait above.

So nearly six centuries separate the two.

Confusing, isn't it? Like I said in an earlier thread, one wishes the monarchs and emperors of yesteryear had been a bit more original and had a wider variety of names, like we do today.

Don't feel too bad. I initially got the guy on this coin confused with his father, Philip I (aka "Philip the Arab").

*- PS- to avoid further confusion for some (if I don't screw up again), I should say a word on the titles "Caesar" and "Augustus". Both were names of people, then later generic titles. "Caesar" was first the name of Julius Caesar, known to all. But it later became a title for the heir to the the throne. "Augustus" was the name/title given to the first Roman emperor, and was used later as a title for anyone who became full emperor. So to loosely state it in a modern American context, think of the Augustus as the president, and the Caesar as the vice president... kind of. This is how bronzemat was able to point out my error. Since the coin in the OP has legends that end in "CAES" and a beardless portrait, it indicates the unfortunate young Philip II, who never attained the rank of Augustus, whereas if it had said "AVG", it would've meant his daddy, Philip I ("the Arab").

Confusing and fascinating all at the same time.

Steve27 · November 5, 2014 8:06PM

The coin looks good to me. The basics I look for are non-round flan, off-center strike, and strong devices with weak legends.

STLNATS · November 5, 2014 10:52PM

Philip II of Macedon had a beard:

so did Philip II of Spain, but the OP coin is clearly roman, not greek (or spanish) so not sure why there was any cause for confusion beyond the normal Phil I vs II which can often be a challenge for the later coins of jr.

lordmarcovan · November 5, 2014 11:41PM

<< Philip II of Macedon had a beard:

so did Philip II of Spain, but the OP coin is clearly roman, not greek (or spanish) so not sure why there was any cause for confusion beyond the normal Phil I vs II which can often be a challenge for the later coins of jr. >>

The Roman/Greek distinction might not be quite so apparent to somebody who doesn't collect ancients, unless of course you consider the alphabets involved. If you don't collect something much (ancients in this case), they may tend to all look alike. And again, Phillip II of Macedon versus Philip II Caesar versus Philip II of Spain... there you have it. Too many similarly named monarchs in history!

I of course fell victim to the more "normal" mistake of mixing up the junior Caesar with his Daddy the Augustus.

MacCrimmon · November 6, 2014 1:18AM

<< Anything here cry fake to you?
>>

Yeah, Arsenal is fake !!!

lordmarcovan · November 6, 2014 1:32AM

Anything here fry cake?

Gimme a piece.

I like pound cake. No icing.

Thank you.

wybrit · November 6, 2014 10:07AM

Yeah, Arsenal is fake !!!

Bjorn · November 6, 2014 9:55PM

I don't see any red flags, appears to be fairly good grade. A good place to research fakes and get opinions is the Forum Ancient Coins site:

http://www.forumancientcoins.com

-Bjorn

LochNESS · November 7, 2014 6:04PM

<< so did Philip II of Spain, but the OP coin is clearly roman, not greek (or spanish) so not sure why there was any cause for confusion beyond the normal Phil I vs II which can often be a challenge for the later coins of jr. >>

STLNATS, yes the coin is clearly Roman. Thanks. As I said, "I thought maybe bronzemat was referring to the Seleucid king Philip II Philorhomaeus." Philorhomaeus means "friend of the Romans" and this Philip II served under the great Roman general Pompey. The reason my brain jumped to him was because ajaan said "Roman coin from Judæa?" and Judæa was part of the Seleucid kingdom.

Thank you, Lord M for explaining that we were looking at a 3rd century AD coin. I could not and still can't make out any date on either face.

Anything here cry fake?

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