|
We have provided the following links to other peoples websites where information on known fakes of ancient coins can be found. We did not write these sites, and assume no responsibility for their accuracy, but we have looked at each of them and would not have listed them here if we felt they were providing false information.
The Slavey Catalogue is made available by Twelve Caesars. It illustrates 49 examples of die-struck fakes by the Bulgarian die cutter known as Slavey. This is only a partial listing of Slavey's work, and as Slavey is still alive, we assume he has and will be making more types. As forgeries go, they are rather poor and while in mint condition as one normally sees them, of little danger to those experienced in ancient coins, but they do sometimes fool novice collectors and one should make oneself familiar with them and their style. However, recent examples from these dies have been noted which are intentinally badly struck, and artificially worn and aged, and in that condition they are significantly more dangerous (and while the question as to who artifically wore or aged them remains open, one has to assume Slavey himself controls the dies and thus is most likely responsible for the intentional bad strikes).
Gallery Of Modern Replicas A site brought to you by Barry and Darling Ancient Coins, with a number of modern fake and ancient counterfeits of Greek and Roman coins, including illustrations of some of the diagnostics for spotting some of the types.
CGB/CGF Gallery of Fakes CGB.FR, has provided an interesting listing of fakes compiled by Michael Prier, a very experienced French numismatist. Not a lot of coins, but he tells where and how each came into their collection, which makes for interesting reading, and one can learn much from such information.
Jencek's Modern Forgeries of Ancient Coins Jencek's Ancient Coins and Antiquities provided this page, which lists 20 forgeries from their personal "Black Museum". Be sure to click on the image to see enlarged and much clearer images of each type.
Countermarked Coin Copies A rather useful page by Dan Andrews, illustrates a number of ancient coins that are clearly marked as copies by the people that made them. While they were never intended to be sold as genuine, rather for museum gift shops, We have seen examples of several of these where the marks have been removed and the coins offered as genuine. Note that he has another page with some unmarked copies, but only a few of them ancients (you can link to it from the page above).
Counterfeits & Forgeries of Parthian Coins This is a specialty page on the fakes and forgeries of Parthian coins, compiled by Chris Hopkins of Parthia.com. Some of these are very deceptive and well worth having a good look at. The balance of this site is also the best there is on genuine Parthian coins, so be sure to have a look.
Severus Alexander.com This is a specialty page on the fakes and forgeries of the coinage of the Roman Emperor Severus Alexander, compiled by Kevin Beaulieu. This link will take you to the page about the fakes, but if you are interested in the coins of Severus Alexander, there is lots more to learn on this site.
On Line Liquidators On Line Liquidators, also known as "THE TORONTO GROUP" and known by many different ebay selling names, has been a plague on eBay for about three years and occasionally still crops up. This site records many of their known eBay selling names (if you bought any coins from any of these names, you probably have a fake), and illustrates many of the known fakes they have sold. The fakes are castings, and an experienced eye can determine them, but the forgers are smart enough to work the moulds to make minor changes to the coins (change small details and modify flan shapes). They have been very sucessful and many of their coins are floating around the secondary market so it will be well worth your time to become familiar with these mouldings. Be b warned, there are a large number of images and if you have a slow internet connection this page will take a little time to load.
Recently we have seen evidence that the "Toronto Group" have been using third parties in various countries to sell their coins, and we are not certain all of the sellers understand these coins are fakes. If you are an eBay seller, and someone offers to consign scarce coins to you at prices that appear to good to be true, please take a few minutes and compare the coins to the coins illustrated in this site, and be sure they are not matches.
Parion Hemidrachms, Imitations, and Forgeries In recent years there has been a flood of fake Parion Hemidrachms on the market, but there are also many genuine ones (they were never rare coins) and examples that are ancient imitations of them (very collectable in their own right). This page by Reid Goldsborough is designed to help people sort out the difference.
Apollonia Pontika Drachms And the "New York Hoard" of Counterfeits A few years ago there was a flood of fake Apollonia Pontika Drachms on the market which became known as the "New York Hoard" because they first appeared at a coin show in New York. This page by Reid Goldsborough is designed to document some of the known false dies, and help one understand what is wrong with them so others from false dies, but not yet documented, can be spotted. What is also useful is he has a page illustrating genuine examples to compare them to, to which he provides a link near the bottom (labeled "Back to Apollonia Pontika drachms"). We recommend you visit the page about genuine ones as well.
Modern Forgeries in Uncleaned Lots If you think buying your ancient coins in un-cleaned lots and cleaning them youself will keep you safe from forgeries, think again. This page by Bob Bischoff will prove you wrong and documents numbers of examples he has found in un-cleaned lots. Well worth a look.
The Selinos Fakes A couple of years ago an eBay seller posted a number of fakes. The seller was otherwise honest and there is a strong possibility he was unaware the coins were bad. That does not change the fact someone made these fakes and we can be sure he made more than one of each, so we are going to run into these again elsewhere. At my suggestion, Tom Ross built this page to record them. Some of them are fairly convincing as they are, but if artifically worn and patinated would become very dangerous.
Ancient Info has provided this very useful site that documents known fakes. To some extent it duplicates some of the fakes on the sites above, but it also has many other fakes listed as well. Well worth looking at.
Classical Coin Black Museum Illustrations of a number of Bugarian fakes, some of which have an image of a genuine example side by side with them.
Zach Beasley (Beast Coins) illustrations of variety of interesting fakes that he has encountered over the past few years.
David Sears Ancient Coin Authentication Service David Sear is the author of a number of very good books about ancient coins, and runs the most widely accepted authentication service for such coins. You will find all the details on his website.
If you know of other pages that should be included here, please let us know (our contact information is on the contact page, to which a link can be found in the top navigation bar).
Next page: EXAMPLES | 
