Contrefaçons de Fausta et Helena Antioch / Nicomedia - 1

S'il vous plaît pardonnez-moi d'écrire en anglais.

S'IL VOUS PLAÎT NOTE: Chaque pièce ci-dessous est une contrefaçon.

Dear fellow coin collectors,

We need to do more to stop the avalanche of forgeries. Not only do they constitute a fraud, but they threaten our hobby (and they mess up my research as well). One thing we can do is to publish known forgeries, for the benefit of all.

We must also ask the dealers to spend a greater effort in researching the coins they sell.

I will here give a disturbing example of a large number of forgeries. They were published already in 1989 and 1990 in the Bulletin of Counterfeits (BOC). Unfortunately, the Bulletin is a collector’s item rather than a widely used reference (a complete run of the bulletin was sold in 2015 for over $2,000).

You who read this may well be the unlucky owner of one of the forgeries shown below. They have all been sold to someone. The sellers include a dozen of the major auction houses as well as respected dealers. They have sold the coins as genuine, unaware that they are forgeries. Sadly, had they checked the BOC they would have recognized that their coins were not genuine. But they didn’t.

These forgeries are so deceiving that it is almost impossible to identify them individually. I have bought two of these to study, and they are near perfect, but not entirely. I will not reveal what details in the coins themselves that show them to be forgeries because that information would then become available to the next generation of criminals. However, by die matching (see below) I can show that they are forgeries.

If you own further examples of these forgeries, or know of any, please let me know.

Lars Ramskold

Contrefaçons de Fausta et Helena Antioch / Nicomedia - 2

Contrefaçons de Fausta et Helena Antioch / Nicomedia - 3

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Thanks for this post !

I never heard about the BOC before...

however, I think that a paper version of this work is an "obsolete technology"

The future (and present !) will be online.

I contribute to post new unknown counterfeits in the Dr. Ilya Prokopov's Fake Ancient Coin Reports. Everyone can do it, it's very easy.
This database is the most complete work online. The search motor is powerful and very quick.
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/fakes/index.php

Powerful because of the hi-definition photography too... near impossible with a paper version.

NOTE : I just saw that a major part (or full !) of the published false coins in the BOC have been transfered by Martin Griffiths in the Prokopov online database.

Dear pescennius,

When it comes to combating forgeries, there is no such thing as obsolete technology. All means must be used. Old-fashioned books and online resources are not excluding each other but complementing each other.

And as you see, I published these forgeries online. Not only on this forum, but on five other online fora as well today.

BOC was produced by a board of professional numismatists. Their verdict on authenticity is not infallible, but it is certainly much more reliable than the opinion of any single person. For that reason, the Fake Ancient Coin Reports must be taken for what they are, one persons opinion.

I regularly consult the Fake Ancient Coin Reports and ForgeryNetwork (which includes most examples published by in the BOC), and I have added many fake coins. But that is not enough.

Coin collectors in general have no idea how many forgeries they buy. By buying forgeries they support criminals. And of course the fakes become worthless when exposed.

I want to thank you for posting forgeries on Fake Ancient Coin Reports. Every little contribution counts!

If I have a paper version of the BOC in left hand and an online database in right hand, I choose the right one !

Everyone has an internet access now...

The right tool for the right job !
Using/printing paper version of books is to my opinion a waste of time in the XXIst century !

Of course, in the absence of dematerialized version of the data, a book is an indispensable tool...

Pescennius a écrit:

Of course, in the absence of dematerialized version of the data, a book is an indispensable tool...

Happy to hear that you understand the problem :-)

Myself, I chose the best source, regardless of where I find it. If I restricted my sources to digital ones, my publications would be worthless, excluding a wealth of data that is not available in any digitized form. But that's just me. I am a scientific perfectionist.