Background ....
In a previous edition of Ancient Times we saw how counterfeiting occurred in virtually all ancient civilizations. The intent at that time was to reproduce circulating coinage and make a profit by replacing precious metals with less expensive base metals such as bronze. Of course, time passes and the classical civilizations gradually became a faded memory, nothing more than a source of metals and building materials to those that came after.

With the Renaissance came a renewed interest in those who came before and the coins they produced. This led to the first reproduction of ancient coins intended for collectors and introduced the world to such legendary names as Cavino and the Paduans. For the most part the coins of this period show a high degree of skill and artistic ability, but sometimes lack the technical details that we take for granted. It is still debated whether the coins they produced were designed to deceive the early collectors or were merely a tool to allow people to collect replicas of rare and unattainable coins. It is interesting to note that the first generation counterfeits from this period are eagerly collected today.

And now we come to the modern period.

Today we face a situation with a large number of different counterfeits on the market. As you will see, most modern fakes fall into two categories. Poorly made copies intended to fool the unwary or uninformed, such as tourists and casual collectors. And higher grade, skillfully produced copies intended to fool the rest of us. Of course it is the second category that causes the most problems...

Whether you call them fakes, forgeries, reproductions, copies or counterfeits, these not-so-ancient coins are still with us today. In this article we will examine the current state of the art and suggest ways that the 21st century collector can educate and protect himself.

Manufacturing Techniques and Warning Signs
Before we start, I would like to emphasize that if you have a coin that shows a sign or some signs of being a counterfeit, that does not automatically mean that it is. The emphasis should be looking at the total picture and not just a few characteristics. If you have any doubts consult your dealer.

Cast (traditional, centrifugal and pressure casting): By far the cheapest, low tech method of counterfeiting coins. It is also the source of most of the common tourist type fakes on the market. The process starts with making two molds, one for the obverse and one for the reverse. (A seldom seen variation would be to mold the coin vertically with each mold containing one half of a coin, split across the face.) In order for the counterfeiter to pour the molten metal, a fill hole or channel has to be cut in the mold for pouring. The two halves are then placed together and the metal poured. When the metal cools, the halves are separated and the finished coin removed.

At that point the maker will have to do a little post process clean up such as adding patination, removing mold lines or excess metal known as flash (metal that seeps into the crack between the molds). The close-up at right, above, shows an example of an edge seam that was not completely cleaned up. This is typical of low grade or tourist copies. The close-up at left shows a badly cast coin with a huge, prominent fill hole (circled). This one was so badly done that it could only be a copy aimed towards the tourist trade.

There are several problems with casting:

1. Unless the manufacturer is using a pressure casting technique, a cast coin will frequently have air bubble pitting on the surface. Particularly along portraits and devices. The bubbles may also be found on the coins fields on really bad copies. The bubbles will appear as small rounded pits and should not be confused with the irregular pitting frequently found on genuine coins.
2. Cast coins will always come out of the molds with mold lines, a raised ridge where the molds joined together. Typically these mold lines can be found around the coin edges. Most counterfeiters will try to remove the lines (sometimes carefully others times not) with a file or other tool. So examine your coin edges for suspicious file marks or raised ridges. This should not be confused with adjustment marks that are sometimes found on genuine coins that were overweight when made and had to be trimmed down to the proper weight.
3. Look for signs of the fill hole. When the cast coin comes out of the mold, it will have a a tail or sprue of metal where the fill hole was. Of course this has to be removed. Look for a flat spot on the rim where it was removed.
4. Soft details. No matter how good the mold was, the details are never brought over into the casting as crisply as they appeared on the original coin. This is most evident in the inscriptions which generally take on a rounded appearance in the cast coin. The edges of the letters usually blend into the field rather than being sharply raised above it.
5. Lastly, coin molds degrade rapidly with use. The first xx number of coins may come out in good shape, but then the mold with degrade and subsequent coins will become less and less sharp.

Die struck (hand and machine press): With die struck coins, we return to the more traditional method of manufacture and die striking seems to be the method of choice for most of the Bulgarian counterfeits we see on the market today. It was also the method used for the famous, renaissance era Paduan type fantasy pieces as well as more modern counterfeiters such as Becker.

This method requires a pair of dies, one for the obverse and one for the reverse. The dies may be used to either hand strike the prepared, blank flans or used in a machine press similar to what is used for modern coinage. The results of hand striking may mimic the actual condition of ancient coins by being off center, weakly struck, etc. However, the machine pressed coins tend to be very uniform. The quality of the reproduction (fake, counterfeit, whatever...choose your own term) is very dependent on the artistic ability of the die engraver and to his knowledge of ancient coinage.

The example above is one of the popular Bulgarian repros, this time of Domitilla. It shows many of the characteristics of a machine pressed coin as well as characteristics typical of many Bulgarian counterfeits:

• The fields are very flat and regular.
• There is a fully beaded border. A feature you rarely find on Roman coins except for those in extremely high grades.
• The flan is thin and of a uniform thickness.
• The metal may be silver, but it has an unnatural look to it. I suspect it may be a modern alloy of silver rather than pure silver.
• Style. See the section on Tests for a discussion on style.

Nero is one of those emperors whose portrait changed over the span of his reign, from a young, fairly slender youth (very hard to find) to the older, more familiar, overweight type. The fake at left is meant to represent his middle period and is grossly overdone. The beak-like nose, pointed chin, beady eyes and funny looking hair are not even close to the style shown in the actual coin at right.

This is an interesting situation where the portrait looks more realistic (in modern terms) than the actual coin. Unfortunately the style and execution is completely wrong for an ancient coin. In other words it is too modern looking. Plus, the hairline is wrong, beard overdone and the eyes/eyebrow is much to modern in execution.

One problem area that some modern Bulgarian fakes have in common is the mouth, or rather the tendency to portray an emperor with an inappropriate expression. This is the case with our Augustus, shown here with a cross between a smirk and a leer. Granted, some emperors or empresses may be depicted on the actual coins with a slight smile, but this is overdone. Also, in this case the eyes have too much detail and the cheek too prominent. In fact, if you cover the cheek the coin looks much better.