Here is some very good advice that will help you avoid fakes. revised April 5, 2011
1) There are many criminal fake sellers who
use eBay. The best simple way to avoid fakes is to
never buy from anyone on Yahoo group CoinForgeryDiscussionList
blacklist.
The
Yahoo e-mail group (the CoinForgeryDiscussionList)
keeps
a blacklist of fake
sellers. If you intend to buy ancient coins you should join it. You can
ask about particular items and receive frequent updates about fakes and
fake sellers.
You will have to "join" to see it but you can easily check a box
to not to get any communications if you don't want them.
For a list of eBay sellers who have sold fakes, see:
http://augustusmath.hypermart.net/fakesellers.html
If the eBay dealer is new, you will want to "search" on
the username to see if a more-recent message mentions fake items from
that seller.
2) If you question a particular coin, look at
which allows people to post fakes they have
spotted. Go there and enter in the identification (for example, the
name of the Roman emperor or the name of the Greek city) in the search
box.
3) Never buy from sellers located
in Bulgaria, China, or Malasia.
4) Never
bid on "private auctions" (where the names of bidders are private).
5) Never
bid on auctions where the seller's feedback is private. (What could be
the possible excuse for that!)
6) With sellers unknown to you, always look at
"seller's other items." If any are fakes, don't bid. If almost
all are low-value coins of much worse quality than the one that
interests you, don't bid. (Some fakesellers surround their high-cost
fakes with lots of genuine junk to increase their feedback record.)
Particular web sites with more information are discussed below.
By
the way, do NOT assume that a large number of good feedbacks means the
seller is okay. Many sellers of fakes have 100% feedback because the
suckers who bought from them do not know they bought a fake instead of
a bargain (and, they did not read this page!)
Con men gravitate to eBay. If you were going to sell
high-value fakes, would you want to do it face-to-face where an irate
customer could confront you, or anonymously from a distant state or
country where the law's tentacles do not reach?
Doug Smith's good advice about fakes. http://dougsmith.ancients.info/fake.html
Ancient Coins and Modern Fakes: How To Tell The
Difference. An
Authentication Primer, by Dennis J. Kroh
http://www.mindspring.com/~kroh/Empirecoins/fakes.html
"Brad's Introduction to Ancient Coins" with information about
fakes.
http://home.avvanta.com/~brad/coins4a.htm
Sites with lots of fakes illustrated
The most important site, mentioned above: http://forgerynetwork.com/
A huge and important page (I hope you have a high-speed
connection)
with
a great number of fakes offered on eBay:
http://www.chijanofuji.com/online_liquidators.html
The site also has notes on the MO, and seller names, of this person, or
group
of people, who sell fakes on eBay. If you see a nice coin offered in a
"private
auction", beware! Some of us who can recognize fakes e-mail buyers to
warn
them not to pay. However, sellers can prevent that by making the
auction
"private." Not all "private" auctions are of fakes, but it is a major
warning
sign. Fraud on eBay is primarily (but not exclusively) conducted using
"private"
auctions.
Some denarius fakes that appeared on eBay in December,
2003: http://tomross.ancients.info/images/Fake%20Coins/fake_coins.htm
"The Slavey Catalog" by Twelve Caesars, an extensive illustrated
list of some of the most common fakes by the famous Bulgarian
forger Slavey and his school.
http://www.ancients.info/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=511
Reproductions from the Bulgarian engraver, Slavei Petrov Greek coins: http://people2.clarityconnect.com/webpages6/gossett/slavei_repros.html
More "Bulgarian School" counterfeits: http://www.rg.cointalk.org/bulgarian_school/
a subsite of http://www.rg.cointalk.org/bogos/
AncientCoinArt's gallery of fakes: http://www.ancientcoinart.com/fakes_gallery.html
John Jencek's page "Modern Forgeries of Ancient Coins:" http://66.201.77.219/shopping.asp
A French site (CGB) with many forgeries illustrated: http://www.cgb.fr/monnaies/articles/faux/indexgb.html
Fakes of coins of the Roman emperor Severus Alexander (AD 222-235) http://www.severusalexander.com/fakes.htm
Ed Snible's site on the infamous "Black Sea Hoard and
other Apollonia diobol fakes" http://www.snible.org/coins/black_sea_hoard.html
Sites with a few particular fakes individually discussed
Calgary Coin Gallery's Pages on Forgeries. Four fakes discussed. http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/fakes/fakes.htm
Counterfeit of a Decadrachm of Syracuse by Kimon, 405 - 380
B.C. by John R. Gainor
http://www.nunet.ca/cmns/cmns7.htm
Copies of a Sasanian-style coin of the huns: http://www.grifterrec.com/y/gobl_8-9_comp.jpg
Other
Chris Hopkins' pages on counterfeits of Parthian coins, at
Parthia.com
http://parthia.com/parthia_forgery.htm
A pdf file posted by the Celator about Becker the
Counterfeiter. http://celator.com/cws/becker.pdf
Some firms make "reproduction" ancient coins. If you buy from them, you know what you are getting. If someone else buys from them and sells to you, you might buy a fake. Here are some sites:
Museum Reproductions, another source for coin
reproductions. http://www.museumreproductions.co.uk/roman.htm
Return to
the main site on ancient
coins.