Thracian tetradrachms
Forgeries and Replicas

	“Skin Deep 1” (16.6g, 33mm). This is an ancient plated counterfeit, or fourree, specifically a silver-plated bronze contemporary forgery. The breaks in the plating near the edge between four and five o'clock on the obverse reveal it for what it is. The coin is in the correct weight range, with its thicker flan accounting for this.
	"Skin Deep 2" (14.1g, 35mm). Here's another fourree with broken plating, around 2 o'clock on the obverse. It reveals a green "eutectic" layer separating the silver from the bronze, then a bronze core. The coin is a tad light but close to the typical weight range, a deceptive ancient fake. This specimen is part of the collection of Dave Liebl. Here are other pages of mine on Ancient Fourree Counterfeits.
	"Faker 1" (17.0g, 32mm). Here's a superficially convincing modern struck counterfeit of a highly abstracted Thracian tetradrachm, with the obverse and reverse designs attractively styled. The weight is at the high end of the normal range. One diagnostic is the absence of evidence of cleaning, of the removal of encrustations or horn silver, as typically happens with authentic coins. There is evidence of artificial toning, with golden coloration in the coin's recesses, which can happen with coins stored in the air but doesn't happen with coins dug up out of the ground, as this coin allegedly was. The gray flan may consist of debased silver made from melted-down 19th and 18th century Turkish coins, according to one expert who has studied these fakes.
	"Faker 2." This is the same type of fake as the above and appears to have originated from the same hand, though the fabric is somewhat different. The obverse has a realistic flan crack and in general is well done, with the design being artistically abstract. One observer looking at this page remarked that this and the previous coin lack a strong sense of composition and balance. Still, they're interesting pieces of numismatic deception. This particular forger is talented, though he's wasting his time on junk like this.
	"Faker 3" (16.6g, 32mm). This forgery has uniform fields and dark, mottled, artificial-looking toning. Its surfaces appear to have been acid-treated to give them an old look. The styling is attractive and, with the wide diversity of authentic styling on Thracian tetradrachms, convincing enough.
	"Faker 4" (16.4g, 30mm). This is one of a large number of forgeries of this type that have surfaced from Bulgaria. It's made of silver and the correct weight and diameter. The styling is evocative, with Herakles having three legs, and the coin has been aged convincingly. The fields are too flat. It was sold by a seller in Bulgaria who sells hundreds of Bulgarian School fakes while disclaiming knowledge of the coins' authenticity, which creates the false hope in bidders' minds that they may be getting a real deal on a real item. For this reason authenticity disclaimers are against eBay's rules, but they happen all the time. If you alert eBay to this, nothing typically happens, with eBay not having enough staff on hand, despite ever increasing profits, to read all messages like this sent to it through its own messaging system. Ilya Prokopov in his 2003 book Modern Counterfeits and Replicas of Ancient Greek and Roman Coins from Bulgaria documented 79 Bulgarian forgeries of Thracian tetradrachms from "Sofia 1," the code name he used for one particular Bulgarian forgery workshop. The above forgery is an obverse die match to Prokopov 54 and 55 and near reverse die match to Prokopov 55. Given that neither the reverse of this piece nor the obverse or reverse of the following piece is documented in Prokopov, and given that many of the other recent forgeries aren't documented there either, this forgery workshop has no doubt produced many hundreds of different forgery dies.
	Faker 5" (16.8g, 29mm). This is another recent Bulgarian School forgery of a highly abstracted Thracian tetradrachm. The reverse styling is particularly wild. It's the correct weight and diameter and appears to be made of silver, originally engraved, and produced with a hydraulic press. It's one of hundreds of Bulgarian fakes of ancient Greek and Roman coins sold on eBay in 2009 by a seller in Bulgaria who used about 15 different I.D.s, selling fakes under one I.D. until it was cancelled by eBay, then selling under a new I.D. until it was cancelled by eBay, and so on. He also used some of the I.D.s to bid up or shill coins sold under a different I.D. This particular piece was bought with four other Thracian tetradrachm fakes by a collector in the UK, who after being alerted to the nature of this piece, agreed to donate it to the cause of counterfeit education.
	"Sura Faker" (19.4g, 30mm). Here's another fake from Bulgarian, with this one copying a Thasos-style tetradrachm minted c. 92-81 BC by Q. Bruttius Sura, the Roman legatus (military commander) in Macedonia, as evidenced by monogram SVR. It's significantly overweight and also features characteristically flamboyant Bulgarian styling. The fake was published in IBSCC's Bulletin on Counterfeits, Vol. 17 No.2 1992/93, Page 27 Fig 6a.
	"Toronto Faker" (11.4g, 32mm). This is one of the cast fakes offered for sale on eBay in thousands of scam auctions over an astounding period of four years in the early 2000s by a crook operating out of Toronto, Canada. This forgery criminal is sometimes called the Toronto Group, but there's no indication that there was anyone behind this other than a single individual making poor- and medium-quality cast copies in his basement, and the Toronto Forger is a more fitting name. The above piece is a lightweight cast fake, like all of his fakes, is unconvincing in hand. Along with it being lightweight, its surfaces exhibit small casting pits, and the edges are marked by traces of a seam. The piece rings when you tap it with another coin, indicting a high silver content and that the silver is modern, not ancient. The artificial toning is well done, and with the small photos that the forger used, the nature of the piece isn't as obvious on screen as it is in hand. The Toronto Forger put up on eBay several dozen cast fakes at a time with each round of his scam auctions, typically the same fakes each time, with new fakes added as he want along, using the same photos, with new photos used as he went along. He created more than 40 rounds of scam auctions, using a different eBay I.D. each time. Despite many people contacting eBay, it had no mechanism in place to act in a timely way, and to this day it still doesn't read or act upon most messages sent to it. With every round of scam auctions, eBay canceled this forger's I.D. (NARUed him, for Not a Registered User), but until near the end of this forger's run it generally wasn't until after the auctions were over and most people had likely already paid and received their items. eBay sent messages to the people who had been scammed, but its intent was to absolve itself of responsibility. The message contained the following language: "eBay is only a venue, and we cannot guarantee that sellers will complete transactions nor can we guarantee the delivery or quality of bought items." Estimating conservatively, the Toronto Forger scammed 1,000 people out of $150,000. This scammer seems to have ceased operations, but a number of other crooks have come along and emulated his tactics. eBay has gotten better at stopping the most blatant forgery scammers, but it appears to be a sporadic effort. Other scammers have made businesses of selling fakes of ancient coins and artifacts as authentic on eBay, like the Toronto Forger operating for years, despite the best efforts of people, as well as the American Numismatic Association, to prevail upon eBay stop them. One lesson is that you should never bid on anything on eBay that can be faked unless you're expert in the area, know the seller, or have gotten a recommendation about the seller from a reliable source. Don't expect eBay to protect you. It typically doesn't even read the messages it receives from people telling it that a seller is breaking eBay's own rules, such as disclaiming knowledge of authenticity. Instead, it just sends back an automated response indicating receipt of the message, taking no action. You can find a catalog of the Toronto forgeries here.
	"Beirut Faker." This is a Beirut School forgery, frequently sold on eBay. The seller claims that he is a licensed antiquities dealer in Lebanon, but Lebanon does not license antiquities dealers. The seller in his auction descriptions includes this language: "Bid with confidence. We are in the antiquity business for more than 30 years. A letter of authenticity is accompanied for the lucky winning bidder." These fakes all have surfaces with the same scrubbed and artificially toned appearance.
	"Pot Metal" (15.0g, 33mm). This is a fairly convincing cast counterfeit, likely made of pot metal, an alloy sometimes created by the actual melting of old pots. It can consist of tin, lead, and copper. This piece has no visible edge seam, and the casting pits are small. The toning is fake and has an odd maroon tint to it.
	"Lead Boy" (13.9g, 33mm). Here's an obvious cast counterfeit made from a seed coin of the same obverse variety as the above pot metal fake. This fake's indistinct details, pitted surfaces, and light weight give it away. From the feel of the metal, it's likely a lead alloy.
	"Bronze Baby" (14.0g, 32mm). This is an obvious tourist fake, made of bronze instead of silver and designed to fool tourists and other inexperienced buyers. Ancient coins of a similar obverse design from Maroneia were commonly struck in bronze, but not those from Thasos. The details of the coin's surfaces are soapy, not sharp, and casting bubbles are visible under magnification. The edges have been filed.
	"Powder Puff" (10.7g, 32mm). This is another tourist fake, a cast counterfeit of a Thasos tetradrachm. This piece has a soapy surface, indistinct details, pitted surfaces, and powdery fake toning, and though the correct size it's significantly underweight. It appears to be made of bronze.
	"Mesh Mess" (11.0g, 32mm). This cast fake has a strange mesh pattern over its surfaces that may have been caused by the use of a cloth over the molding material to prevent the original coin from sticking to it. The edges appear to have been filed to remove the seam. This lightweight fake is made of silver -- it rings when it's tapped.
	"Sousek" (17.2g, 33mm). This is an Antiquanova replica, made in the Czech Republic. The piece is pressed and consists of .999 fine silver. The "S" countermark on the reverse stands for Petr Sousek, the engraver.
	"Clay Man" (3.6g, 31mm). Here's a modern replica, made out of clay and intended for jewelry, as evidenced by the hole in the flan above Dionysos' head. It was made in Turkey by Bekircan Tahberer, who sells ceramic replicas of this and other ancient coins and jewelry made from them very inexpensively
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