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Verification request: Eburones (Belgic tribe) gallic AR unit "rainbow cup" ~1AD (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/ancientcoins@lemmy.world
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Bought this at a recent small auction for €100. Someone else mentioned it's an "official museum replica" rather than genuine.

Since my expertise is mostly in Romans, I must admit I'm sort of out of my depth with this one. It's not ferromagnetic and the weight checks out at 3.76g, but I am concerned about some of the surface marks.

I hope someone with some more knowledge in these can weigh in and help verify (or not) the authenticity.

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[–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

He only saw it in a cursory glance but then said it was an "official museum replica", but the more I study the coin the more I doubt it.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I do find it suspicious that it appears to be silver, but all coins I can find with that design seem to be gold. That could indicate that it's an electroplate or otherwise high-quality copy.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Exactly! I did find the design but only on AV units rather than AR units. The AR ones exist but they seem to be almost as rare if not rarer than the AV ones.

    I still wonder how they got the incuse so correct if it's fake, that's not usually easy to do. AFAIK it was definitely struck, not cast, but the almost perfect centering is also suspect since most of the genuine ones are at least slightly off center at the least.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    There's not a single example of the AR unit on acsearch.info - and that has auction records going back decades. Which either means they're impossibly rare, or I am looking for the wrong thing, or it's indeed some sort of copy made to look very very genuine.

    I mean, it could be either of those three. Or maybe the light is off and it's actually gold, but I am sure you'd notice the weight difference.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's definitely not gold, alas.

    This weekend there's a chance that the person who told me it's a fake will be present, so I'll take it back to him and ask for elaboration. Thanks for the insights so far, has definitely helped!

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