Fake Ancient Coin Dies

In 2004 Hollywood re-wrote ancient history twice. The movie Troy re-wrote Homer's epic Illiad. The surprise discovery of nearly 150 ancient Greek and Roman "dies" in a Los Angeles antiquities gallery was even more astonishing. The dies, of uncertain provenance, were not from a single period and region. The dies span nearly 1000 years -- right back to the beginning of coinage -- yet are remarkably similar in style and patina.

After ridicule from Arthur Brand on www.michelvanrijn.nl the dealer relabeled some — but not all — of the dies as "16th-19th century forger's dies". Some of the so-called dies were relabeled as "die hub"s — tools used to create dies. As of late 2005 the gallery web site still offers the dies, with prices ranging from $1000 to $9000.

Upon close photographic inspection, it appears most of these dies and hubs are unfit for striking fake coins. But why would a forger create unusable dies?

Most of the Los Angeles "dies" were never designed to forge coins. These dies were most likely created to defraud the antiquities dealer now trying to sell them! Fake dies, having only one side, may be easier to fake than coins " although, as we shall see, one of these dies is engraved on both sides.

In ancient times, mint workers engraved negative images directly upon coin dies. Modern mint works use a positive "hub" to strike many near-identical negative dies. Some of the "forger's dies" show signs of being struck by a positive hub (or possibly by a coin used as a hub).

The circular die (above left) appears to be made of iron. This die looks usable for striking fake ancient coins.

The center hub has a "donut" fabric with circular depression exactly the size of the iron die. The donut-shaped fabric is a give-away that this hub was never intended to strike fake dies. During striking the die blank would flow, subjecting the donut to sideways forces that would crack the hub after a few strikes.

The third 'die' bears the same negative engraving as the iron die, but with less detail. Although the engraving is similar in size, the die is much larger, as if it was struck by a similar donut-shaped hub. Coins struck by this die might appear normal, but if the blank flan was large enough to make contact with the "die border" an odd crease would be struck into the coin.

The Lysimachos tetradrachm hub (above left) is of reasonable fabric. It exhibits some splits from striking. When striking a die large enough to transfer them, the splits become features of the new die. When this hub struck the die (right) it left raised areas where metal flowed up into the cracks.

An Ephesos obverse die had an image at both ends. Striking one end with a hammer would have quickly obliterated the image, so it is likely this die struck few or no coins.

Coins struck in this manner would have a rim that looked like a hamburger, protruding from a smaller bun. I have only seen such a rim once on a hammered coin. A trihemiobol of Selge (of doubtful authenticity) has this feature. [INCLUDE PICTURE OF SELGE COIN AND RIM].

A catalog of the dies appears below.

Die Catalog Greek

The reverse is illustrated by a fake that appeared on German eBay in 2005.

Roman