"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
On 4/10/2010 4:05 PM, Reid Goldsborough wrote:
Here's my latest:

http://rg.ancients.info/misc/Constantine_II.jpg

There's more to it than meets the eye, in hand as well. If anyone comes
up with the right answer, they win my eternal admiration.

I'll reveal now. Posted this three days ago. Zero coin-related responses.
Not surprised but a bit disappointed. Mr. Jaggers was right of course
about the challenges in generating positive on-topic discussion in this
group, though he seems much more likely now to post interesting coin
content than previously, content that does generate positive on-topic
discussion. I'll probably do a little analysis of the responses to this
thread later, but in short, part of this lack of content here no doubt is
that relatively few of the relatively few people still here collect and
know about ancients compared with U.S. and other modern coins, though some
do. Part of it may be that I posed this as a challenge. And part of it is
that it is indeed difficult if not impossible to see anything unusual
about the above coin, either from the above photo, not spectacular but
typical of online photos/scans of similar coins, or from looking at the
coin in hand.

Cutting through your blathering, babbling chit-chat, we discover that: You
admit that you posted a crap image of what is an ugly crap coin (and a
counterfeit one at that) from a specialized area of collecting that is far
less familiar to most collectors than, say, old U.S. coppers. And then you
whine because you got very little in the way of substantive responses.

It's modern. A counterfeit. A very good fake of a very inexpensive coin.
By "good" here I mean not in the sense of moral of course but in the sense
of high-quality, and by high-quality I mean deceptive --
successful in what it attempts to do. This doesn't mean either that people
should avoid collecting ancients. It's just that as with the Chinese and
their faking of American collector coins, including relatively low-value
ones, the Bulgarians are getting better and better at faking ancient
coins. All this, in my view, makes coin collecting more interesting, not
less, if you choose to delve into the area of authenticity. Lots more
detail about the above piece, purportedly a Constantine II bronze.

Cutting through your blathering, babbling chit-chat, we discover that: You
are fascinated with coins that are not real coins, but counterfeits of
foreign coins that most collectors will never see even in image form, let
alone possess. Nothing wrong with that... except that you dissed James for
his equally detailed knowledge - down to die marriages! - of real, actual
19th century U.S. copper coins that every collector can readily see and buy
at coin shows and local shops. Even if they're not in the market for one,
they at least know of them from the pages of the Red Book.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then you really ought to see a
doctor about your chronic binocular conjunctivitis.

To keep my post on topic, and since you like numismatic challenges, I have
one for you, Reid. Here is an image of a coin in my possession:

O

Here is the reverse side...

Q

and the edge view,

[||||||]

I know the image quality isn't the best, but I'm hoping that a collector
with your vast detailed knowledge
can ascertain its type, spot the anomalies on it, and tell me whether it's a
counterfeit or a unique find or just a common variety. If you can't provide
a substantive response, well, then we'll know that you're just a poseur
who's here for the chit-chat.

- mazorj, Numismatic Quiz Master