Numismatic Articles

Van Arsdell 2017b    (Info)

 

 

Modern Celtic Fakes 9 – Replicas from the Czech Republic

By Robert D. Van Arsdell

 

Over the past few years, a series of modern replicas has appeared for sale on the Internet. The sellers are located in the Czech Republic and they indicate the coins are manufactured there. These is no intention to deceive collectors or researchers and they are sold as replicas for very reasonable prices. Some of them are British Celtic types.

 

All the British types are struck from dies and simulate silver units in a white metal. The die-cutter has captured the aesthetic "feel" of the Celtic die-cutters much better than the heavy-handed Haslemere Forger. In general the Czech pieces are very pleasing. The coins would make excellent displays, especially useful wherever there were security concerns. They could be used to interest people in Celtic coinage and could be given away as gifts.

 

The coins are very unlikely to fool people familiar with Celtic coins, but publishing them can't hurt.

 

 

Replica of a Boudicca silver unit

 

 

The image above shows an example of the replica and a genuine coin for comparisom. The replica is larger and weighs more than the genuine coin (Info).

 

 

Die-cutting

 

 

There has been no attempt to make the replica pass for a geniune coin. Many die-cutting errors (red arrows), also often seen on the Haslemere Forger's work, appear (See discussion of die-cutting errors).

 

 

ECEN type of the Iceni

 

 

The ECEN type is about the same size as a genuine coin, but again, heavier than is should be (Info).

 

 

Late Whaddon Chase silver unit

 

The V1558 type is roughly the same size and weight as a genuine coin (Info).

 

 

All of the replicas may be authenticated via the die-cutting errors usually seen on Celtic fakes struck from dies.

 

End