Got excited about a Roman coin my uncle found... turns out it was a 1970s souvenir

My uncle brought over this "ancient" coin he dug up in his garden near Bath last summer. I spent like 3 hours cross-referencing it with online databases and got my hopes way up. Finally showed it to a guy at the local museum and he spotted the casting seam in 10 seconds. Now I'm wondering how many folks get fooled by these things... has anyone else had a fake ruin a good find for them?

2 comments

2 Comments

robinson.paul16d ago

Honestly this exact thing happened to a buddy of mine who found a "medieval" brooch at a car boot sale. He spent a whole weekend cleaning it and posting pics on metal detecting forums. Turned out it was a cheap 1980s repro from a tourist gift shop in Warwick Castle. The enamel was way too bright and the pin mechanism was modern. He still brings it up whenever someone mentions antiques, proper gutted.

jake_dixon16d ago

Yeah but the real gut punch is how long it took him to figure it out. A whole weekend of scrubbing and posting photos and getting all excited for nothing. I get why he's still bitter about it though. Once you've been burned like that it sticks with you. The worst part is it probably still looks good enough to fool someone else at the next boot sale.