The first two images depict the same coin — a unique electrum 1/3 stater of unknown origin. The upper picture comes from Nancy Waggoner's 1983 catalog of the Rosen collection and the second from an auction house that later sold Rosen's collection.The final image is of a cast fake in the Bulletin on Counterfeits (vol. 12 no. 1 (1987)). The obverse is the same as the Rosen third! I think I am the first to notice the relationship.
Did a forger produce a cast of Rosen's unique piece around the time it was sold at auction (by a major European firm) and mule with a wreath reverse?
Or was Rosen's piece a product of the same forger who did the wreath piece?
It would be nice to see Rosen's electrum piece but I don't know it's current location. Could the Rosen piece be cast? I see marks that could be bubbles on the reverse but it's probably my eyes playing tricks on me because the photo isn't good enough to see things like that.
Rosen was business partner with Robert Hecht. Probably most of Rosen's collection came through him.
A mill-sail reverse on an electrum coin is surprising yet a 1/6 electrum stater of Kyzikos with gorgon obverse also has a mill-sail reverse. This was published in SNG Post. A second example from the same dies as SNG Post is Stacks/Coin Galleries MBS, July 2007, lot 522. The Rosen coin couldn't be related to the Kyzikos coin because Kyzikos never struck 1/3s and the gorgon's style is different.
1 comment:
A good catch. I find the Rosen volume invaluable but frustrating -- since the collection is so strong in small fractions I wish they had published more enlargements. Life-size pictures of 10mm coins are not always that useful.
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