Articles

The Joanneum is the oldest and second largest museum in Austria, whose founding statute contains the obligation to collect domestic coins. Ursula Kampmann has paid the museum a visit.

Have you ever been to Zurich? Perhaps during the last week of October, when the distinguished auction houses of Zurich hold their autumn sales? If ...

Giovanni da Cavino was an exceptionally gifted artist and an honoured businessman when he imitated the first Roman coins. As ‘Paduans’, they were destined to achieve world fame later on. He provided the high society with what it looked for and earned good money with it. In those days, nobody would have dreamt co call him a forger...

Part 1: Counterfeits from newly cut dies Each collector of coins who doesn’t buy exclusively at coin dealers who guarantee for the authenticity of their sold coins (like for example all members of the IAPN do) has to be concerned about buying fakes. Especially the...

Part 2: Cast counterfeits After having shown how to detect counterfeits from newly cut dies we will deal with those fakes that have been cast. Once again, we see here an old imitation of a Roman coin that was made during the Renaissance period. It is a free imitation of ...

Part 4: Transfer die forgeries Fakes coming from transfer dies are so dangerous, because these fakes have neither the characteristics of casts nor the characteristics of coins that have been struck with newly cut dies. You neither can...

In March 1788, a police unit of the Westminster community stormed a locked room in London. They had been tipped off that two people committed a crime in that house that was forbidden under penalty of death: false coining...

Part 3: Electrotypes The last two parts on news from the forgery front have dealt with fakes that have been produced by newly cut dies and with cast fakes. This part is dedicated to a third kind of fakes: the electrotypes. You will surely recognize ...

What does an alchemist do in order to make an emperor believe that he is capable of transmuting silver into gold? Well, he lets him see for himself…

Habsburg coins having been minted in the Prague Mint is something we very much take for granted. In its Auction 285, to be held on 2 February 2017, the auction house Künker offers an entire series of these. But it was anything but ordained by God that Bohemia became subject to the rule of the House of Habsburg.