Revisiting the Cabinet W Sale

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The revelation that the Cabinet W sale contained three coins which have now been determined to be very sophisticated fakes raises quite a few questions about some of the other coins in the sale (Jeff Starck, "Despite withdrawn lots, Cabinet W collections nears $5 million", Coin World Jan. 17, 2012). If the collector had been fooled by three, what guarantee has anyone that any individual coin in that lot was not a fourth coin from the same modern workshop? For example what about the "unique silver tetradrachm of Gelon" which realized $826,000 for its seller?

The coin was reportedly discovered in dealer stock in Europe, uncleaned and thickly encrusted, before ancient coins dealer Sylvia Hurter picked it out and sold it in 2000 to an American collector. The American collector “had it very professionally and very carefully cleaned: this is the result,” according to the auction catalog.

Wait a second, "dealer stock in Europe"? Where in Europe? How did an 800 0000 dollar coin leave Europe, where's the export licence?

So if it was a corroded lump, what would it be doing in "an old collection"? If its a corroded lump, one would be very suspicious, it being more likely to be a relatively fresh dugup. Or put another way, a respectable buyer would require some considerable documentation that it really is the case that this coin has been above ground in that uncleaned condition for some time, otherwise the sceptics might ask whether the "uncleaned and unrecognised" is not a story made up to explain why such a unique item - had it REALLY been above ground for enough time to make it kosher - had not been noted in the literature. The lack of any documentation substantiating it therefore would immediately arouse suspicions that the coin had recently "surfaced". The normal conclusion in such circumstances would be that these circumstances make it very likely it was recently looted. Now we have the possibility that this unique item might equally have been freshly produced.

If I were the owner of that coin, or any coins supplied by the same people, I'd pretty quickly get it to the nearest lab with an SEM for checking metals.

By the way, it cannot escape notice that the person named in the story of the surfacing of the object on the market has been dead for  three years and cannot say whether this information is true or not, while the key person in the object's recent collecting history, the "collector" from whom it was acquired, is anonymous, and the actual origins are left totally vague. That really is no use to man nor beast as a collecting history, it's a nice sales spiel, but without corroboration, no more than that.