Decadrachm Of Syracuse Or Replica

to the Community!

Thanks for the reply :-)

The size fits the description, it is 3,5cm. I agree, it does look bronse or copper. 18 grams is not much. Its really light

The found was in Algeria in a small village in the mountains. No tourist there (until even this day). But who knows where my father got it ... maybe he won it playing cards.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but absolutely, definitely, without a doubt, this is a "tourist replica" of a Syracuse decadrachm. They did not make these coins in brass. The very thin patina (the yellow brass is clearly showing through on Arethusa's face) proves that it is not ancient, as ancient brass has a very thick green or black layer. And the coin has an overall bubbly appearance indicating it was cast in a mould, rather than struck with dies like a coin.

You do not need a flood of tourists in a place for "tourist fakes" to proliferate there. For example, there were very few "tourists" going to Afghanistan during the War, but "tourist fakes" were abundant in the street markets of Kabul and an awful lot of foreign soldiers and workers assigned to Afghanistan brought such replicas home with them.

I cannot say how a tourist replica of a Syracuse decadrachm ended up in a well in Algeria; that is assuming your third-hand story of its origins is still accurate. I do know that a fairly standard scam, run by people throughout the Middle East for over a hundred years now, is to take visitors (tourists or groups of foreign workers) to some remote "ruin nobody else knows about", and when they arrive at the "ruin" there are just coins lying all over the place for the visitors to pick up. But the "ruin" is not ancient, and the coins were planted there, freshly made earlier that week and placed there by the villagers before the visitors arrived. If your Dad went on such an excursion while he was in Algeria to dig a well, then his story would still be true, from a certain point of view.