Found an old Roman coin at a flea market in Ohio, turned out to be a fake

I was at the Hartville Flea Market near Akron last summer, just browsing a junk table. Saw this little bronze coin with a weird patina and the seller said it was Roman from 300 AD, only $20. I bought it thinking it'd be a cool decoration for my desk, but something about the edges looked too sharp. Took it to a local archaeology club meeting a few weeks later and one of the members pointed out the mint mark was wrong for that era. He pulled out a reference book and showed me the die pattern didn't match any known Roman issue. Turns out it's a cast replica from the 1800s, probably made for tourists in Italy. I'm not mad, it's still old and interesting, just not what I thought. Has anyone else had a flea market find turn out to be something totally different than advertised?

3 comments

3 Comments

river_allen12d ago

Honestly that's still a cool find even if it's not real Roman. A 1800s tourist replica has its own history and story behind it, you know? I bought a "vintage" Zippo at a garage sale once and it turned out to be a modern knockoff from China, but I still carry it around because it works fine. The Hartville Flea Market is wild for stuff like that, half the tables are just people clearing out their basements. Did the club member say anything about how much a real one of that type would go for?

the_grace12d ago

1954 is the year stamped on the inside lid of my knockoff Zippo, but I looked it up and the real ones from that year had a different hinge style entirely. The funny thing is, the fact that someone went to the trouble of faking a vintage lighter from that specific year tells me there's a whole underground economy of retro replicas that most people don't even know exists. I wonder if your Roman souvenir was part of a larger batch that dealers would buy in bulk and scatter across different flea markets to make them look authentic. There's probably a guy in a workshop somewhere who spends his days distressing modern brass to look 200 years old.

craig.mila12d agoProlific Poster

You know what, you're totally right and I actually used to be one of those people who would've been disappointed by a replica. But reading your post and the stuff about the Hartville Flea Market really changed how I think about it. I used to be all about "if it's not authentic it's worthless" but now I see that every object has its own little story, even the fakes. The fact that someone went to the trouble of aging that Roman souvenir or making a knockoff Zippo with a specific year stamped on it is kind of wild when you think about it. It's like a whole hidden layer of history that most people miss because they're too focused on what's "real." I'm definitely gonna start looking at flea market stuff differently now, not as junk or knockoffs but as little pieces of someone's past.