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Gold Plated ¼ Stater - Addedomaros Floral / Cruciform Contemporary Counterfeit
| Issuer | Addedomaros (King of the Trinovantes and Catuvellauni) |
|---|---|
| Year | 45 BC - 25 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | ¼ Stater |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Heavily corroded and worn field with traces of a stylised floral or vegetal design executed in the Celtic La Tène artistic tradition. The surface is largely obscured by encrustation and loss of the original gold wash, revealing the base bronze core beneath. Debased die-work suggests the work of a contemporary counterfeiter imitating the authorised coinage of Addedomaros. No legible inscription or lettering is discernible. The irregular flan edge is characteristic of crudely hammered late Iron Age British coinage. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Contemporary counterfeits of Iron Age staters — cast or struck in base metal and plated with a thin gold wash — circulated alongside official issues throughout the late British Iron Age, and distinguishing them from "official" coinage is complicated by the fact that no centralized minting authority existed to define the distinction. Addedomaros, whose name appears on some of the earliest coins bearing a ruler's name in Britain, almost certainly had no mechanism to suppress such imitations even had he wished to. At this scale and weight, the piece functioned within a gift-exchange and tribute economy where ritual acceptability may have mattered more than metallic purity.