Gold Plated ¼ Stater - Eppillus Margate Contemporary Counterfeit

Eppillus, son of Commius, issued coins across both Atrebatic and Cantiac territories in the years around the turn of the millennium, making him one of the few British Iron Age rulers to mint on both sides of what is loosely identified as a tribal boundary. Contemporary counterfeits of his quarter staters — produced locally by plating bronze flans with gold — circulated alongside official issues, suggesting either that the originals were trusted enough to be worth imitating or that the gold content of genuine coins had already depreciated enough to make detection unlikely.