Gold Plated 1/4 Stater - Belgae Hayling Wreath Left Type Contemporary Counterfeit

Contemporary counterfeits of Belgic quarter staters are well-documented from southern Britain in the late pre-conquest period, produced not by forgers in any modern criminal sense but likely by local smiths meeting demand when official output was insufficient or hoarded. The gold-plated bronze construction — a bronze flan with a thin wash of gold — would have passed readily in low-value transactions where close inspection was unlikely.

The Hayling Island type takes its name from findspot concentration patterns around the Hampshire coast, a region under Atrebatic influence during the period when Caesar's expeditions of 55 and 54 BC were disrupting cross-Channel trade networks that these tribes depended on heavily.