Gold Plated 1/4 Stater Kentish Horse Brooch / South Thames Banded Type Contemporary Counterfeit

Contemporary counterfeits of Kentish quarter staters circulated alongside genuine gold issues during the late Iron Age, suggesting either that the Cantii's trading networks were loose enough to absorb debased coinage without immediate detection, or that the plated pieces were tolerated as a matter of practical necessity. The bronze core with gold wash would have passed casual inspection; the weight loss, just fractions of a gram below genuine examples, was unlikely to register without deliberate testing.

BMC Iron 374 is the key reference tying this piece to the South Thames Banded classification rather than treating it as a forgery of later manufacture.