Gold Plated Stater Chute-Cheriton Transitional / Curdridge D Contemporary Counterfeit

Contemporary counterfeits of Iron Age staters — struck from locally made dies copying official Atrebatic or Belgic prototypes — circulated freely enough that recipients apparently accepted them without suspicion, or had little choice. The Chute-Cheriton and Curdridge types sit at a transitional point in southern British coinage, a period when coin-use was expanding rapidly among elites and plated forgeries could pass undetected given the limited metallurgical testing available. That this one survived intact rather than being clipped or pecked for the tell-tale bronze core says something about the care of whoever last held it.