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Gold Plated Stater Selsey Two-Faced Contemporary Counterfeit
| Issuer | Atrebates and Regini tribes (Celtic Britain) |
|---|---|
| Year | 55 BC - 45 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Stater |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Highly stylised and abstracted head of Apollo facing right in the Late Iron Age Celtic tradition, rendered as a series of flowing arcs and geometric elements. The wreath is depicted with leaves curving downward and sweeping around the face in sinuous lines. A distinctive spike-and-crescent motif appears with a pellet terminal and one additional isolated pellet in the field. Two hidden secondary faces are incorporated into the composition, a hallmark of the 'two-faced' Selsey type. The overall design reflects the progressive abstraction characteristic of southern British Celtic coinage of the mid-first century BC. |
|---|---|
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | ND (55 BC - 45 BC) - Base core - ND (55 BC - 45 BC) - Gold plated - |
| Additional information |
Contemporary counterfeits of Iron Age staters are historically significant precisely because they confirm a functioning market economy — someone thought deception profitable enough to invest in the tooling. The Selsey type circulated in the territory of the Atrebates during a period of intense political disruption, including Caesar's two British expeditions of 55 and 54 BC, which destabilized existing tribal tribute networks and almost certainly increased pressure on coinage supplies.
The gold-plated bronze core construction here follows a technique well-documented across late Iron Age Britain: a bronze flan struck between genuine or copied dies, then plated — sometimes by mercury gilding, sometimes by mechanical foil wrapping. The two-faced nature of this piece, struck with dies on both sides rather than being a simple cast fake, suggests the maker had access to working tools and genuine coins to copy from.