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Silver Plated Unit - Berkshire Mildenhall Boar Contemporary Counterfeit
| Issuer | Atrebates and Regini tribes (Celtic Britain) |
|---|---|
| Year | 55 BC - 40 BC |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Orientation | Variable alignment ↺ |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse description | A heavily abstracted and disintegrated design occupying the full flan, consistent with the degraded artistic style typical of contemporary counterfeits derived from Atrebatic prototype coinage. The field shows curvilinear elements and fragmentary motifs, possibly residual traces of a face or head rendered as concentric ring devices, along with scattered pellets and swirling lines. The overall composition is disordered and difficult to resolve into a coherent figural scene, reflecting the diminished die-cutting skill of the forger. The strike is weak and uneven across the surface, and the flan edges are irregular. No legend or inscription is present. |
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| Edge | Log in to see details |
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| Mintage | ND (55 BC - 40 BC) |
| Additional information |
Contemporary counterfeits of Iron Age British coinage are rarely straightforward forgeries in the modern sense — silver was genuinely scarce in late pre-Roman Britain, and plated copies were likely produced by entrepreneurs operating at the edges of tribal monetary networks rather than by any centralised authority. The Atrebates, whose territory covered much of modern Hampshire, Berkshire, and West Sussex, were among the most commercially sophisticated tribes in Britain, maintaining close trade ties with Belgic Gaul well before Caesar's expeditions fundamentally disrupted those networks.
The thin silver wash on these pieces typically survives only in protected areas of the die impression, where wear and corrosion have not reached the bronze core beneath.