Silver Plated Unit - Berkshire Mildenhall Boar Contemporary Counterfeit

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.