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Great fakers scammed ancient Italy

An old lead coin looks like it was plated with silver.

An ingenious counterfeit-coin scam has been rumbled by scientists in Italy. But no one is going to jail, because the forgers lived more than 2,000 years ago.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on March 28, 2006 04:30 PM |

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The counterfeit has such a long history, till now it's absolutely unavoidable!

Posted by: Helen Lee | March 29, 2006 11:50 AM

Techniques like this were used in the Andean region of South America prehistorically. I even developed one that uses seawater as one of the key ingredients. You can do this in a kitchen.
Callaghan, R.T. and Claire P. Allum 1992 Technological Development and Shared Chemical Processes: An Andean Example. Archeomaterials 6(2) 9-15.

Posted by: Richard Callaghan | April 3, 2006 07:50 PM

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