Do Ancients Need Grading?

Video posted on coinweek I found interesting. Im with Harlan on the subject.

http://www.coinweek.com/coin-grading/ancient-coins-need-third-party-grading-video-344/

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

The duck says quack

 

Taken from the article

Taken from the NGC website:
http://www.ngccoin.com/specialty-services/ancient-coins/

In their guarantee statement they give justification as to why they will not guarantee authenticity which does make sense however articles such as the one on Coinweek make it seem, at least to me they do, that the only way to know for sure your coin is real is to get it graded.

 

I thought the video was good, fairly unbiased and highlighted both sides of the coin (pun intended). Personally I like the appeal of holding a raw coin in hand. But I can certainly sympathize with those who like the security of the coin in a TPG slab.

I'll probably stick with my rule of thumb for US coins. If the coin is over a certain dollar threshold, I will buy it slabbed.

You can always still crack them out. I've been known to liberate more than a few slabbed US coins from their plastic tombs.

 

Balderdash! Berk has the right of it for the vast majority of collectors of Ancients. Those that dabble into investment grade Ancients might prefer having a third party verify and authenticate five or six figure purchases. But I go no where near those. I only admire from afar. So I do not believe I need a third party grader for my coins.

 

Thank you for posting the link.

My current ancient coin behavior is that if I buy it in a slab, it will probably stay in the slab & if I buy it raw, it will probably stay raw.

 

I can't watch the video at this moment, but here is my personal take on the matter. I absolutely will not buy common ancients in NGC slabs unless I can get them for roughly the same price I would pay for a raw coin. I have bought a few, but only if they went up for auction at low starting bids, and the bidding didn't go stupid. Then I promptly cracked them out - like so many other collectors of ancients, I need the tactile element in the enjoyment of my coins.

Many dealers jack up the prices of slabbed coins to ridiculous extremes. They may occasionally get sold to collectors of moderns, who know little of ancients, and want the security of David Vagi's opinion. That's all well and good, but I seriously doubt the educated collecting community will ever warm up to slabbed ants of Gordian III in middling grades for $100 apiece.

I've seen plenty of those sitting on shelves until the dealer decides to cut his losses and put them up for auction starting at 99-cents. Then they end up selling for approximately the same prices as raw coins.

On the other hand, I would be wary of buying a rarer, pricier coin without a second opinion. I wouldn't touch a tetradrachm of Alexander without some sort of authentication, and even then, I'd probably buy it raw from CNG or FORVM, not because I don't trust NGC, but because dealers think they can quadruple the market value of a coin just because it lives in a plastic coffin. Plus, it saves me the trouble of destroying the holder.

 

I've only purchased one coin in a slab and I immediately broke it out. To this day I do not recall which coin that was. I must have gotten it at a good price however; I would never spend extra for the slab. I do put a lot of stock in the word of certain sellers (Forum, CNG, HJB, etc.), so my preference is to buy from these trusted dealers where and when I can.

 

I have no problem buying coins in slabs, and appreciate that some people like the third party opinion of legitimacy (NGC won't guarantee it but they employ experts and won't slab something they know is counterfeit, so it is an additional opinion).

I bought an Otho aureus a few years ago from a large, reputable auction house, tried to get it in an NGC slab, and they declined to slab it because of questionable authenticity. I took that back to the auction house, and they took the coin back with a full refund.

I enjoy cherrypicking quality NGC-slabbed ancients from US dealers who don't understand what they're selling, like the Vespasian Boscoreale aureus I shared here recently.

It is also helpful from a storage perspective for particularly thick or high grade coins that could be damaged by cabinet friction, but personally I prefer them raw. I considered getting my collection slabbed but when I found out it costs 1% of the coin's value for high value coins, I walked away and never looked back.

 

I am with most here. I don't care if someone who does not wish to educate themselves wants to buy a slabbed ancient. It's their right. I have cracked many a slab, keep one just for fun, (wrong year, wrong emperor, wrong mint, its kind of funny), but admit I still have the Ostrogothic gold I bought in the slab. I still waffle on it, since its a derivative coin, something not so easily attributed. One of these days I still may crack it out, (my major problem with it being the grade, wth does CHAU+ even mean for ancients?), but have not yet.

For collector coins, I say be a collector. Being a collector entails education and knowledge, and if you get that there simply is no need for a slab, or to have NGC be able to drain away money out of our hobby.

 

I don't mind the use of modern grading terminology per se. If you define circulation to mean the passing of a coin through hands for commerce, etc., then it's clear that many of the coins we collect are AU, and as with all grades, some coins are more choice than others due to various factors. In the end, the grade still only represents one person's opinion.

However, it is difficult to call ancient coins uncirculated when they've been buried in a pot for two thousand years and likely cleaned with a dremel tool and chemical baths. Can you have an uncirculated yet cleaned coin? Some modern collectors say yes, others no.

I think the strike and surface designations NGC uses are more useful.

 

I do believe the "DETAILS" designation was carefully developed over many years and does not have its own category to properly represent. Might as well use it.

 

Funny ... yah, I even keep my modern-coins in sweet ol'-school albums, so I end-up cracking "everything" out of their slabs => ancients, moderns, etc ... man, I can't stand slabs!!

=> However, I don't intend on ever selling my coins, so the slabs are merely keeping me from enjoying my coins (it's a bit like buying a cool ol' classic car and then being satisfied with keeping it underneath a car-cover in the garage .... that's weak, brothers)

Oh, and as far as "grading" ancient coins goes => ever since Doug scoffed at a few of my seller's grades, I don't even post the grades of my ancient coins anymore ... anyway, the grades certainly seem very random where ancients coins are concerned ...

=> I am a far greater fan of merely posing-down coins against each other to determine how much a coin is worth (in other words, before I decide to bid on a coin, I will do a coin-search and find several "similar" coin-types and research their selling prices) .... I find this a far more useful measure than relying on a "VG" rating by the dude that I'm about to buy a coin from ...

 

100% agree

 

Yes, but it would be redundant in the case of ancients, since every grade is a details grade.

 

That's cute, you thought it was a serious response.

 

Sorry, lol.

 

the video seems to be gone now.

 

Oh, that's a shame. I wanted to watch it.

 

Never had a gift for grading, that and I'n to lazy to learn much about gradding