Grade this Ancient Coin!

Here's a good one for you ancient graders out there - it's an Alexander the Great AR Drachm - Abydus (328-323)

 

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http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=496991

Die duplicate of the above? Ancient? I'm always nervous of the ones with Pegasus but this is no match for either of the fake dies I know so I assume it is good. If theirs is nice VF yours is EF. There is detail loss on the lion's mane details which could be striking rather than wear. There is a softness to the legends that could be from cleaning/polishing so I'd not call it full EF but this is just one opinion.

 

I agree with you, Doug. The coin looked at minimum an EF if not a lower AU. And since it was priced by the grade on the slab, I couldn't say no. I've pondered submitting it to NGC but not sure if it would be worthwhile or not. What would you estimate the value of this coin were it to be in an NGC EF holder?

 

Zero. I would not slab a coin worth owning. Perhaps the strange look that made me question the coin was from being photographed through a slab. If, however, you trust a slabber enough to send in a coin in the first place, I'd think you could accept their word rather than playing the rotating slab game that ruins the US coin hobby. I do believe that enough people who buy ancient coins will look at the coin and determine the value according to the coin rather than the lettering on the holder so it might not raise the price realized of the coin enough to pay for the change in plastic. Unlike US coins, there can be a vast difference in value of a VF coin according to factors other than wear so it is still necessary for buyers to examine the coins.

 

Thanks Doug. Out of curiosity, what would you guestimate its FMV to be?

 

Before I saw the slab I was going to guess gVF/aXF, (leaning towards gVF) depending on how it looked in hand. I see wear flattening designs on all of the curls in the front, on the bird on the reverse, etc. I would like less wear on those points for a XF. Also the extra cleaning scratches on the reverse would have pushed me down to gVF most likely.

Admittedly I am a tough grader. Nice strike though. I have to admit I give kudos to ICG for grading this coin in the more conservative ancient grading method. Now if they lost number grades and did away with AU and BU I would consider them.

Chris