Im considering consigning some of my US coin collection to this company. If you have any experience with these foks please let me know. Thank you!
I've had one experience with them and they made me very happy. Send them the item and submission form and they take care of the rest. My one item made me a handsome profit and they sent me a check very quickly.
I hear, pretty much, good things about these guys from others but I've never had a personal dealings with them.
For what it's worth I've only purchased from them. No problems as a buyer and everything went well. Ancients...they're all graded ,lots from ANACS, and seem overpriced (from what I heard) to the point where I can't play.
I think I may have seen an ad from them once telling me to "Invest in ancient coins." I hope I'm just simply confusing them with someone else. Oh, and congrats of getting rid of all your new coins. Ancients are a lot cooler. Just take a look at the US forum, where the excitement is the 400th thread discussing collecting Morgan Dollars or the 200th thread about some new variety discovered in a modern coin that you need a microscope with 300x magnification to even see. You'll never see that in Ancients because of the sheer numbers of varieties and types of coins.
I love looking at ancient coins and got a cool set of foreign coins from my Secret Santa. But when it comes to acquiring coins I guess I have a bumper sticker on my forehead that says "Buy American.'
What am I missing on this thread? I couldn't find any reference to the company in question. Being a newbie, the answer is probably staring me in the face, but I'm not seeing it. Steve
Oh-oh. I suppose the company is called Great Collections? (Pause while I slap my forehead a few times). Steve
I remember these people now, they are the ones trying to get me to invest in ancients. Look at this theft, my $19 Diocletian Antoninianus, but harshly cleaned to within an inch of it's life and in a plastic slab, is $400 here. These people are thieves when it comes to ancients. I recall several weeks ago a thread laughing at their harshly cleaned bronze Romans selling on their website for 1000%+ their price with beautiful patina. http://www.greatcollections.com/Coi...etian-AD-284-305-BI-Aurelianianus-349g-NGC-VF Don't do business with them. Any company that has the bad habit of severely cleaning ancient bronzes to the point of severely damaging them, then having them graded by NGC as VF or higher (another crime and shame on NGC) to unsuspecting people, deserve nothing but condemnation in my book.
And if you think that other coin was a fluke, look at this disgusting example. You can find dozens of ancient bronzes like this, so harshly cleaned they are basically severely damaged. They are in the business of severely defacing ancient bronze coins by cleaning them to death, and having NGC shamelessly slab them as XF or higher, and selling them for obscene amounts Just look at this one: Shame on you NGC for slabbing this junk and giving them those grades, and shame on you Great Collections for destroying them and gouging people with junk. The reverse is so badly cleaned you can see circular sanding marks all over this junker. http://www.greatcollections.com/Coi...e-Trajan-AD-98-117-AE-Sestertius-2258g-NGC-VF
There is no evidence that Great Collections did the cleaning nor can we conclude that they set the price. Consigners to Great Collections have the option to set the price or have the auction house set the price. For all we know the consigner is setting the price obscenely high. They even have the option to start all coins at 1 dollar. If a person is willing to pay to continually list an item that will never sell at the price they set why not let them? You may advise them that a better price will sell the coin but many will not take that advice. The same goes for NGC. If someone is willing to pay the slabbing fee and it fits the criteria to be slabbed such as believed to be authentic, etc. Why not toss it in a slab and give it a grade? In many ways they are just doing their job! We may not agree with the grades but that seems to be par for the course whenever I venture into the modern side of the forum. But then again I wouldn't mind if Ancient coin collectors avoid Great Collections since I could potentially find a diamond in the rough like TIF.
Folks, the OP says he intends to sell his US Collection. I have the same criticisms of the ancient slab market, but we're talking about a US type set here. Whiz's point is a good one. Those overpriced ancient slabs may have absolutely nothing to do with the auction house itself, and certainly have nothing to do with selling slabbed US coins.
However, I must say that the two coins Sallent linked are so egregiously overpriced as to be laughable. Holy crap. I haven't looked at the slabbed ancients market lately. Has it really gotten THAT ridiculous?