A recent podcast discussed the differing philosophies of the raw/slab markets.

Aaron Berk, a well-known ancients dealer, discussed the raw/slab markets, and the differences between the ancient market and the U.S. markets, respectively. And just so there won't be any surprises, Mr. Berk, like most collectors of ancients, isn't a slab fan. The meat of the discussion starts about 26 minutes in, and the table's at 29 minutes.

I'm not trying to stir up controversy; I just thought that the differences between the two markets are interesting. I generally agreed with his table for the ancient side of collecting. My two main criteria for my coin buys are, can I afford it and do I like it? Condition (within reason) isn't very important (although I generally won't buy something really horrendous or with bronze disease). Or, more accurately, stated grade isn't too important to me. Many ancients listings don't even have a stated grade.

If one overlooks his barbs at slabbing, it's a rather interesting discussion in philosophies. Full disclosure, I generally don't collect modern (non-struck) coins.

I tune into the podcast mostly for the "Doofus buy", when he lampoons an auction buyer for having spent way too much on an ancient coin.

Most fixed-price ancients dealers have raw coins, although the slabs are more common at my local coin store, and those are my only slabs. My favorites from the local store have always been the raw ones (different supplier).

Here's a couple of examples of where stated grade wasn't the most important thing to me:



Q. Cassius Longinus, AR Denarius, 55 B.C.

This was one of the few coins which I fell in love with instantly when I saw the listing. The ghastly damage was probably done by a plow, when the coin was in the ground (common). The beautiful artistry of the obverse and the lovely toning is what sealed it for me, and the coin was c. $65. The issue is also relatively expensive in high grade. If the damage had been on the obverse, I wouldn't have bought it.

It's definitely one of my favorite buys of the year and I like it better than coins which cost five times as much.


This is a Gordian III Sestertius. While I usually go for patinas lovelier than this, I bought the coin for only its patina, which I found intriguing and quite different. The coin also came with a 1990's tag from a dealer in Rome.

This coin wasn't the star of that order. It was just a throw-in.

I'm not going to post too many pictures, it's a bit of a pain to have to copy and paste the picture to a temp folder and rename it.

I'm not sure if it was in this particular podcast, but Aaron Berk also brought up how difficult it often is to put a grade on an ancient coin. Here's an example of a time where it's rather difficult:


The coin's not that worn, possibly even XF by wear, but the reverse die was totally worn out, and the obverse die was beginning to go. A grade might be VF/VG. The coin's also blast-white and lacking toning, which is a minus for me, although I don't mind as much on common Antoninianii.

And let's take the Cassius Longinus denarius. Without the damage, it would be relatively easy to grade, VF/F+ by my old-school grading, or a liberal VF.

Or, (too lazy to post a picture), but how would one even grade an uncleaned ancient coin? I went through a phase this year where I'd pick up examples of coins less encountered in an uncleaned state, like AR Tetradrachms, etc.

(And that also brings up differences in what gets assigned a certain grade). Many fixed-price modern dealers, especially the European ones, often assign a laughably high grade in their listings of ancients, not that many collectors really take much note of it.

Insofar as Byzantines (I'm too lazy to go through the rigamorole of copying and renaming), the AE's generally looked like crap (my mother dubbed them 'slag heaps') the day they left the mint (with exceptions). I buy those because I'm interested in the history.

Like many collectors of ancients, I buy the coins not for investment, but because I like them. It's a hobby.

I brought it up, not to aggravate U.S. collectors, but to bring up interesting collecting philosophy differences. What factors drive your collecting?

Ancients might not be your thing, which is totally okay. I'm asking people steeped in U.S./modern collecting; did you think his comments (based upon the 'How are they sold?' table at 29 minutes in) about slabs/the U.S. market were BS, something in-between, etc.?

 

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Ancient coins are fascinating to me! The breadth and depth of knowledge needed has kept me away. With some help I have purchased a few for gifts though for appropriate people.

I have a number of slabbed coins that I wanted and it was nice to have them already certified, graded and protected. Mostly I buy raw though as I enjoy handling them. I do try to be careful, not that they are worth a great deal, I just don't want to have them end up with my fingerprints or any new scratches.

Your Cassius Longinus, AR Denarius, 55 B.C. is a winner! The plow marks are just a little more history added on. That damage may have happened well over a thousand years ago. Today it's part of the beauty to the coin in my opinion.

Enjoyed your post!

 

Thanks!

 

I buy slabbed coins because there is an implied guarantee of authenticity plus I do not have a lot of experience grading. While I invest a lot of money in coins I do not buy coins as an investment, I buy them for the stories that they tell hence most of my collection is 19th century and earlier. I also buy coins that suit my eye and that I think are attractive.

I do have a fascination with coins and currency that were created to address shortages of government issued coinage. For example; British trade tokens, Hard Times tokens, Civil war tokens, Fractional currency, and Period 1 California gold coins.

 

That's partly why I collect ancients. I'm interested in the history. Take Heraclius and his nemesis, King Khrusru, for example. Both the Byzantines and Persians were locked into a life-or-death struggle which directly led to the rise of Islam. It's probably Heraclian propaganda, but Khrusru allegedly addressed Heraclius as his 'vile, imbecile' slave in a letter. Khrusru was eventually overthrown and shunted off to the awesomely-named Castle of Oblivion, after his defeat. That's some heavy stuff!

You might like some of the abandoned mine videos I've been watching on youtube. Gly of Abandoned and Forgotten Places explores some of those mines which may have supplied some of that metal.

The discussion has been very interesting, with many great points.

Yes, Mike Nottelman brings that point up in the podcast.

I haven't freed my slabs, mainly because I'm klutzy enough to accidentally damage the coins in the jailbreaking process. I have perhaps a dozen.

With ancients, there's also the possible problem of how the holders might react with metals, especially AE's over time. Perhaps nothing will happen, we just don't know. The sample size has been relatively small, about 20 years.

I do have one big thing in common with U.S. collectors, having the appreciation of good toning on silver issues.


And back to how it's hard to grade ancients, let's take this example of Heraclius. Many Byzantine AE's were overstruck on earlier issues, like this one. The patina has unfortunately been stripped (yuck), but it was an inexpensive placeholder until I can find another example. It's from the scarce Isaura mint, when Heraclius was training his troops for the counter-offensive. While coins of both Seleucia and Isaura are usually much less worn than other issues, it's still tough to put a grade on it. There's many Heraclian coins far messier than this. When one's locked in a life-or-death struggle, pretty coins aren't really a priority, though fascinatingly, Constantine IV brought back the large, Justinianic folles in the face of Muslim expansion, although die work was less than stellar.

Just for fun, if I didn't have to sign up for an account, I would have tried some messy Byzantines on that AI another member set up to test grading coins. Would it have been like the 1970's Daleks?, "Does not compute! Out of control! Out of control!" *Poof* We'll never know. Most of Constans II's AE's are more miserable than this.

 

Yes, there are advantages and disadvantages of slabbing. I can understand wanting the storage to be uniform.

The folks at numisforums recently brought up something which I forgot to mention. Slabbing ancients makes it much more difficult to detect non super-obvious fakes. I.e. one can't see the edge. It also becomes harder to detect smoothing and tooling. It's also the pits when the slab doesn't include the weight.

Staunch traditionalists prefer raw coins in fancy coin trays. While this looks attractive, I don't like how the coin jostles around and I had a bad experience. I had an inexpensive common coin in a tray, and it popped out, hitting the floor and chipping. I use flips. The flip is the best compromise I've found insofar as minimal handling and being able to see what's inside. One can also prop up a flip, like a kickstand.

I use the safe-flips generally. I've never noticed any problems with the older coins in soft, 1990's era PVC flips, except for one junk box Valerian debased AR Antoninianus. It developed some cherry-red fields! The soft flips do fuse to the ink of the ID tags, however.

The coin's also less visible in a slab. I have a Tiberius III Solidus which is the shiniest, most mirror-like gold coin I have. I would never be able to appreciate the full shine in a slab.

 

It's interesting how ancient and U.S./modern collectors go about things in the opposite way, generally speaking.

1) Cleaning - I believe cleaning is a no-no for U.S. coins. The only U.S. coins I have are circulation coins, so I'm going off what I hear.

All ancient coins are from the ground (or sea). Cleaning has to be done, in the great majority of the cases. It's how much or how skillful the cleaning was, and what shape the coin was in when discovered. Stripping the patina (like the Heraclius Seleucia above) is frowned upon, but sometimes it can't be helped.

*Here's some uncleaned or partially uncleaned ones. I wanted to assemble a set of 'befores' for different denominations. The large AR Tetradrachms are very difficult to find uncleaned. There are cases where a coin looks better uncleaned.

The top two are silver Denarii. The bottom one is actually a shekel, but it's the closest thing to a Greek tetradrachm that I could find, uncleaned.

Cleaning the top two would just result in unremarkable coins. These two have eons more interest as remaining uncleaned.



**I suppose that some 18th/19th century U.S. coins are ground finds. Wouldn't they have to be cleaned?

2) Grading. As I mentioned earlier, stated grade isn't too important to most ancient collectors. Probably 80% of posts on numisforums, no matter how expensive, don't have a stated grade. There's a difference between grade and condition. There's cases where condition goes out the window. I'd rather have a Brutus EID MAR denarius in clear Good (clear outline present, but otherwise good fields) than an EF Marcus Aurelius Sestertius.

U.S./modern - Stated grade is very important,and even tiny grade fractions can make a big difference.

3) Slabs - (mostly covered earlier) related to stated grade. I'm told that the purpose of slabbing is to preserve the grade. I.e. that no substitutions are made (although I've heard of funny business).

I'd guesstimate that about 80% of ancient collectors don't like slabs, to various degrees. I'm also told that it's more of a U.S. thing, and not as much in Europe.

3) Errors. A mint error can make a U.S. coin valuable. It's generally more of a curiosity with ancient coins (or can decrease the value). I generally avoid them.

4) Toning/patina; Here's where we have a similarity. Both fields enjoy coins with good toning/patinas. I think some of those Morgan dollars with rainbow toning have been helped along (a certain dealer in ancients gives his silver something like naval jelly, to get the rainbow look).

Oh yeah, phoney patinas are often frowned upon. But, with a coin which HAD to be stripped (because of BD or something), I'd rather have a faux patina than no patina. There's a couple of ancients dealers who are notorious for often having an orange patina.

5) Rarity; It definitely can be important with ancients. Like the Aaron Berk podcast touches on, there's also times where it's not.

6) Provenance - While I can appreciate a stellar provenance, it isn't greatly important to me, but it is to many collectors of ancients. I'm not sure about U.S., but I suppose a good provenance wouldn't hurt.

7) Tooling - I.e. re-engraving a design. Generally a big no-no in ancients. I don't like tooling. I would assume that tooling would totally ruin value for a U.S. coin.

*There's also a gray area in ancients to what is tooling because they have to be cleaned of dirt. Is removing corrosion tooling? That's a gray area. I'm talking about the egregious examples when I mention tooling. I also don't like smoothing of fields.

8) Value guides. While some ancients references have stated prices (more as a rarity guide), there's no value guide for ancients.

Are there any other factors which I'm forgetting about? I don't collect U.S. coins, so I don't really know what makes a U.S. collector excited.