More orange coins

The more I think about this the angrier I get. There are a lot of good guys out there who are behaving ethically. They could maybe make more money by cheating and faking and generally being unethical, but they don't. They lose out every time a collector buys a faked coin from an unethical dealer instead of a real one from a good guy. The fakers taint the market, and make the whole enterprise look corrupt. There will always be cheats in any market, so it's especially disappointing that the actors who ought to be arbiters upholding values aren't. VCoins and Roma, I'm talking about you.

 

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Tell me about it! It's one of the reasons why I am a 'bottom feeder' dealer and not much more than that (and never will be). But at least I have a clean conscious.

I remember about 25 years ago a new and budding market was opening up. Bulgaria. At a major show there was a new dealer walking about offering Celtic Thasos imitation tetradrachms. Few had seen these at the time, they were still mostly understood and not many examples were around. I bought two or three, one major auction house bought the rest (about 100). As I examined them I became concerned as under a magnifier they exhibited evidence of rotary tools used to make the dies. I panicked and before he left the bourse floor I tracking him down and returned the suspect coins. The other dealer however did not return them even after I explained my suspicions. They later appeared in their auctions and sold for big prices. Big name, one we all know and greatly respect and I am sure we all look at their auctions now and bid every month, but in this case they failed to cull out what should have been obvious.

So, on to the topic at hand. All ancient coins have been altered in some way. Either through the cleaning process or in this instance embellished patina's. I remember once instance where I was at a fellow dealers table, he offered me a couple of truly magnificent sestertii. I commented something to the effect of "I wonder what the original patina was?". He of course got mad, but admitted that they were not original. Didnt matter in the end as the guy next to me bought both for $5,000.

So....I guess in the end it depends on what our expectations are. What we feel is acceptable. Sure, these coins are genuine but not the patina. The same applies to tooled coins. Many dealers dont mention it, some do. Many collectors are fine with it, many are not.

BTW, VCoins is aware of this issue (i have had correspondence on the issue), but there has been a change of management and I have no idea if the topic will be addressed in the future.

 

When thick opaque substances are applied in the crevices, the colored putty-like junk does make the devices pop (and obviously that's why some dealers do it).

I'm certainly on the record as opposing these greasepaint-like applied patinas, since the opaque material obscures rough surfaces. However, cleaning/restoring ancient bronze coins also sometimes means recreating a patina. I don't think it is generally viewed as deceptive to do so. It is routine but those patinas are chemically created and don't selectively fill the corroded spots and defects like the orange and yellow spacklers do.

My problem with thick opaque patinas (spackling, in effect) such as those used by the two Vcoins dealers mentioned so many times is that they obscure major flaws and also might cover up areas of accelerated corrosion. Depending on the material applied, I guess the substance could even cause accelerated corrosion.

Edited for a disclaimer: I am not an expert . These are just my observations

 

Funnily enough I was just looking at a Celtic imitation Thasos. I will look much more carefully now...

 

He did say he will use "Desert patina Applied" instead of "earthen patination" implying applied patina. That was a few years ago and I don't see either phrase on the new additions.

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=93245.0

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...ting-archaeology-smuggling-antiquities-mummy/

 

Obviously but more to the point is the fact that the good guys also lose out when you buy a genuine coin from an unethical dealer or when you fail to hold the usually ethical crowd to their usually high standards. That could be a note pointing out the coin described as smoothed that was actually an obvious tooler. Dealers I want to patronize want their catalogs to be accurate and not filled with euphemisms. Dealers like the ones discussed above do not care if they lose your business since they have plenty of others that spend more than you do.

I disapprove of using the term 'patina' to refer to coins chemically toned. Patinas are not something that rests on the surface of the coin but they are the surface of the coin. I know we have coins darkened by chemicals and tones created in the first few molecules but are we seeing the kind of deep and thick change we used to believe was created only over time? We have always stretched a point and used the term Tiber Patina to mean 'no real patina but a yellow tone like you see on river coins' and Sand Patina to mean 'hard deposits on the surface'. Do you distinguish between the term 'patina' and the term 'surface color'?

I still make a distinction between these two classes. Roma is a business. VCoins and eBay are groups of independent businesses linked together for some purposes. I used to trust VCoins to be more than just a common advertising medium but they lost that when they added too many of the wrong dealers and became more like eBay in some ways. Now I do not discriminate against a seller because he sells via VCoins or eBay but I do not trust a new seller on either just because they allowed him to join. There is a difference between a barrel of apples with a few rotten ones included and a single fruit with only one bad side. I will select a good apple after examining it for worms but I'm not hungry enough to eat around the worm in the damaged fruit. When you patronize dealers of questionable ethics, you are saying you need them so bad that the worms are no problem.

It is easier if we just don't look and never know what we missed. I am fortunate to be able to find enough coins I want from sources I can tolerate to exhaust my budget.

 

Very good points. Strongly agree on almost all, particularly regarding patina. Only quibble is that eBay and Vcoins are businesses too, and eBay at least is very profitable. Vcoins to a degree positions itself as a more ethical platform than eBay. They brag about their 'code of ethics'. On both platforms I buy only from dealers I'm very confident in.

 

When I first saw this article I laughed by butt off. Now its just sad. There is a very good reason why Morris was not tried or convicted for more serious crimes. Why? The sarcophagus in question was fake! Its true, those of us who know all the parties involved know the story quite well indeed. How this article came to be is anyones guess, but clearly there is an anti-collecting slant by the author(s). Most of what is written there is either pure fabrication or tainted by personal opinion.

Still, an interesting read, even if fiction.

 

...is it fiction that Salem plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge?

 

Brilliant ending! Reminds me of the Dutch dealer Van Meegren who was prosecuted after WWII for selling Vermeers to the Germans. He got off by proving that they were fakes he'd done himself - actually painted one in the courtroom to prove it.

 

I'm curious as to how many of you wrote to Vcoins about these dealers after the first A to Z thread broke?

I sent them a message recently asking for clarification on what exactly it takes for them to enforce thier code of ethics in a meaningful way. Management responded that the most recent round of fakes had been removed and that the seller(s) is now adding a comment stating if the "patina" is original (apparently not). He also said that the sellers are aware they are being monitored by the collector community for deceitful behavior (fat lot of good it's doing).

The response would seem reasonable except all the above mentioned items plus a history of other issues with these sellers. I am very disappointed in Vcoins. Not sure I'm going to continue buying from them.

 

I loved how Zurqieh/Hussam said he would now include a note on all new listings if there was an applied patina... and then gradually correct old listings!
I mean, wtf? It's a one hour job, to copy and paste one sentence for an inventory of a couple of hundred items! Surely vcoins should have given him 48 hours and then removed his store until he complied.

 

Not just old ones. New coins are being listed without mention of applied patina. This particularly awful example is from the 'newly listed' section: https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/at...tinian_i_527565_rome_mint/866309/Default.aspx

 

I hope it's OK to post this comment from Joe Sermarini from the Forum discussion board, addressed directly to Salem, which I think is spot on: "I think the description should be clear enough that, if or when the customer sees the "before" photo, they are not surprised or disappointed. I recommend saying something like, "Professionally restored. Applied desert patina fills pitted fields. Photos of the coin before professional restoration available on request." "

 

95 percent of my coins are ORANGE

 

There is a very clear difference between coins that have genuine earthen encrustations on their surface and coins that have been repatinated with some dust and glue combo.

Coins that were originally found in certain arid terrains may bear what is popularly called a 'desert' patina, which is nothing more than a soil and mineral concretion that adheres to the surface of the metal due to a very weak chemical process over the centuries. Coins with such encrustations/adhesions/concretions (call them what you will) may have their details selectively cleaned so as to remove this material from raised details, while leaving the fields and/or other parts of the surface untouched. This Byzantine nummus is an example of where cleaning to raised details only has been effected, leaving the real so-called 'desert' patina untouched.
https://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=3357&category=69410&lot=2788346
similarly:
https://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=3357&category=69408&lot=2788249

Coins that have been at any point in their existence fully cleaned and then had some mix of glue and dust or dirt deliberately applied to their surfaces to highlight their details are always so noted in our auctions, as per the following lots:
https://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=3357&category=69404&lot=2787798
https://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=3357&category=69404&lot=2787799

It is worth noting that this habit of earthen repatination is endemic to Eastern countries, and is a practice whose popularisation is commonly attributed to Ya'akov Meshorer, the Chief Curator for archaeology at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and a prominent Israeli numismatist.

"Nerva", coins that have been repatinated are not 'faked coins'. Yes, they have been tampered with as far as I am concerned, and I personally neither approve of the practice nor do I like the look of such repatinated coins. Nonetheless there is a real coin underneath the repatination and that is what we are selling on behalf of the coins' consignors.

You appear to single VCoins and our firm out as "actors who ought to be arbiters upholding values". I shall take this as a compliment of sorts, which I hope was the spirit in which it was intended - that we should be in a position of influence to prevent such repatinated coins being sold. However what you have not considered is that some collectors, particularly Israelis and collectors of Judaean material do like it. Who are we to tell them they are wrong, that their preference is stupid, and that we won't sell their coins? The practice can hardly compared to tooling (which I do take strong exception to) since the underlying coin is not being harmed and the process is ultimately reversible; yet even tooling was once widely considered acceptable, even desirable. You also appear to be unaware that repatinated coins are frequently sold by other major auction houses such as CNG and Heritage, to name but two who also disclose where repatination has occurred (others do not).

While we are always grateful to our consignors for having chosen us as their venue to sell their property regardless of the number of coins consigned, this is not the reason for being offered a special thanks. This is reserved for those individuals not directly employed by us who have made particular efforts on our company's behalf or have lent us their professional assistance in the cataloguing/auction process.

 

Thank you for the response. Vcoins are in a less defensible position because a seller has disregarded an agreement to flag repatinated coins without sanction. But I do think that as one of the most reputable auction houses you do have a responsibility to uphold standards. If, as often happened in the past, an art dealer had pictures repainted to make them more saleable - say, adding figures to a landscape - it would not be an excuse to say that buyers like it better that way. I don't believe that the leading auction houses would knowingly accept consignments from such a dealer, and I think the term 'faked' would be fair to describe the transformation. I don't accept that no damage is done when acetone and mechanical scraping is need to remove it, and coins previously shown on these discussions seem also to have been smoothed.

 

Your analogy of adding figures to a painting is not appropriate. This would be akin to adding or removing actual metal to/from the coin - see my comments on tooling above.

Using the term 'faked coin' confuses the issue. The coin is not fake, it is authentic. Whatever is done to the surface is a different matter - you could certainly call it a fake patina without issue.

I would like to reiterate and make absolutely clear at this point that I in no way condone the practice of repatinating coins with artificial 'earth' and glue, or any variation thereof. However I am not and don't need to make excuses for the coins - we clearly note where a coin has been repatinated. We have presented potential buyers with the information, they can then make their own minds up as to whether they would like to purchase the coin or not. While I myself would not want to buy a tooled coin for example, others are happy to do so. The highest auction result for a tooled coin is CHF 200,000 (US$217,000) - should the seller actually have been told by the auction house that his coin was unsellable and worthless? It is not for you or I to impose our own preferences on the rest of the collecting community. We may present them with information, and should respect them enough to leave them to form their own judgements.

The inclusion of two repatinated coins in our last printed auction (out of nearly 1300 lots), which were clearly noted as being repatinated, cannot defensibly be considered a failure to uphold standards.