Hi all, My dad collects ancients, but does not know enough to tell real vs fake yet. He is looking for a reliable and reputable source online for graded examples. Any help is appreciated!.
I can give you no better expert than: https://www.davidrsear.com/ To tell your dad if his coins are authentic or not. But nothing helps better than looking at coins. Tell him to check out CT
All true...im a US collector myself. And agree with what is said. Facts are i know he will buy, so if he dies I want to give him the best odds....I appreciate it guys
Slabs do help an ancient coin to sell for more at resale, but you can usually expect to pay more because it seems that more people are coming over from collecting modern, and they are more comfortable with slabbed. NGC is probably the best, but they give a generic non-numeric grade, and more recent slabs have a 1-5 point scale for both original strike quality and surface preservation. I would echo that Sear's certification is great (I bought some denarii in a group lot that the flip insert mentioned Sear-certified - I emailed him and he was more than happy to compare my pictures with his and confirm the certification at no cost!) and Vcoins offers an unconditional guarantee on all of their sellers' coins. I may catch some flak for saying this, but I have always been of the opinion that it's worse to pay $250 for a genuine coin that's only worth $100 than to pay $50 for a coin that turns out to be fake. Just avoid eBay for anything over like $20 and make sure your father keeps his paperwork especially for coins bought from sellers who offer guarantees. What sort of coin is your father looking for? I would consult with the forum for guidance on how much the coin should cost before making a relatively major purchase.
Heritage Auctions sells many slabbed ancients in their auctions and is a reliable source. However they are expensive. Coins with MS grades in particular get bid up out of all proportion to the coin's actual rarity or eye appeal. I have bought slabbed from Heritage before but I feel much more comfortable bidding on ones graded VF or EF.
I told him abiut Heritage and Great Collections. Is ForumAncientCoins or Northeast Numismatics reliable?
Forum Ancient Coins is one of the most reliable dealers out there. They don't sell many slabbed coins, but you can buy from them with complete confidence regardless. They have a very strong guarantee of authenticity. Even better, they have a buyback guarantee so if your father wants to pursue a different collecting area in the future he could give coins back to Forum for store credit. I have no idea about Northeast Numismatics.
Northeast Numismatics is a very reputable company. As far as I know they do not deal in ancient coins however.
At the last NH Coin Expo (2019) there was a dealer who had only slabbed ancients. I was not into that at the time so I did not pay much attention, but it did stick in my mind as it was so unusual to see. I do not recall the name of the dealer but the list of participants is here. Perhaps with some research you can find him.
