Found my first Fleur de Coin

https://www.romanumismatics.com/222-lot-400-anonymous-ar-victoriatus?auction_id=76&view=lot_detail

Roma has an amazing auction coming up and apparently they found this coin to be Fleur de Coin, which I understand to be "straight from the die" or in other words, absolutely perfect.

I believe this coin usually goes for a few hundred in good shape as it's a common one. Just wanted to see your guys' thoughts on it 'FDC' claim.

 

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it's considered an auction fail to link to current auctions, as it often tends to drive prices up.

 

Fleur de Coin is just uncirculated based on my understanding.. isn't it? I'm not a perfect french speaker but I believe I talked to someone in Quebec who used the terminology.

 

Fleur de Coin = Flower of the mint. More poetic than mint state.

 

Once upon a time, fleur de coin meant literal perfection, a coin that is unimprovable in every respect. One would be lucky to see more than a few in a lifetime. In my opinion, flan shape and minor flaws on the reverse would disqualify the op from FDC status. However, grading of ancient coins is looser today than it was 30 or 40 years ago.

 

Grading was useful when coin photographs weren't available. Now that they are, they are quite redundant. One can form your own opinions from the photo after all.

The coin in question is well struck but to me the style is poor.

 

Interesting, I did understand the literal translation and how it obviously is poetic and esteemed,

But I did not know its presence in the ancient collecting community was different than unc, how interesting!

 

It’s well above a few hundred now

 

My impressions are that auction houses are far from uniform in their appraisals. They even seem to vary within the same auction. In today's age I don't think they're as necessary. You can get a very good idea of the quality from the coin image itself.

 

FWIW, that same auction has 40 coins marked as "Fleur de Coin." By contrast, CNG has appraised only 24 coins as Fleur de Coin in their last 15 years of eAuctions.

 

Whatever the grade -- and it should matter far less than what the coin looks like in the photo, unless you don't trust your own judgment -- the coin wouldn't interest me. I happen to think that the design of the reverse is unappealing, if not outright ugly! But there's no accounting for tastes.

 

As was mentioned above, this coin is not FDC, even by relaxed modern definitions. Gadoury defines FDC as "[une] piece en etat parfait, qui ne montre aucune trace de circulation et a garde entierement sa billance d'origine" (an example in perfect condition, which shows no signs of circulation, and has retained its complete original luster). As loose as this is versus historic usage, the coin in question does not retain full original luster, and shows some evidence of cabinet friction, thus precluding it - although this seems nit picky, if we continue to throw around terms willy-nilly, they will lose meaning.

 

That is FDC, anything less is hype.

 

Let's not get carried away with the phrase Fleur de Coin . This designation was never meant to imply "perfect". There is no such thing as a perfect ancient coin. Do we actually think that a 2,200 year old coin will show no trace of tarnish or oxidation as a criterion for the FDC designation ? The expectation that some collectors have that the coin must be perfect in order to attain FDC status would only apply to modern coins with the MS70 grade, if that were the case.



I have seen many coins on this forum I wouldn't hesitate to call FDC, especially coins from the panzerman collection . John has always tried to obtain the finest condition coins available . The criteria for an ancient FDC coin should include: the best strike possible from fresh dies, excellent centering on a fairly round flan that shows all the design elements clearly, & the coin should be in gem mint state & unimprovable. Considering all those criteria, I would consider the coin that started this thread FDC. Roma Numismatics has been known to use the FDC designation rather loosely on many occasions, however, this time I agree with them. Last year I bought a RR denarius from a Roma auction that was labeled FDC, see the photo below. I would never truly consider this coin FDC because the reverse is too far off center, never the less I was happy to add the coin to my collection , see the photo below.

 

Gold doesn't oxidise or tarnish, not even after 2200 years. Well not unless it's from the Boscoreale treasure.

 

As Richard and Donna have said above, the OP coin might be in extraordinary condition, but its style is far from perfect. Saturn's eye, for example, is far too large and too high, and the rendering of Victory on the reverse appears somewhat sloppy. Personally, I'd much rather own a VF coin of extraordinary artistic quality than an EF+ coin in mediocre style.

Top-notch engraving on Republican silver is rare but exists. For example, @DonnaML has some denarii in excellent style, and our member @Volodya owns a jaw-dropping collection of fine style Republican coins. The OP coin doesn't fulfill this criterion.

 

Glad there are differing opinions on what it means. I thought fleur de coin meant it was the best the mint made of its type.
My biggest problem with the op coin is that it's from Roma. I don't buy from them due to their ongoing relationship with Lanz Numismatik. I assume all their coins are at least smoothed, if not tooled.
I wonder if that relationship keeps others away from Roma?

 

Style should have nothing to do with a coin being FDC.

 

It does, by definition of FDC. "FDC" isn't just "straight from the mint": it's a combination of perfect striking, unimprovable grade, and finest style.

It's a term which is used far more today than in the past so that definition has been diluted over time but that's the conventional meaning.