Lanz and Roma

This thread is poison. Unless someone can provide some tangible evidence as to why Roma Numismatics (in the initial title) is not an honorably run establishment, I'm leaving. This goes for the Biddr bashing as well.

 

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I know that ISIS tragically blew up a lot of the remaining ancient structures at Palmyra. Apart from destroying things, do we know that they also dug up artifacts and/or coins and put them on the black market? I think that was kind of the point of the article I cited -- that there's no evidence that anything like that happened. I recognize that 15 or 20 years ago, there was a lot of looting going on during the Iraq War, like at the museum in Baghdad. I think people have extrapolated from that to go places that the evidence doesn't support.

 

ISIS probably destroyed/ defaced more historical artifacts/ monuments then any group in history. They did sell oil from regions in their control though. I would bet, they got a lot of their funding from Saudi Arabia/ thats where all of the 9-11 terrorists came from. Also homegrown sympathizers in Western Nations.
And back to original thread/ Roma is one of the best auction houses.

 

I also don't quite understand how Roma got dragged into this. As I said, they're expensive, but I've always heard that they're highly reputable. What is the nature of Roma's alleged association with Lanz, anyway?

Perhaps I should emphasize that I am not accusing Herr Lanz of being a member of Isis!

 

Me neither!

I have never heard of any kind of shady cooperation between Roma and Lanz either. In fact, I don’t hear much at all about Lanz these days. I thought they had gone 100% ebay.

 

I agree with Donna Roma is a perfect "10"/ Lanz, I did get two coins back in 2014/ both where beauties. So, I am very happy Here is one of the Lanz ones...

 

Another auction firm that had bad press was NFA (NumismaticFine Arts) I got 15 coins from them, love everyone/ grading was stricter then CNG.
In fact I miss NFA/ Tkalec AG a LOT.

 

Lanz is an old firm. I visited their shop in the 80's and purchased a single coin from them retail. I received their printed auction catalogs for 2 years after that although I never bid on any auction lot. They have listed some very rare, legitimate coins on Ebay over the years but much of what they list is dubious, as has been demonstrated here in several posts. Their reputation has now been so significantly degraded that when they do have nice coins, they go for bargain prices. I have some correspondents who watch their ebay listings for this very reason.

 

@Iepto beat me to it. Thank you!

The thing about relying too much on a return policy (any return policy) is that it puts the burden on the buyer to determine if the item is fake. Most new collectors lack the knowledge it takes to do that even with the coin in hand. I know I did when I started. I remember other collectors saying things like “that’s obviously fake” about a coin and thinking “well it’s not obvious to me.” As a new collector if you are not careful with EBay your collection could have many many fake coins in it before you get savvy enough to spot them or you may never spot them as such. Trying to track down and return half your collection bought over several years doesn’t sound fun to me!

Ebay is swimming in fake ancient coins. It takes a trained eye to find good coins at fair prices and even experienced collectors sometimes roll the dice and get burned.

If you buy from VCoins or a similar venue as a new collector you are infinitely better off. I would say most of the experienced dealers on eBay also have a VCoins store. Do some dealers on VCoin have issues? Sure, but all of them have an interest in at least maintaining a minimum of reputability. There might be fakes that get sold on VCoins and MA Shops rarely but compared to ebay the problem is practically negligible.

 

When I bought ancient coins on ebay, I used to buy from Lanz and another dealer; Slavey Petrov. I was always happy with the transactions, but there were a lot of rumours going on about them. As I started to notice a few irregularities with both, I quit buying at ebay altogether. Since that, I’ve been well supplied with offers of ancient coins from my select auction houses, and see no need to change anything about that. I have 5-6 auction houses that I buy from, and I don’t really need much more than that.
It would have been fun to have bought a coin from the man that got Wayne Gretzky traded to LA Kings, though (NFA). But by the time I got into ancient coins, he had gone to prison.

 

Lanz hired Petrov as an « expert » 20 years ago...
And by the way, can a member explain me why Roma and Lanz in the same sentence ???

 

I bought this As from NFA many years ago. It has a filled flan crack, not disclosed in the auction! (You can see this at 3:00 on the obverse.) I didn't buy from them again. So I have three reasons to be mad at Bruce McNall.

 

1. The Trade
2. The Coin
3. The what?

 

3. The uber-rich guy stealing money thing. Beyond the smuggling, on December 14 1994, McNall pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy and fraud, and admitted to bilking six banks out of $236 million over a ten-year period.

 

Hold on a second - isn't Slavey Petrov the same Slavey who makes all those Bulgarian fakes?

For the record, I would agree with @Fugio1 in that I have historically not had any problems with coins from Lanz, and know that Lanz is an old and respected firm. I have countless coins I've acquired from Lanz over the years, mainly Magna Graecian bronzes but also a few Roman denarii and antoninianii. I'm pretty confident that all the coins I have bought in the past from them have been genuine. However, the recent cluster of fake-looking Marc Antony denarii which Lanz sold over the past half a year has shaken this confidence, and I no longer take for granted that all the coins Lanz sells are genuine. I also remember reading another post on Forum where someone else had die-matched some impressive looking Sicilian bronzes that Lanz sold previously which were likely very well-made and patinated fakes.

My confidence took another hit with a recent Lansky auction which sold an obvious fake of an extremely rare Magna Grecian coin. When I e-mailed them telling them it was a fake, and sent them a picture of what a real coin should look like, they poo-pooed it and sold the coin anyway for EUR 8000. I sure feel sorry for the person who bought that slug.

My point is that just because you're an auction house or have been a historically respected and trusted dealer doesn't guarantee by any means that all your coins are genuine. And I wonder why some of these more obvious fakes make it through dealers like Lanz into the market. Do they really not know they're selling fakes if they're selling 20 identically-prepped coins over a longer period of time?? Dealers with more experience than myself and who have handled literally thousands of coins of the same type should be able to pick out these fakes, shouldn't they??

 

TWICE Roma claimed I didn't pay for coins when I had receipts from PayPal and my bank that proved I did. They didn't bother to check their records before sending me e-mails telling me owed them payment, either.

They have nice coins, but keep SLOPPY records. I haven't participated in one of their auctions in four years.

 

Roma sells Lanz's coins from time to time (with listed provenance). For example, look at this 2019 sale –– look at the 2nd cover collection: https://issuu.com/roma_numismatics/docs/xviii_web

 

I'm sorry, but I couldn't figure out what you meant by the "2nd cover collection." But if you're saying that Lanz was simply one link in the chain of ownership and these coins had listed provenances that predated his ownership, so that they simply passed through his hands (as long as he didn't alter them!) -- or, alternatively, they were sold by Lanz years ago, before he started engaging in dubious practices -- I see no reason not to offer ex-Lanz coins.

The other thing Lanz has been repeatedly accused of, in addition to selling fakes and heavily tooled coins, is refusing to accept any degree of evidence that a coin is fake or tooled, and refusing to issue refunds. With one of our members, after agreeing to take a coin back (necessarily implying that he would issue a refund under standard commercial practice), he instead resold it without permission, at a substantial loss, and offered only the sum received to our member. Shady, shady.

 

Is there something sinister about selling a collection from a well known numismatic auctioneer who died in 1998?

 

Just because the collection includes one or more coins that that auctioneer bought from Lanz more than 20 years ago, when Lanz still had a good reputation? I would hardly think so. Nor does that qualify as an "association" with Lanz, a term that implies to me that someone is surreptitiously acting as some sort of agent for Lanz to pass off fake coins. Or something similar.