Can you spot the fake?

With enough time that will change. You already have the interest, now all you need to do is to maintain your enthusiasm. Many who start to collect ancients get overwhelmed and quit. With your classical history background you are already steps ahead of others who are drawn to these ancient coins.

As for the variation among ancients, this is exactly why the grading of these coins is irrelevant to many who collect ancients. When you grade an ancient, what do you do when an obverse is struck from fresher dies than the reverse? In the world of moderns, a "d" or a "p" could be the only difference between otherwise identical coins. IN the world of ancients, each one is as you say unique and hand struck. Btw did you know that there are members here who can tell you when 2 coins were engraved by the same hand? If you really want a controversy in ancients just start a thread of what constitutes "fine style". This matters not at all in moderns as there is only one engraver per type.

My advice: handle as many genuine coins as possible. Handle the coins and get an eye for the subtle differences between the legitimate coins and the more obvious fakes. However, if you collect ancients you are guaranteed to buy at least one fake. Some are very dangerous. Imho the risk is worth it for the pursuit of these small pieces of history.

Yes, the Socratian paradox is important here. We might say something today like "The more I learn, the more I realize I do not know".

 

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Actually in a number of cases you can say that. Some members here are known as leading experts in their specializations. In fact many coins have been pulled from auctions because of what some guy from ct said.

 

There are many types of coins i'm not familiar with. I've started a small collection of Sassanian coins, but i don't know these coins well. But i limit these purchases to "full service" dealers, who have considerable expertise, subscribe to a code of ethics and who do not have any reputational issues when i scan the internet. So i don't need a slab from NGC. But you do you. It's your collection - do it your way and enjoy the hobby!

 

Late for the party.
The top coin immediately raised red flags for me and I wouldn't have bought it under no circumstances. I am not an expert but it "feels" fake - and a bad one.
Spotting fakes is still my weak spot as I still have situations where experienced collectors (also on CT) notice a fake straight away but I sometimes don't.
I remember there was a topic a few weeks ago about an auction full of fakes. What beats me is that the genuine coins were cheap (Probus, Victorinus) and the fakes they sold were not in perfect "conservation" so I don't understand WHY.
Not that I understand or approve the production of truly deceptive expensive fakes.

What looks more dangerous for me - "suppliers" such as that website mentioned by @Gam3rBlake. Some of the products there - I can't call them coins - could have fooled me, seeing them in an auction, among genuine coins. The only flag I see (again, I am no expert) is the perfect centering for all, the soapy aspect and the unnatural wear pattern. But a few of them - I would have been tempted to say "overcleaned and this is why it looks soapy"

I respect NGC for their experience and I would love, sometime in another life, to have a similar job. But relying on NGC only limits the pleasure of the hobby. When I see a coin, I do a research - what is it (if it's not fully attributed), what does it represent, how rare is it (how often were other examples sold in the last years), what is the actual conservation, compared to others on the market (some of the grading provided by auction houses are jokes), a correct price and, unfortunately, I compare it with spotted fakes. I say unfortunately because this is the major problem with ancient coins ...
Does buying a slabbed coin allow the same research? Of course it does, but if somebody limits to slabbed only, I am not sure if it's the same game.
I see that you are buying expensive coins, @Gam3rBlake . I fully understand your concern regarding fakes. But as others mentioned, you will have the same safety (at least) when buying from a serious auction house. Those are also checked by experts - and I am tempted to say a person from a big auction house, specialized in ancients, is at least as skilled as a NGC grader.

Again, I have nothing against NGC and I am sure somebody working there is indeed a specialist.
But I know several cases where NGC did a very bad job - coins from my country - modern coins. One was a poor modern fake and I am really not sure if the person grading it had a really bad day. Others - overgraded or undergraded. Of course this is my subjective opinion, but I remember a modern coin that got XF40 grade but it was a low end VF. And a splendid MS that only got a 63 and this was a shame, as the coin was common and 63 means nothing, even if, again, in my subjective opinion, the correct grade was 65 or 66, this would have meant a lot of extra money. This doesn't delete the other 99,999999% of the well job done, but ...
Bottom line, in my opinion - buying an ancient slabbed coin only means that a skilled person had a look at that coin and considered it is genuine and gave it a surface grade and a strike grade plus the overall grade - VF, XF...
Bear in mind that the same thing happens for a serious auction house - they do not provide the strike and surface grades but I don't think this is so relevant. They also provide a detailed attribution. And they might be more skilled in ancients as it is their main area.
I have recently bought some (cheap) coins from a smaller auction house and I noticed that their attributions are often wrong. This simply tells me that they do not study the coins carefully ... so I wouldn't buy I coin I am not at least slightly familiar with.

@Herodotus the "dangerous coins" almost made me spill my coffee, I downloaded the pics. Nero and Julia Domna made my day.

 

You make some good points here.
If I remember correctly, NGC is very good at authenticating ancient coins, at least during recent times. However, if I remember correctly, they may not be as good, at authenticating modern coins. If I remember correctly, NGC has 1 or 2 persons, who specialize in ancient coins. If I remember correctly, there was a long thread, during which the NGC ancient coin expert(s) were discussed, a couple of months ago.
If I remember correctly, this is the thread :
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/what-happened-to-gitbud-numismatik.380510/
See especially page 2 of the thread, where the following is stated :
"... once upon a time NGC Ancients was notorious for egregious blunders like this--I've also seen Caracalla misidentified as Elagabalus in an NGC slab and vice versa--but all that was before David Vagi reorganized the department from top to bottom, joined more recently by Barry Murphy. Of course Barry and David aren't perfect because no one is, but I guarantee you NGC isn't making mistakes like this now. Not even once in a while. Not ever."

 

@Gam3rBlake

I apologize if I've come across as condescending towards you in this thread (or others RE: Slabs). I simply disagree with what I perceive to be some misconceptions on your part, and I've felt the need to present some veracity on the matter.

I suppose that I would like to be of the same advice as that coming from @Orfew concerning the gravity in being able to physically handle ancient coins.

The elation felt palming a nice broad Orichalcum Sestertius, or a chunky Silver Tetradrachm, or the heft of a thick Æ Ptolemy is something that can't truly be appreciated when a coin is encapsulated.

Ancient coins are a direct tangible link to the past. For me personally, they help inspire a yearning to glean more knowledge about 'the who', 'the what', 'the where', 'the how' and perhaps 'the why' that the coins reflect.

One of the recurring simple enjoyments for me is envisioning how these coins circulated --- To imagine that some Roman legion, or Greek hoplite, or Carthaginian sailor may have at one time owned and spent the very coin now in my possession.

I've never really looked at collecting ancients as an investment. Of course I want to feel like I've paid the best price for my coins, and I'm always looking for what I perceive to be 'deals' based on current market demand. In selling them, the most that I would hope for is a reasonable percentage of what I put into them. Any actual real gain for me is my personal enjoyment and the enrichment gleaned from the hobby; which is tough to put a monetary value on.

My purpose in challenging you on your beliefs (and what I suggest may by misconceptions) is really meant to encourage you to not limit yourself by focusing on VF 4/5 5/5 vs. XF 3/5 4/5, and instead put that coin physically in hand and read that legend, look at those devices up close. What does DAC CAP mean? Who is the deity Diana Lucifera and what does she represent? What is the reason that the Caecilli Metelli portrayed elephants on their coinage?

Also, I would suggest discovering the beauty and interest in coins made from base metals other than silver. Recognize that some bronze patinas may actually improve a coin's 'eye appeal'. These coins are old. Really old. It's OK if they look their age.

With silver coins, at times a nice old-collection cabinet toning on a coin has much better 'eye appeal' than a 'blast white' one. It's an acquired taste.

Feel the weight of the coin in your hand. Look at it from different angles in the light. It's my opinion that ancient coins are best appreciated as tangible.

YMMV.

 

97%? I think you owe the two NGC experts an apology. Anyone who misses 3% would not be considered employable in the trade let alone selling their opinions as a third party grader. 3% would mean that I have about 100 fakes lurking in my collection unbeknownst to me. I do hope my number is smaller than that. I suppose I could ship off my coins to NGC along with a check for something like $175, 000 and find out which ones were mistakes I made over the last 55 years. The fact is I am not THAT curious. If 3% is not a fair number, what is? Coin Talk has seen one NGC slabbed fake so the number is not zero. If you search the CT posts for the last decade you will find it. I bought the same fake a few years ago and was allowed to keep it when the seller refunded my money. Later I gave the coin to the person who owned the slabbed fake since they were twins that needed to be together. Today, we on Coin Talk Ancients have publicized this coin so often that I would hope everyone here is familiar with it and would not be fooled. It is a bit embarrassing today that we were fooled by this one even for a minute.

Where did you get the idea that 5/5 means a coin is in the top 20% as opposed to being the best possible on an absolute scale and a 1/5 can not possibly be the best of the type ever seen? Consider the Poros tetradrachms of Alexander the Great. I have no idea how many have been 'graded' but I can't recall seeing any that would allow better than 3/5 for strike. There are 'types' of ancient coins known by very few specimens (of which very few are slabbed) where every known specimen would grade 5/5 or 1/5. I sincerely hope that were I to send in a small pot hoard of a thousand straight from the mint perfect coins of a previously unknown type, that the handful only 99% perfect would not be labeled 1/5 because there were hundreds and hundreds perhaps 1% better. This sounds like the sort of idea that someone carried over from the modern hobby where a 'rare' coin might be represented by a few thousand specimens most of which have been slabbed (what IS the body count for 1909 S VDB cents?). Rules for Ancients are different for good reason. Am I wrong? Is NGC Ancients grading relative or absolute? I would be interested in hearing the percentage statistics of coins graded 1/5 vs 5/5. I would suspect that rather more really nice coins get sent in to be graded so there must be many more 5/5 labels for most types.

 

@Herodotus WOW, those are really good fakes example ……

 

You seem to have a lot of trust in Heritage, but I hope you remember that they're one of the more controversial auctioneers, specifically around coin grading. Here's the Forbes article.

I too am new to ancient coins. I just started collecting in December. For each coin I buy, I do two things:
1) Only buy it from a reputable dealer or auction house. For every single one, I research it here and elsewhere to see if there are any complaints.
2) For each coin, I research the heck out of it. I find any academic papers and read them to understand the motivations behind minting the coin. I look up fakes on Forum. I find copies at ANS or the British Museum and verify that they're similar to the target coin.
3) I also heavily research the coin at past auctions to understand what it may be worth.

There is one particular auction house mentioned often on this forum that I don't use because they've had too high a proportion of fakes. There are other auction houses I trust, but I chose against bidding on a coin because the weight/look just didn't seem right or the attribution was wrong.

I'm sorry, but just buying a slabbed coin because that gives you trust is just laziness. A slab/NGC certification is no guard against the coin being misattributed (and remember that attributions change with new research, so what once was accepted may now be incorrect).

In fact, right now I'm debating on a slabbed coin from a reputable dealer, because my research indicated their attribution is sketchy, so I've asked the auctioneer to provide what information they have to justify it before I bid.

You need to do your homework, slabbed or not.

 

For all of the auction houses with whom I've dealt, this assertion is simply not true. In fact, NAC, CNG, and others give an unlimited guarantee of authenticity. This means that, e.g. in 100 years (assuming that NAC is still in business), if one of your heirs or subsequent purchasers of an NAC-auctioned coin discovers the coin is a forgery, NAC will refund the entire original auction price.

I've had direct personal experience in this situation:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/hadrian-aureus-a-tale-of-subtle-differences.283959/

Can you point out in HA's terms and conditions where they limit returns for a coin's authenticity to only seven days? I'm unable to locate this limitation despite searching their terms and conditions for "authentic," and "seven." Here's a link to HA's auction terms that I searched:

https://www.sixbid.com/en/heritage-...=large&auctionSessions=&sidebarIsSticky=false

I'd be surprised if HA didn't offer the same unlimited guarantee of authenticity that is offered by NAC, CNG, et al.

Many dealers also offer extensive or unlimited guarantees of authenticity on coins that they sell.

Your assertions are dangerously unfounded and misinformed. It's one thing to have a personal opinion that, say, NGC's experts and CNG's experts are similarly competent when it comes to evaluating authenticity (although even that opinion could be researched and supported statistically) but it's entirely different to assert as fact something that is demonstrably untrue.

 

Ancient collectors have to have a great education, desire, and great eye sight. I wear glasses, duh.

 

Apparently they’re not as convincing as the first coin in the OP, or the rather poor aureus fake that Blake posted.
Yikes

 

It's very easy to discover that this is an incorrect statement as applied to virtually any well known ancients auction house or dealer. Just look at the terms on their website, very easy to find.

 

Just fyi, that's not correct. The 7-day return privilege is for non-auction "buy now" purchases, and has nothing to do with authenticity. One can return that kind of purchase within 7 days for any reason:

"Non-Auction Buy Now Terms & Conditions. . . .

All orders come with an unconditional seven-day return privilege with the exception of graded Make Offer to Owner items. We're not satisfied until you are."

This is all irrelevant to Heritage's auction guarantee of authenticity. You're correct that a 7-day limitation on that guarantee would render it meaningless. So it's a good thing there isn't any such limitation!

PS: I've never bought a coin from Heritage, because I generally have no interest in slabbed coins. Although I've actually been a seller through Heritage, about six year ago, when I auctioned my copies of the six 1920s NY Yankees World Series programs through them. I was quite happy with the results! Fortunately, Heritage doesn't slab things like programs yet, so the buyer can actually read them. Unlike a slabbed coin..

 

Oh ok thanks for the clarification!

You know Heritage sells raw coins too though right? Not just slabbed ones.

 

First of all I said 97%+

That means 97% all the way up to 100%.

As to your question about the grading being in the top 20%: You can find it all on NGC’s website.

 

Sounds to me like you’ve been lucky.

I guarantee if I tried to return a raw coin to an auction house by claiming “it’s fake” they would make me jump through all kinds of hoops. That’s if they refunded at all.

“Why do you think it’s fake?”
“Who said it’s fake?”
“Our experts say it’s real.”
Etc,. Ad Nauseum.

Ive seen it happen with autographs too.

Someone complains about their Led Zeppellin autograph being fake and the auction house replies with:
“Our experts determined it is real in their opinion. It’s common for experts to have different opinions thus we cannot refund your purchase.”


But hey congrats on getting super lucky!

I just don’t like to rely on luck.

 

I really liked the thoughts in this post except for point #3 which I would prefer omitted. After we buy a coin, we are better off not considering the current market value until we get to a point that we no longer want the coin and want to sell it. If you start out thinking just how happy you would be if you no longer owned the coin, it would seem best not to have bought it in the first place. If all the coins are to you is an investment, there are better returns available. If you sell a coin you like, you no longer have it. I try to sell coins that no longer thrill me and keep the ones that still do even more than when they were first purchased. What would my favorite coins bring if sold? I won't know.

Remember the reason slabs were invented was to open the market up to people with no desire to learn for themselves and facilitate trading without involving anyone with a clue. They have succeeded rather well.

Thanks for the information. The text does not say each point is 20% of the population of the coins they have graded but 20% of the condition span from worst, through middle to superb taking into account either strike or surfaces. The fact that a coin is graded 4/5 does not mean that there exists any 5/5 beauties or 1/5 dogs but just that the coin is only part way down the path from excellent to awful. Again, I would use the Poros dekadrachms as an example. The best I have seen
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1178661
might be 3/5 for strike and there are some that are 1/5 only because 0/5 was not an option. I do wonder how many of these have been slabbed.
Heritage did sell one graded NGC Fine 4/5 - 1/5. which may actually be correct at 4/5 for strike. The surfaces make it hard to photograph. Surface 1/5 is certain.
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5877710

 

I think there's a misunderstanding here. I research the current market value for the coin so I can know what to offer. Will $200 win it? $500? Based on the current market value and how much I want the coin, I'll come up with my max bid. I suspect most people do the same here, unless they already know the coin extremely well.

Once I own the coin, though, I don't bother looking up its value. I do keep the original price paid, date, and auction house in a spreadsheet, in case I die in a horrific accident, so my family can sell them if they wish.

 

For the benefit of anyone reading this, who might think it's dangerous to buy unslabbed coins from reputable companies whether through auctions or retail.

It's nothing to do with luck.

If you get an opinion from a known expert who says it's fake (like David Sear), I really doubt if a reputable auction house will refuse the return.

If the person who said it's fake is an anonymous poster on a discussion board, I think the auction house will be within their rights to wonder if the condemnation is justified. Especially if no evidence is presented to support the opinion.

For example an identical twin (centering, strike, flaws) for sale elsewhere is pretty watertight evidence of a fake.

But then again it's good that people prefer to buy slabbed coins. Less competition for the unslabbed.