Whether to remove my Sestertius from its slab or not?

Pretty graphic eh? I wanted it to look like the coin just couldn't take it anymore, and exploded out of it's shackles with the force of a mighty hurricane.

 

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$23.50 strikes me as what that coin would have brought several years ago (before anyone was slabbing ancients) so it is hard to imagine anyone was valuing the slab at all if you bought it for that figure.

Grading ancients is not easy and there are many opinions that conflict. I tried to address the question with a series of pages several years ago:
http://dougsmith.ancients.info/grade.html

In addition to the 'Standard' grading, I listed a number of more important factors separated into those that existed when the coin left the mint which I called 'Conditions of Manufacture' and those which happened to the coin (other than 'honest' wear) which I called 'Conditions of Preservation'. I was unable at that time to develop what I considered a satisfactory numbering system for these factors since we all may differ on how much each might affect the desirability of a coin.

NGC slabs made an effort in this direction by adding their ratings for strike and surface. These were included in my lists but there were very many other factors I considered significant that a meaningful grade would be a ridiculous string of numerals. The NGC system is a lot better than the ANACS adaptation of the Sheldon numbers ('20') but I still see more confusion than order.


Compare the two coins above to the coin that started this thread. Both have better laurel wreath detail but the huge flan split and the porosity make neither as desirable as the good looking Severus Alexander. Were all three the same type and ruler, which would you buy? Like I said, grading ancients has some issues and we may not all agree on the matter but this may be a case where F beats VF.

 

Awww, it looks like Severus has a bigger smile on his face already, being relieved of his confinement and able to breath fresh air!

Good post as usual Doug. But wouldn't both of them have to have the deficiencies noted, basically VF, Flan crack at 2, and VF, moderate porosity? Therefor they aren't really VF. This is the beauty of ancient grading, you grade the details and note deficiencies in the grade. Therefor, if it is a choice between F, and VF, porosity, the buyer will understand and make his own value judgment. The problem with a number system, specifically to ancients, is that they were all hand made then buried for a thousand years or more. No numbering system can deal with the possible variables, so to even try is foolish. In this case less is more, and just having a few descriptive grades gives you more room to place the overall condition of the coin. If someone were serious about it, you would need to grade Flan, Die, Strike, Wear, and Preservation all separately just to start. F is a nice, easier way to do it.

Oh, and I think $23.50 would have been on the low end years ago for this sestertius. It would have been a good buy then, even better now.

 

Seemed on the low end to me a few years ago when I bought it. The guy also had about 5 other pretty nice coins, ranging from a Domitian As of Moneta, also graded VF, to a Trajan Denarius in a lower grade, all slabbed and graded by ANACS, and all sold for quite low, even then. I wish I had bought the whole lot. The Domitian was particularly nice, no real flaws. I think it sold for around $30, maybe a bit less.

 

Yeah, I would have loved that. I have always wanted to get a Moneta, (goddess of money) coin. Just too perfect, huh? I just never have found one I liked for the right price.

 

Glad you let that coin out mate. Slabbed coins are an abomination, IMHO, more suited to investors than collectors, especially with regards to ancient coins. I also find it puzzling how an ancient coin, which was not produced to the strict tolerances and uniformity of a modern milled coin, can be graded according to a precisely numbered scale. I feel that grading an ancient coin can only ever be done roughly and even then would be fairly subjective based on the aesthetic qualities an individual collector or dealer would find the most attractive...

 

Does ANACS note deficiencies on ancient slabs? (Do you have one to show?) How bad does it have to get before they do? The OP coin has very minor double striking on both sides but I would not bother mentioning it. The question is whether it is correct to call all three of these coins F when each of them reached that level through different routes or whether F refers to wear and other factors need to be noted otherwise.

How do you grade the coin below? From wear (small details on the laurel leaves remain)? ...down a grade for legend loss? ...down another for hangnail or ragged flan? Looks like we could have another Fine here. If a coin is missing ten letters but all are unimportant to the ID, does that coin grade above or below a coin missing one letter that keeps it from being catalogued? Should we address the question of whether grading can consider how a specific issue is usually found. If 95% of all of a certain issue are partial legend, do those coins all get noted of the problem or just if the coin is usually found full and round (like the late Rome mint Septimius denarii are)? I find humor in some dealers noting that a coin is EF 'for these' when the coin looks Fine at best but most you see are G-VG.

My point is that anyone setting themselves up as a professional grading service for ancients needs to consider a number of things that never crossed the mind of Mr. Sheldon when he invented the 70 point system. Perhaps that is why some grading services refuse to grade certain coin types.

 

I agree Doug. The OP coin I would not mention any deficiencies. This one I would grade gVF, irregular flan if I had to grade it, I like it a lot, nice coin. I would not grade it a Fine. To me complete legends are rare in most ancients, and really are a plus if present. If it was offstruck losing central motif detail it should be noted though.

I also agree that a numerical system is simply not possible given hand struck, ancient coins.

 

Holy cow, someone who hates slabs as much as me!!!

 

I do think slabs miss the point of what is for me the most important reason for being a coin collector, to hold history in your hand. I'd buy a slabbed coin, but I wouldn't pay any more for it because it was slabbed, and I would refuse to buy it if I thought somebody was trying to charge a premium for the fact that it was slabbed...

 

I realize that there are people who get coins slabbed for a discount and not all slabbed coins actually cost someone the $35 or $12 or whatever the slabber sites quote as the value of their service but I'm really missing how some slabbed coins are selling for less than the quoted price. Wouldn't it be easier to just throw away a coin than to have it slabbed for $35 and then sell it for $25? Perhaps this is the same thing as people buying sets from the US Mint at an issue price that turns out to be more than the market value at some time in the future?

 

Maybe if the ancient market was different slas would be good.

 

Yes. If we did not have opinions on what factors were more disturbing and what could be ignored... If we were willing to accept whatever some unnamed expert told us was better and what was worse... If ancient coins were all exactly alike to the degree that modern coins are when they were made... If we did not like to put our grimey little hands on the coins themselves (try that on your MS67)... If we did not mind paying $35.25 for a coin worth 25 cents...

 

Well I appreciate everyone's help, and comments.
Part of why I like collecting ancient coins, is due to the fact that you can have such variety of the same emperor from the same mint, and have such variation between them in portrait et cetera, due to the number of different dies used. It does mean that there are many more factors to consider when buying an ancient coin, as doug has illustrated for our viewing pleasure.

I am waiting for a friend to send me my Julia Mamaea Sestertius (my only Roman coin of any female) I paid less than $30USD, so fairly good price. I have only the photo he took... note the graffiti, on the obverse, looks like 'XIII' but could just be modern scribbles, the graffiti looks more recent..... I don't know. I will post some better shots when I have her in hand.... But I quite like the portrait, pretty nice reverse... and it should go well with my three Severus Alexander AE Sesterces.

I also have a fairly newly aquired Elagabalus AR Antoninianus, with the Providentia 'PM TR P II COS II PP' reverse. But I haven't taken any photos yet

 

I have to admit that the scratches look like modern grafitti but it is noteworthy that they are similar to something really significant. Roman bronzes are sometimes found cut, usually more deeply, with the numeral XLII (42) (there are other denominations) cut into either early dupondii or later sestertii indicating a value in relation to a silver unit of 500 nummi (therefore 1/12 unit = 42/500). These are attributed to the Vandals of the 5th century. Marked coins sell well but care needs to be taken because it is not hard to cut modern numerals into a poor coin and try to make it more collectable. Here, the number reads IILX and is weak making one wonder just what is going on. Whether you consider this a fault or potential matter of interest is a matter of opinion but I'd have to suggest there is too great of chance that the marks are modern to pay extra for them. More:
http://www.oudgeld.com/webbib/countdefweb.htm

 

The IILX carved into that is modern. Note the lack of patina in the letters. Also, the originals were engraved much deeper, and generally on coins that had already sat in the ground for a couple of centuries at that point. If that's not enough, this coin is big enough to have been tarrifed at 82 nummi, LXXXII.

Compare it to mine:

 

Yeah, I was fairly certain that they were modern marks, and the marks were not what drew me to the coin, nor did they influence the price I was willing to pay.
In fact, I would have preferred this coin to not have the scratches. But it's still a nice coin.
I just wonder why someone would scratch it like that....were they trying to make it look like the type you guys showed me? or what....odd.