Hello all.. Still a relative noob to this... so please excuse my ignorance. I have two rather special (to me anyways!) coins, that I was thinking of sending in to be graded & slabbed... both seem to be nice examples, and was wondering about the thoughts of the group here. I was told by Heritage that my roman error coin wasn't that special... but the hogmouth half thaler looks to be a nice coin. Thanks!
Errors on ancients can be hit/miss. Some may find them special while others will dismiss them as a problem. It was common for ancients to get errors due to being handstruck unlike moderns with machines. For me, I really like the ancient you posted, I dont see those kind of errors to often. Being into ancients I wouldnt slab it but if this is your only ancient & you plan on selling it, then slabbing would be the way to go because slabbed ancients seem to go for moon money on ebay and there really isnt a reason they should. Silly people. I love the hog mouth, most of my early moderns are of him. I dont have a half thaler. They are a bit rarer then the thalers themselves, that I would slab only if you want it slabbed deep down. I too would keep it raw.
If you're planning on selling it, slabbing may help sell it easier to a non, or beginner ancient collector. If your going to keep it, then go with your personal preference. If it were mine, I wouldn't as it would be an unnecessary expense, and you wouldn't be able to touch it.
Slabbing ancients gains you customers among those who are not already collectors and will dive off people who already collect. It is your choice. The error is very special but that will not do you any good when it comes to selling the coin. The coin is a Tribute Penny type of Tiberius. Thousands of people who don't want other ancients like this one because of the Biblical connection. Those people want a nice normal one, not an error. Specialist collectors only like errors that are 'really' different and this one is just that BUT they may not want to pay extra for bothe the coin being a Tribute Penny and being an error. I suspect this coin might bring more than a normal denarius of another ruler but less than a normal Tribute Penny. I suspect slabbing it would diminish the market because you would drive away people like me and gain fewer new people than you would with an ordinary coin. The Leo is not an ancient and would probably gain market among modern collectors (still driving me away but I don't collect modern coins so why should you care?). Whether it adds value to offset the cost of slabbing is a question I can not answer.
Thanks for all the input! I'll probably leave them raw then. I have a ton of the older to ancient stuff... all raw. I've read (lurked here) and hunted, just never posted much. My collecting rule is "unique"... I like to collect the weird & unusual.. so to me, hehe.. the regular tribute penny wouldn't do. I just came back from vacation where I had hit some nice coin shops.. and bought several nice, raw coins. It got me to thinking about possibly starting to slab some of the nicer pieces in the collection. My honest thinking wasn't so much me.. but for the wife & a future buyer if something happens to me, and the wife & kids decide to liquidate the collection. I'm not old.. but I'm not young anymore... hehe... and a several large chests of raw, old coins would be a hard mystery to the wife. My thoughts were, if slabbed, she'd know what was there... making it easier for her to deal with them. Maybe instead I will start to catalog them for her... all the info & such... and just leave them raw.
Just for my own info (if more pics are needed thats fine...) but for my cataloging effort for the wife, what would guys price these at, if she were to be selling them? Insurance? I've come to find that book price.. auction prices.. all of it is almost meaningless. the truth is somewhere in the middle... hehe I'd like to post some more of the weird ones, if its not pestering you all too much....
I don't venture to the darkside often, but I really like that thaler. Quite the detail for a 17th century coin.
Well its hard to place a value on the coins NOW....a coin thats estimated at $100 NOW may become $500 10 years later. Know what I mean The Error ancient I would say is unknown value wise. Its whatever someone is willing to pay for it. The Half Thaler..I have seem them in the $300+ range, sometimes more. And feel free to post as many "weird" coins as you want. I enjoy the "weird", lol.
Awesome.. will do! I agree... the thaler is one of my fav's too... and seeing what some of the full thalers are selling for nowadays, I dont think I can afford to many more of them!!
Here are two more of my semi weird coins.... please excuse the pics, but the false light is not kind to my Nikon... sunlight always works better! The 1622 single year issue Augsburg Kipper wouln't come out in the pics in this light... First is a "death" coin/token? 1665.. Eleanora Dorthea of Anhalt-Dessau, wife of Duke Wilhelm IV And a Roman Denarius, Republic C Antestius... reverse is Dioscuri with dogs (hunters with dogs on horseback?).. I find it "weird" or unique, mainly because I've not seen many coins with hunting or dog scenes.
Nice, actually never seen a death token before, just medals and regular coinage. Cool. Nice roman republic, I think its a fairly common type though.
Probably is... your knowledge is way beyond mine!! Some of my buys are more emotional driven... like "Cool... look at that... gotta have it!"... hehe. I defnitely need to read more on the roman era coins.
