My first Ancient Purchase!

I mainly collect old US Gold, but after seeing all the great coins being posted in here, I had to get one! To be honest, I know NOTHING about ancients, but have been watching and bidding on a few that look interesting to me. Thanks to John Anthony for looking through some of my watched items and giving me some pointers. I bid on this one before he could look at it, so hopefully I didn't screw myself over too much. I have a feeling I will be adding a few more over time!

 

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Ah, a Histiaia, Euboia. Common stuff but they are also heavily counterfeited. I had to have someone specializing in them to confirm mine is ok.

This looks OK but never know with these things.

 

Welcome to the darkside, very nice coin to start with, good details and who doesn't love a galley reverse.

 

I honestly wanted to start with graded, since I know nothing of them, but graded were just so much more expensive. Hopefully others can chime in on real or not. It came from a well known seller, but that means nothing sometimes.

 

These are lovely coins. I have one that came in an uncleaned lot, it was broken into three fragments. Nevertheless, it is still one of my favourite coins.


One day I will replace her, but not yet.

 

I've noticed 2 different obverses for this style coin. The hair looks different on the two. Why the differences? Different coins completely?

 

I don't see anything wrong with the style, and I don't see any signs of casting. If the weight is correct, you should be fine. The counterfeits I've seen have all mimicked high-grade examples. Why bother counterfeiting a coin that's cheap to begin with in average grades?

 

Heh heh, welcome jwitten, use the force as you buy ancients.

 

Im going by what Doug told me these are heavily faked. And Barry Murphy is the expert in these & who looked over my coins photos and said it was OK.

That is understandable and they are way more expensive & truthfully not worth the expense. Plus the biggest fun is holding them.

 

cointalk.com/forums/ancients/
http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=139809
http://bpmurphy.ancients.info/image...taiacomp.jpg

I can not see any reason to make this your first ancient coin one that is as often faked as this but I will not go so far as to say definitively that this one is fake. I would not buy it for reasons spelled out in the above links. The fakes we have been seeing were struck from fake dies so they have no signs of casting that some people consider signs of a coin being fake. You said the coin was from a well known seller. If that seller is well known as an expert in ancient Greek coins (Barry Murphy!), fine. If that seller is well known as a mass marketer of junk, run! A dealer who sells a million modern coins each week is no place to buy ancients. Neither are sellers who appear on the fake sellers lists online.

 

I hope it turns out to be fine, but I have stayed away from these just because they are faked so often. How do you plan to ensure this one is not a fake? I propose sending it off to someone like David Sear for authentication.

 

Welcome here, enjoy look and learn

Eric

 

Like I said, I literally know nothing about ancients, so did not know these are faked a lot. I like the looks, so I bought it. It is a seller who only deals with ancients.

 

Welcome to the ancient world. Nice first coin, by the end the year we want to see an album full.

 

A bit of heresy, I'm sure...but here it goes:

At any level of Ancient coin expertise, be wary of the fakes and modern counterfeits. At our level, be especially careful.

As mentioned, you can always have David Sear look at the coin. Since you are already familiar with NGC, you could have David Vagi and Company look at it. He would be able to autheticate it. If you don't like the slab, you can easily free the coin.

Even experts disagree, but I like someone with experience to assess any coin before I plunk down any significant money.

Good luck and welcome to the Land of the Ancients.

guy

 

What would a decent price for this coin be? I had some unused ebay bucks that I threw to it, so don't have too much invested either way. How do I get some of those people to inspect the coin? Is that who would grade it at NGC?

 

Judging from the specimens on sale on vCoins and the grade of this coin, I'd value it, if genuine, at about the cost of a slab or Sear certificate. I am increasingly of the opinion that it is fake. The easy way would be to take it the next time you go to a major coin show if this is in your plans.

http://www.vcoins.com/en/Search.asp...ype=0&searchMaxRecords=100&SearchOnSale=False

Of the coins on sale on vCoins there are a couple dealers offerings I would doubt and avoid but most show the hair styles without the large round balls as on the Barry Murphy page of fakes I linked to above and on your coin. I am nowhere near expert in these to the point that I would tell the vCoin dealer to check his coins with this feature but, with so many available without those ornaments, I'd buy one of them. I only have one which I believe to be OK.

 

OTOH Doug, there have been large hoards of these found recently. I know this from the fact there have been multiple group lots of 100 identical coins in recent auctions.

I believe a better answer for Jwitten would be if someone can look up his particular coin in a major reference and see if it looks correct. Since these were a huge issue, there is quite a bit of stylistic differences on the individual dies.

 

Show me a coin that has large balls in the hair which is depicted in upward straight/wavy lines and I'll show you a coin I do not trust. There may be some real dies that have these characteristics but there are enough that don't to satisfy my needs. The number of dies from which fakes of these have been produced exceeds even the Black Sea Hoard fakes which were a topic of dispute for years before they were conclusively proven to be bad. These are a case where you pay your money and take your chances or not. I go back to my first statement.

 

Since I don't collect coins, I'd be the last person to ask about numismatics.

That said, I once had five free submissions to NGC and only had inexpensive Ancient coins to submit. So, I submitted them out of interest before the submission offer expired. I was surprised that one of these inexpensive coins (less than $45) came back as a modern counterfeit. Lesson learned.

Dr. Vagi at NGC does a fine job. Remember, these are only opinions not guarantees, but Vagi's opinion is one I respect.

http://www.ngccoin.com/specialty-services/ancient-coins/

For relatively inexpensive, but well attributed coins, I find this site both educational and useful:

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/


Good luck in your collecting and (hopefully, if you decide to delve deeper) Ancient studies,

guy