My life for the next couple of months...

WOW!



what a beautiful group of coins! please keep posting individual pics of the group and you attribute them Z!

 

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I fail to see evidence in so small a photo that makes me have an opinion worth expressing either way. I agree with Ides on the matter of a lot depending on the source and price of the group except I would not get comfortable until at least $10,000 because of what I see lurking in the lot. It just bothers me too much why any seller would offer this as a group. This lot and a vCoins address would make you a better than average dealer not to mention in the top five collections of people who post here even if you have no other coins. The common coins I see are too salable (did everyone notice the Republican that recently made a splash on another thread?). The lot might have been sold if it belonged to an estate that demanded instant liquidation but I would expect most dealers would have bought it for themselves or tipped a friend of the sale.

The posting of those Bulgarian fakes as possible evidence against these coins is the best evidence we have so far that they are genuine. If these are fakes, and I am not saying Yea or Nay, they are high end enough that you would need to examine them very carefully. If you do not have a stereo-microscope, I'd buy one. I'd also take a couple and pack them off to Sear for a Steve-level paper.

 

I, too, felt the same level of puzzlement when I viewed this collection of coins in their slightly enlarged picture. Why wouldn't the coins have been listed individually in the same auction? Surely 90%+ would have sold as individual listings.

Can others propose any logical, supportable reasons for NOT breaking up this collection and selling it individually (other than Doug's, which he himself somewhat refutes)?

Really, this is a GREAT collection at any reasonable final price -- a fantastic purchase and an instantly stellar collection of ancients.

 

$9,000 was the retail value I had given the lot when I looked at the coins individually. However, I wasn't going to pay anything close to that price and doubt any dealer would have either since he would need a profit margin when he sold them. I don't see this group as appealing to many beginner collectors given the size and price of entry and imagine those with their own established collections would prefer individual coins to a purchase as broad as this one. Maybe I was just one of two fools at the table that day (and at the end of the day maybe the only one). That still does leave the question of why it was sold as a lot rather than broken up and sold individually. I don't know. The same auction had half a dozen other (significantly smaller) lots of Roman coins of excellent quality that I thought would have benefited from individual sale too.

I may at some point send some of these over to Sear. I wasn't joking when I said I was jealous of his certs and may finally have some coins actually worth sending.

 

wow, that's a lot of coin-cash ... you're a high-roller, my friend!!

 

$9000/100 (roughly?) = $90 / coin. I see more $200 coins than under $100 ones and maybe ten over $500? The only thing is the question of authenticity. I really want to see both sides.

 

100% => flip them babies over

This thread is definitely the best one in a long time!! (keep this baby going)

Z-Bro => everybody is hoping that each coin is gonna be a winner!! (wow, another awesome thread ... good, or bad ... I'd methodically go through each coin => it's kinda like reality TV!!)

 

who rocks?


... that's right => it's you, dawg!!

 

Consignor request? Couple kids couldn't care less about Dad's collection and just want them sold despite potential advising from 3rd party? Unfortunate idea but definitely a possibility.

 

sorry ro, but I'm forced to edit this baby => *self-edit*



... oh, but yah => it was a winner!!

 

I see only other things

 

The only one I can express an opinion on is the Divvs Vespasian denarius, and IMHO it is genuine. It's an extremely rare variant that is a die pair match with my own example and the few other specimens I'm aware of. Even without the die match the coin in the enlarged photo has the appearance of being struck and ancient. I see no reason to doubt it.

 

That really is an awesome lot for real. I think I would have purchased that lot as well if I had the money.

 

I could go on at length about many individual pieces, but for now I'll let a picture do the talking.

Happily, they're all unattributed. I have some fun days ahead!

Zumbly, I hope I am way off here, but at first sight the whole lot looks like the tabletop in a Chinese counterfeiter's office!!

 

Why do you think so?

 

From a distance, and from a picture they remind me of several pictures I saw of an actual forgers shop!! I have no idea what you paid, if most are genuine, then it is a remarkable lot!! I would be curious to know how many prove to be fake. Who piles up valuable coins in such a manner?? Bagmarks and all sorts of damage can occur to coins so treated, which causes me to be suspicious. I am a very paranoid type. Truthfully, as to detailed knowledge about ancients, I have very little, so do not take me seriously. Just a suspicion...

 

Oh, phew, I guess I'm the one guilty of giving you the impression they were Chinese counterfeits then since I took the photograph and "so treated" them. Generally speaking, collectors of ancients tend to be less squeamish about handling their coins, but I assure you I didn't damage or disfigure any of these coins. Perhaps the picture may give the impression of carelessness, but it's not like I dumped them out of a bag and onto the table. I wanted a nice 'family shot' of the collection, and after the pictures were taken they all went back into their own flips .

 

I had put just three at $500 or more and by far the bulk of the rest under $100. Quite a number I had at $10 or less.

This Mark Anthony/Octavian with the edge damage I pegged at about $550.


This oddity I peg at $0 because I can't say what it is. If it were in gold it would be an AV 20 litra from Syracuse and fetch a few thousand on its own, but it is clearly silver and the type doesn't come in silver. Test strike? Ancient fake?

 

The Syracuse is a modern fake. Here is another from the same dies in gold. SOld as a fake.