Help with an Alexander the Great Drachm

My guess is that given where the depression is, nicely centered at the top of the coin, someone was trying to pierce it to make into a necklace. It's a very nice coin for the grade.

 

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Without knowing the price they paid (or anyone paid for any graded coin), your comment is worthless. Some of you guys keep thinking just because a coin is graded means it cost too much. Every graded coin I've purchased, I do research and compare the prices of similar raw coins on vcoins, and I do not buy it unless I feel I am getting a good deal.

 

I think there is a lot of wisdom in Doug's post without knowing prices paid.

 

Just out of curiosity how much would this coin sell for if it were removed from the slab? Let's say the seller is a reputable dealer.

 

I wonder if this economy slabbing was chosen partially with the intent to just have the Alexander name on the slab ? More precise attribution to the issues struck under his successors would put another, possibly distracting, name on the label. This might reduce the appeal to quite some collectors who want an "Alexander" tetradrachm.

If i take a guess that the symbol under the throne is an ivy leaf, than for attribution i would look first at Abydos mint, and struck under Antigonos I.

 

I think the general attitude is that professional grading is a non-service, and that a beginner could figure out the very basic information contained on this slab without NGC's 'help' - especially if you're already going to the effort of researching vcoins before buying (which is wise).

NGC don't even guarantee a coin's authenticity.

That said, everybody has their own preferences when storing a collection. Keeping coins in slabs is fine if that's how you enjoy presenting your coins. I have a coin album, and some people don't like albums. It's your collection, do what you like.

 

I have a red box...and need new flips

 

To get a rough estimate of what a dealer would charge, I'd search for "Alexander drachm" on vcoins, sort from lowest to highest price, and look for an example in the same condition as yours. When you know more about the coin (eg mint, ruler), add those terms to your search.

 

...and to get an idea what similar coins have realized at auction, run searches in CNG's archives and on acsearch.info.

 

Hi, Kentucky ... ummm, you seem rattled?

Curious? => what do you think the ancient Greeks spent their cash on? ... food and whores seems like I nailed it!! => every story that I've ever heard regarding these good ol' ancient days involves orgies and cornucopias (not a lot of pens and automobiles being sold) ....

=> oh, but I'm sorry if I offended you (I actually hate pissing people off)

 

I think your awesome wacky sense of humour goes over some people's heads!

(that's "humour" with a "u"... I'm Australian )

 

Wacky is the right word for sure.

 

So seriously... what do people think is a fair price for this coin raw? He told me the price he paid.. I would have paid it too. I want to know if it was overpriced because it was graded.

 

Very hard to say without having the coin in front of me, which is why I think looking at comparible coins on vcoins would give you the best answer.

If I wanted a collectible grade posthumous Alexander, and didn't worry about the mint or ruler, I'd think $100 is reasonable for a drachm and maybe $250 for a tetradrachm. And add a zero to that for something absolutely flawless.

But vcoins will give you a much better answer. Whenever I consider a purchase I always check similar coins on vcoins. If I think a dealer can come down in price, I make a reasonable offer and I've never been knocked back yet.

 

The fair price is quite dependent on whether that spot is a failed piercing or not. In the slab where it is not mentioned, the spot does not exist for resale purposes. I really would suggest leaving that coin in that slab. This is a common type which is very popular with new-to-ancients collectors. I bought mine for $17.85 but that was 30 years ago so yours should be worth more. It is not a market I follow. If I were sure that the symbol at the left was a triskles, I might buy the coin for $25-35 unless I decided on inspection that the spot was a failed hole. The whole point is that what one of us is a $25 coin is a $100 to another because we look at different things, want different things and buy for different reasons. A dealer might want it for resale and have a customer in mind so he would pay more than another that has three in stock now that he can't move. Yesterday, I made a $75 offer on a $165 eBay Roman listing that said it was marked down from $250. It was accepted (so I offered too much???). Ancients have no Red Book. Don't take listings too seriously.

 

Indeed often a coin's value depends on how much someone is willing to pay for it. And how much time you're willing to spend looking for the right coin at the right price.

There's a guy on eBay whom I'll call Ilya Zlobin - because that is his name - who sells outrageously overpriced coins under the name 'highrating_lowprice'. Often he 'discounts' the coins from 10x reasonable value to 5x reasonable value to give the impression of a bargain. I think he's a cheesy used car dealer personally, but if people are willing to pay that much, then that's what the coin is worth!

 

*edit*

I don't actually know first-hand

 

So in other words he'll rip you off if he can get away with it, but settle for reasonable value if he can't.

 

=> a little of column A and a little of column B ...



oh, hey look => is that a monkey?

<== exit, stage left

 

I appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, as this is my first posting on the Ancients forum. I've been getting pulled toward the dark side as of late with my last couple new purchases being posted in the World forum and now I've drifted all the way over here

As for certified coins, my approach may differ from a lot of people but I consider the TPG's to be value added for most any non-modern coins including ancients. Even though everyone is quick to say that "NGC doesn't guarantee authenticity", they still have a reputation to uphold and I'd rather trust someone who evaluates coins for a living, particularly for material that I don't know much about. Even more importantly the certification helps a lot for resale. Why should I be afraid to admit that I'm a beginner, especially in a world full of very convincing fakes?

It would be nice if NGC provided more attribution, but to be fair none of the other certified Alexander coins I saw on Ebay were attributed any more than mine. From what I've learned from this discussion it seems that attributing a coin with 4000+ varieties would be a science project to say the least, so I'm not surprised NGC doesn't sign up for it. At least they make a distinction between "lifetime" and "posthumous" which to my understanding has the biggest impact on value. I knew when I bought the coin that it wasn't minted under Alexander because it had "early posthumous" spelled out on the label.

Meanwhile I'll continue to speculate on where the coin was spent. An amphora of wine or olive oil perhaps, or maybe other goods and services? Several years ago I took a tour of ancient Ephesus in modern day Turkey and saw one of the world's oldest known advertisements. I'll just say it was for the service industry and leave it at that...