Coin Authentication

I've been wondering about the future of coin authentication for a while.

It seems like we currently have two main options: David Sear and NGC (I know NGC doesn't guarantee their coins, but regardless of the legal don't-sue-us-if-we're-wrong thing, they seem to be treated as an authentication service by most people). I'm in the camp that doesn't like NGC, if for no reason other than the slabs get in the way. That leaves David Sear. What is going to happen when he's no longer grading coins? I don't know the ins and outs of the professional numismatist community, but I haven't heard of anyone else who provides the service or anyone else with near the expertise. Does NGC just take over at that point? Does someone else step up to the plate?

 

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CNG? You mean NGC? Sure, if you don't mind paying $120 for a coin that's really worth $50 because the dealer wants to recover his slabbing fees and shipping fees.

Besides, I can tell you from another thread where I've been posting that it has recently been discovered that there are fake slabs from NGC being sold that are almost 100% identical to the real thing. If you think a slab protects you from a fake think again. There is no substitute doing proper research and learning yourself how to tell the real thing from something fake.

When a coin is encased in an almost perfectly faked slab, and it has a genuine serial number of a coin similar to the fake coin in side the fake slab, you won't be able to test the coin and will be fooled more easily into buying a fake

 

Yep.. I did mean NGC. So much for my credibility.

Edited to reflect real life.

 

And I absolutely agree with you. I'm just wondering where we'll be once Sear isn't doing his thing anymore.

 

Aren't you new to ancients? And already drinking the anti-slab koolaid. I like slabbed

 

You're right, anti-slab is "cool".

 

I love that the biggest arguments on this board are about whether we should keep our coins in little plastic boxes (which are blights upon the hobby, by the way).

 

In less than 2 weeks I've gone from thinking slabs were the greatest thing ever, slabs can be bought sight unseen, slabbed coins are commodities and one should always buy the highest grade...to now that I have ancient coins falling in love with the things that attracted me to coins in the first place. I rekindled my passion for holding a coin in my hand, examining it close up, pondering the meaning of the art, the inscriptions, the culture that made them, etc. Ancient coins have made me fall in love again with the coins themselves...instead of loving the piece of plastic as I used to.

 

Hoth - I've actually pondered the same thing about Sear. I've only used his services 2 times, one coin was confirmed fake. I was pretty sure it was fake and was fighting with an incompetent European auction house that sold it to me to refund my money and they wouldn't accept NGC's opinion on authenticity.

The answer is buying from reputable dealers. There are plenty. Yes they do make mistakes, but I promise you that David Sear can and probably has made mistakes (I don't have any specific examples but it is the nature of ancients). If you buy from a reputable source and the coin turns out to be fake, you will get a refund. You will also minimize the chance of buying a fake in the first place.

 

I'm know very little about ancient coins but why know mention of pcgs in this thread?

 

I've also wondered about the reputable dealers.. not that I mistrust anyone specifically or anything, but, outside of paper trail, how do even THEY know their coins are legitimate. Do they source them from people that they in turn know and trust to actually be digging them up out of the ground (or buying them from old collections or whatever)? I guess it's just a chain of trust to the point where it's being pulled from the dirt?

Also, sorry to hear about the fake, and the drama surrounding it. Even if it's just a matter of a few dollars, buying a fake is a scuzzy feeling.

 

Just about every ancient coin variety has been documented in catalogs. Look at the coin you are planning to get there. Does yours closely match it? There will be some slight differences as dies were cut by hand, but not that much as the die cutters were masters. Look for metal flow as a sign your coin was struck, look at the edges for signs of casting, look at the surface for signs of uneven wear and bubbles in the metal (another sign of casting). Weigh the coin and measure its size (ancient coins for the variety you want to buy were measured by the Ancients to make sure they were a certain size and weight. If yours differs from the known deviations, look out! Also, learn the style of the fonts used in a coin of that culture, and how the busts and figures generally looked...basically, look at a lot of coins. Most modern fakes will look odd to you after you've seen hundreds of ancient coins of that culture.

 

I know a couple people whose opinion I would value as much as I would Sear's and I would hope that one would step up and offer the service but no one is going to offer a guarantee on ancients. There are just too many ancients that a jury of twelve high level experts would be split on. To collect on life insurance you have to be able to prove the insured is dead. The few types and small number of dies (relatively speaking) allow there to be experts whose opinions are close enough to certain that they are insurable. There are ancients that have been found to be real after a century of condemnation when a second turned up under unimpeachable circumstances. There are fakes that have been discovered after the fact that embarrassed major experts. Being in the ground is not a sure sign. There are dozens of factors and a million varieties (that is not an exaggerated number but neither is it a count) as distinct as the difference between the VDB and non-VDB Lincolns. To learn them all completely will take a while considering the number that are known to exist only in one specimen and the real possibility that another will turn up either in the soil of Germany or a collection of the great grandchildren of a guy that found it during WWI. We do the best we can. The best of us will err on occasion.

PGCS knows well enough that they don't know enough to do ancients properly. To change this they would have to hire a crew of very expensive people or decide to offer opinions some of us might not respect for a few decades until we saw how they do. Does that sound like a sound business model? NGC seems to be doing pretty well. Could the market support both them and a competitor? Don't tell me there are other companies already in the business. Do you trust them?

Buy from trusted and knowledgeable sellers.

Several members of this list have coins that show this is not true. The chances of a new variety being found each year is real. The number of catalogs that are the latest word in their field and fifty years old is considerable. We have learned a lot in fifty years. If 'just about' means 99%, maybe. 1% of a million is 10,000.

 

They don't have the available expertise necessary to attempt ancient coin authentication.

 

I'm not appreciating the crisis. How can you tell a coin is authentic without David Sear or a plastic slab? The same way an antiquities collector knows they have a genuine Ming vase, or an art collector knows they have a real Renoir. You can't slab a vase or a painting, but there will always be experts who can provide opinions on the authenticity. If there's no David Sear, there'll be someone else.

If you have doubt about the authenticity - you probably shouldn't buy it. There's been a few rare AE4 coins of Avitus in auctions lately - but their attribution is disputed by some numismatic experts whose opinions I respect. None of these coins have anywhere near the full legend "DN AVITVS PF AVG". Although I need an Avitus, I won't be buying any of these, even if the auction house claims it is authentic. If there's doubt, there's no doubt.

 

+1

 

+2 The good news is that there are so very many coins without doubt and no need to chase fantasies. No one has the 'set' so here is no shame in lacking a few.

 

Clean is cleaned .
Thats why pcgs will not touch them .

Ngc will grade anything .
That why pcgs is #1 in grading ....

Nothing against Ancients everybody ....

 

Oh my. We'd all better return our cleaned coins.

Rick, that's not why PCGS doesn't grade ancients . See Doug's post above.

 

they are not nessecary a blight , for some things like the 09svdb or 55 ddo getting it in a slabbed authenticated and such is great