Alexander III Drachm re-submission tale

I've an interesting experience with an ancient and am wondering if this is normal in the world of ancients or a one-off and not something that's likely to occur again. (Sadly, I don't have any photos of the original slab and my new slab is still in the mail).

So about 7 yrs ago I went to an auction in San Diego and bought an Alexander the Great Drachm in an ICG slab graded VF for $125. I was the only person willing to bid on it. It was an impulse buy at the time due to the fact I knew nothing about ancients. I assumed, like most of us, that a coin graded by ICG (aka - I Can't Grade) was more than likely over-graded. Nevertheless, the coin itself looked really nice and had a very solid strike and appeared to have very little wear, especially for a VF. However, knowing little to nothing about grading ancients, I just assumed it was a very nice VF and threw it in my misc box.

Fast forward to last month - I was submitting a batch of coins to NGC and saw this Drachm and on a whim decided I'd send the coin still in the ICG slab to NGC Ancients, if for no other reason to get it out of the ICG plastic. Frankly, in the back of my mind I worried the coin might not even be real, hence the reason it looked so nice for a VF. Yesterday my grade printed and much to my surprise, NGC Ancients have place my Drachm in an AU "star" slab! I about fell out of my chair when I saw this!!

My question is this - how unusual is it for an ancient graded by a third tier grading company to jump a solid 2+ grades? In the world of US coinage, something I'm much more familiar with, such a jump is virtually unheard of. And if this isn't a one-off, is it worthwhile to start searching ancients in third tier slabs for potentially large upgrades? Or is the grading of ancients so objective that such large changes in grade not as unusual as I would have expected coming from the world of US coinage?

 

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Well...I already know that this is going to end up a fun thread to read later.

 

NGC don't authenticate ancients. I would say that most of us don't like slabs either. Put 10 of us round a table and give us a slab, we will all probably come up with different views.

 

NGC is pretty inconsistent with grading of ancients honestly. I doubt many in this community will have any experience with upgrades/downgrades however as slabs are frowned upon by most of us and most of us crack ancients out of slabs to keep them out of slabs.

 

NGC overgrades by a long shot. Serious collectors of ancients don't even use the grade AU. So you can throw the grade out the window. Also, NGC doesn't guarantee authenticity, so slabbing your ancients coins just means you paid a lot of money for a worthless piece of plastic. Sorry about that.

 

It is very difficult to assign a conventional grade to an ancient coin because of multiple factors that come with the handmade label. The flans are going to vary in quality from one coin to another due to the fact that they were handmade, and the burial conditions of the individual coins can affect preservation. The quality of the engravings on the dies can vary substantially depending on the skills of the individual engravers, and some dies we're used to the point that they were worn, rusty, and cracked. Not to mention that because each coin was struck by hand, the force of the strike, the centering of the design on the flan, and other factors will mean that each coin is unique and completely different from the previous one.

 

I agree with everything said, but there clearly are solid buyers of slabbed ancients willing to shell out good money for graded ancients. And given some of the responses here and elsewhere, I'm thinking this may be a good place to make some good money.
Thanks all!!

 

I already replied to your thread on the NGC boards, but you'll get more opinions on here, much you may not like to read.

 

There are certainly people with money who consider more of what is written on the label than what is encased in the plastic. Theses are generally people who are looking at investment (wrongly) rather than serious collectors.

 

If your only interest in ancient coins is to treat them like commodities and try to submit and resubmit coins to get higher grades from slabbers who want to assign modern grades to ancients (which is a joke), then I'm not too interested in your coins or what you have to say about them. I would rather buy from another dedicated collector appreciates the coins that he has and has a similar passion for them as I do.

 

Ok, so I agree with everyone else but if it helps, there are collectors who only buy slabs or prefer them.

Do you think the coin will now sell for the original cost plus the cost of slabbing, about $175ish?

 

There isn't much point in grading ancients. The vast majority of the collector base doesn't want or value slabs.

 

Same as the early days of slabbed US coins, collectors hated the slabs, claimed they were worthless and often busted them out. Yet today slabbed coins is the standard. I'm thinking the same pattern is occurring with ancients, leaving a nice avenue for profit to those willing to play the game.
And yes, judging from previous HA and Ebay sales, graded ancients clearly sell for decent prices with AU's ranging from $300-$500+, nice day's work IMO.

 

I used to worship slabs, like all other modern coin collectors, but now I find it hilarious how people ignored a coin because it was slabbed as an MS-64, but some dealer re-submitted it 10 times to PCGS until he finally got an MS-65 on it, and now everyone wants that same coin and is willing to pay 10 times the money they would have paid for it before. It's kind of like the label drives the price and interest, and not the coin itself.

 

I can understand slabs for modern coins where the surface has to be protected. Slabbing ancients is fairly pointless since they can and should be handled for the most part. Yes there are people who will pay extra for slabs on ebay. Good luck to you.

 

Except you can't assign a grade to ancients like you can to modern machine-made coins. There are far too many factors going into an individual coin that a slab label can't fit. Also, slabbers don't guarantee authenticity on ancients, so buying slabs to guarantee its genuine is a fruitless exercise.

 

@tequilaDave I invite you to read this thread, maybe you will order a t-shirt
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ancient-fun-at-cicf-2016.277725/

 

Collectors that refuse to study ancients will always be duped into overpaying by slab grades - that would be their own fault. At one point, I gave NGC a bit of a pass on their blatant and shameless over-grading, but they are now fabricating provenance, ie., Colosseum Hoard, Seven Hills Hoard. These hoards do not exist in any academic references. They are lies, being used to separate fools from their money. I have lost any small amount of respect I had for NGC.

 

I gather we won't be seeing any NGC slabbed 'John Anthony Hoard' any time soon then?

 

And those people are fools.