I won't do this very often. I just happened to buy a fun, confuse-a-cat coin to offer up as a GTG, fun edition. It might make the slabbers go "oh no, ohhhhh!," like Mr. Bill. There's a bit of education in here. I offer up the toughies in order to show the relative absurdity of grading ancients (and thus, slabbing them). There's no wrong answers, within reason. Ancients can have a split grade, such as F obv/VF reverse, or a close grade, such as Fine plus or aVF (same difference). Poor (slick) Fair (barely visible) Good outline visible VG F VF EF mint state FDC Hint: this would be a rather exceptional coin, were it not for the fip-over double strike. Double hint; it's also neither FDC nor mint state. I could have gone 10/10 difficult and found a completely muddled Heraclius. Ancients also don't have the tiny gradations; 35, etc. I'd love to see more participation this time. I have my 'grade' in mind, so it's the honor system, but there's really three grades on this list that one could put, depending on the criteria. It's a Romanus IV (1067-71) anonymous Christ follis. I had a lot of views last time, but few responses. I won't poo-poo anyone's grade. Have some fun and also a bit of learning will be involved.
I think that the hardest part of grading ancients is not knowing what a full MS coin would look like. It boils down to how sharp the features are and what has been lost to a cleaning/restoration. I would guess that this would grade in the VF to XF. Probably more in the VF range. Neat coin Nero.
Good point. With Byzantine AE's, mint state is a 10/10 rarity. They often didn't look pristine, even on day one. Even though I can overlook other problems, I usually steer away from the muddled ones. This, however, also has an unusually nice patina, another collecting criteria of mine. It also appears that I wasn't paying close attention when I purchased the coin. There's a slight difference in the flipped-over Christ. I now believe that it's not a flip-over double strike, but an overstrike. It's either overstruck on Sear 1855 or 1867. 1867 allegedly came after this, but looking at the reverse muddle, the left kind of looks like the bottom of Mary (1867). Either the strike didn't take effect (possible) or there's some doubt of the chronology.
Well, I'm glad that I posted this GTG, or else I might not have realized until a later point what was going on with the coin. Yes, looking at the bottom beading on the reverse left, that's 1867. I'll hold off until Sunday to reveal my grade. This one was struck right before some very bad times, so it was probably hoarded quickly. The plate example of 1855 in Sear, from the 1050's, was barely F+. His 1867 was pretty minty. It's amazing how quickly things went from riding high under Basil II (976-1025) to uh, oh spaghettios. Anatolia/Turkey was wide open Romanus' defeat by the Seljuk Turks and after a few years of incompetent numpties, virtually all was lost. The capable Alexius I called the West for help, and the first Crusade was formed.
The reveal: Pickin and Grinin is right on the money. I would have graded it VF+. It probably could pass for XF by wear. If one wanted to go really old school, it would be a Fine. I sought a second opinion and it's a failed overstrike. The barely visible part is the overtype.
Here's what the overtype should look like https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/lo...40_nummi__constantinople/1412041/Default.aspx Here's the nicest one on vcoins of what the undertype should look like: https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/to...stantinople_mint_sb_1866/1983513/Default.aspx So what I'm gathering is that people were scared off because they had no bulletproof examples to go by? Next time I'll try to find one of the type, and if I can't find that, the same denomination. Mine's a mess because of the overstrike, but it actually seems to be better than virtually any coin on vcoins,condition-wise. But with many Byzantine coins, there are no bulletproof examples to be found. This is as good as it gets for S805, far better than the normal. It's VF. It's very, very rare to have facial features on these.
I really don't think that it has anything to do with the coin except that most GTG are done with modern coins. Well mostly US. World coins even have a tough time getting replies here. Add in that most of the ancient collectors here will crack an ancient from the slab. Slabs on ancients from what I have read here is mostly for authentication not the grade. Ps I thought I had seen the undertype on your coin but couldn't pinpoint what it was.
Yes, I'm in the camp of ancient collectors who despise slabs. From what I can gather, (Aaron Berk discusses it a lot), the slabs are mostly meant for gold or silver coins (ancients) which would be minty, super rare/expensive, or get a star, as to maximize profit. AE's, according to Mr. Berk, are more likely to get a negative comment, so there's little use in doing it. Aaron Berk and especially Mike Nottelman never miss a chance to mention that the TPG's don't guarantee authenticity for ancients. Mr. Berk even also opined in the latest podcast, that some of the shadier operators try to send off fakes to non-NGC TPG's to get them slabbed, as mistakes are more likely to slip by. He was of the opinion that a slabbed electrum coin up for auction (non NGC holder) was a fake. The metal and style just looked wrong. The slabs also hide flaws/tooling and the edges, making it harder to spot fakes. Many don't even offer size or weight. For most of us, even the wealthy collectors, the criteria are; is the coin cool and can I afford it? That's as it pertains to ancients. I considered it rather boring to offer up a straightforward ancient coin for grading. The purpose of these were to offer up the real toughies, for fun and education. I never participate in the American GTG's because I have zilch expertise in the matter. One of my more recent buys, a Magnus Maximus argentiolus, was purchased because it was nicer than usual, unclipped (rare as such), nicely toned, and the price was right. Stated grade played no role in the purchase, although VF would be my grade were I forced to grade it.
