I'm so embarassed to ask this...

No PHOTO.

Puzzle with few clues...I saw a silver ancient Greek coin, size of a quarter, about a quarter inch thick. One side had a nicely styled pleasing face forward with close curled hair and the other a rather crude helmeted man's head. I tried to look on the internet to ID the city-state with no luck but I feel it is a popular and common ancient. I don't think it is Syracuse although the style of the head was almost as artful. What I have never seen before (obviously I know nothing about ancients) was a counter stamp on the edge with a raised figure of a horse. I told the dealer to send it to NGC but I'm curious if anyone has seen such a counter stamp. It appears to be the same age as the coin. If you think you can ID the coin (out of thousands like it) post a photo I will recognize it.

Thanks

 

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Sounds like a stater of Tarsos. Like this maybe?

 

Edited: oops, too late

 

ID from NGC?
They don't even guarantee the coins they slab to be authentic and you want them to ID a coin. I don't know about that

 

I'm not a fan of plastic, and I'm not a fan of market grading, but I would definitely trust David Vagi and his crew (which now includes Barry Murphy) to attribute a coin correctly. Of course, mistakes happen, and a few people on this forum have slabs to prove it, but anyone can make a mistake from time to time.

 

Quarter-sized and a quarter inch thick? Wow... that's fat. That would be heavier than a stater-- probably tetradrachm league. If your estimate of thickness is wrong and it is thinner, then JA's suggestion of a Tarsos stater sounds good.

 

That is it! Thanks.

 

1. I apologize to all for this posters ignorance. There is a huge difference between identifying an ancient and authenticating one. We (me and the dealer) wanted to know what it was. I see you were unable to ID the piece with "nothing" to go on while two others here pulled the rabbit out of the hat with no trouble at all.

2. If NGC "experts" cannot ID a simple ancient coin as this must have been, they don't deserve to be in business. I'm going to be seeing them next week (in the back door) to attribute the mint on a different Stater. I'm bringing a printout of your lame comment.

edited


You must be having a bad day so I forgive you but I'll bet a post such as this would not go over well with either Peter or Doug. My silly question, that was answered correctly so quickly, is what I've been told CT is all about.

 

steve.. what are trying to say?

 

If you search the CT archives, you may find a thread about following members. I have divided the 30+ members I follow into several categories. They are all special for one reason or another. You made my list, that's all. Take it any way you wish.

 

I think stevex6 is having a bad night. He flipped out on me in another thread, and I've never been anything but respectful to him. This is not like his usual self.

 

As a member of CT since 2009, I apologize for any part I had in attracting a crowd of ancient collectors to their peaceful little family.

Other than the impoliteness from all sides, the disturbing thing on CT is most of us don't read as many posts as we write. The coin in question has been shown here on several occasions usually in connection with that countermark of a bull with the Aramaic LUY (=Ba'al) above its back. I wish CT included a better way to find old posts or even to reuse images previously uploaded with connections to the threads that used them so it could be a more easily accessed resource. As it is it remains the best overall place for an ancient collector to hand out even if the 10,000 threads include the same things repeated often and more often repeatedly ignored because we see the same things so often. This was the first thread I recall seeing where the question was 'Guess What I'm Thinking' and we actually were able to guess correctly. Perhaps that was a result of words more clear than some photos we are shown. I'm really happy our group was able to accomplish this but really, really sorry we have to add ugliness from each side.

 

Agree. I am astonished at two things vis-a-vis this thread:

1) That @John Anthony was able to attribute a coin from a mere discription! Amazing!

2) The level of rancor here.

 

Also the level of confusion. I don't know what the heck is going on? But for sure, JA really knows his ancients!!

 

@Roman Collector Yeah, I must be forgetting something Insider apparently has done, because I don't understand what's going on either.

 

This is a perfectly reasonable and natural question to ask on this particular forum.

Congratulations to John Anthony (and apparently TIF) for apparently figuring this out so quickly, with so little information!

 

And best of all, with the ID, I could go on the Internet and give the dealer an idea of the value of the coin. It was offered to me at $80 but he is a personal friend and I knew the coin was AU++, 100% genuine, and worth hundreds of dollars! As I wrote, I've never seen a contemporary C/S or a beautiful edge like that (sort of crushed down in overlapping layers).

PS Thankfully, this thread was edited. To make it clear, this part of my post:

You must be having a bad day so I forgive you but I'll bet a post such as this would not go over well with either Peter or Doug. My silly question, that was answered correctly so quickly, is what I've been told CT is all about.

was directed to another member and not to @Smojo.

PS. I feel really good about not ripping off a friend and the education we both got here. Thanks again to all!

Here is something to think about:

1. What would you do if you knew a $500 to $800 ancient was freely offered to you at $80 by a dealer friend who has already given you $1000's of dollars of free coins and has no idea of the value of his coin. Would you accept it or let him know?

2. What would you do if a dealer you did not know had no clue about ancients and had the coin unpriced in his case? Would you tell him what he had or give him a very low ball offer say $80 and benefit from your knowledge and his ignorance?

3. Would you make the same low-ball offer to a dealer in US coins you know; yet had no clue about ancients and had the coin unpriced in the case waiting for an offer?

Ah, the morals of collecting.

 

...I thought this would just be insider getting ribbed for slabbing an ancient. What is going on in here?

Once a person puts on a dealer hat, they are representing themselves as somewhat of an expert. I have no qualm buying a coin at their price even if the number is unrealistically low. If we have a prior relationship, or they are very green, I might try to help them (depending on many variables). If I consider them a friend, I would find a number that will make them very happy while leaving plenty of meat on the bone. A coin dealer who doesn't know enough about coins to price them correctly is as bad as any other professional who lacks the knowledge to perform their job. The sooner they go out of business, the less people will get ripped off.

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