I've been on the lookout for a coin of Queen Tamar. These don't seem to come to auction terribly often (judging by acsearch/coinarchives results), and they're often a bit pricey-- but there are a whole load of them cheaply priced on ebay, from Georgia and Armenia. My guess is that this is simply a matter of supply and demand (just like if you want a tudor coin you're going to get a much better deal using a british auction house or ebay.co.uk), and that there is nothing nefarious going on. However, there are a couple things that raise red flags, and I'm hoping there is someone here who knows a bit about georgian coinage who can help me out. This seller has a number of reasonably priced coins of Tamar for sale. They don't accept returns, and they have a history of five or so user id's since 2004--a bit suspicious, but none them are listed on Forvm's NFSL. None of the coins *looks* wrong to me, but I only have a very cursory idea of what they should look like. Since I can't read the legends in georgian or arabic, I also don't know that the identifications are correct. So here are my questions: Is there anything worrisome about the coins themselves? Are the identifiactions correct? Thanks for the help!
You will get some replies from knowledgeable people, the only thing I noticed is that the seller has had five different names on e-bay.
If you press on the feedback score and then hit the link on the right for "view ID history" you will see the ID history for any seller-- many IDs being suspicious, as I pointed out in my OP.
The coins look genuine. Remember that Russia and Georgia have laws against exporting antiquities. If you and the dealer get into a squabble it will be hard to sue this dealer in Georgian court and win and collect a settlement. Steve Album gets Georgian coins and there are a few on eBay from a dealer in Staten Island, New York. If you need to buy from sources in the former Soviet republics you are collecting at an entirely differently level from most of us.
it finally came up....yeah,idk about that..there's gotta be a reason...but the coins look legit to me, but i'd be leary...
I was REALLY tempted into bidding on some of those coins, but alas since it is from Georgia and as @Ed Snible indicates, it might be problematic
Interesting. The oldest name if blanked out but the five most recent are shown. A couple of days ago there was a thread in which the same thing was discussed: the first name was blanked out and the second was visible. I wonder if EBay is blanking out original names only.
