Buy the Coin & not the Slab

Yesterday afternoon I watched the Heritage E-auction because there were several ancient coins I was interested in. One coin that caught my eye was a handsome Tet of Trajan, struck at the Tyre Mint in Phoenicia, see photos below. Before committing to a bid I like to double check the attribution of the slab info & the auction house description. In this case the slab info was wrong & so was the auction house description , see the link below. The slab & link describe the coin as being "yr 17 & Cos 6 (AD 112/3)", however, the coin is a Year 18, (TR.POT.XVIII) = A.D. 113/114. A year 17 inscription translates: (TR.POT.XVII) = A.D. 112/113. You might think "no big deal", but the difference between a year 17 & a year 18 coin is the year 18 coin is rare & the year 17 coin isn't . As a reference I used McAlee's book The Coins of Roman Antioch, #463. When I receive the coin from Heritage I'll return it to NGC for correction .

https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-prov...mbnail-022817&tab=ArchiveSearchResults-012417

 

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Beautiful @Al Kowsky

 

Nice grab.


Trajan (98 - 117 A.D.)
AR Tetradrachm
PHOENICIA, Tyre
Dated COS 5, year 15 (111 AD)
O: AVTOKP KAIC NEP TPAIANOC CEB ΓEPM ∆AK, Laureate head right set on eagle standing right; club to left.
R: ∆HMAPX - EΞ IE YΠAT E, laureate bust of Melqart draped in lion-skin.
24mm
13.7g
Prieur 1515; BMC Phoenicia pg. 301, 15

 

@Al Kowsky Nice catch and a beautiful coin. I always check the seller's attributions. I found a number of errors. As you noted, sometimes these small differences can be significant.

 

Love these double portraits, Al , here are mine:

 

Is a coin showing an NGC error really worth less than one corrected? I guess this error is not severe enough to attract the people who would be attracted to a slab error that gave the wrong emperor but I would try to sell the erroneous slab before paying them to redo it. Mine is a 19 and too worn to attract the slab crowd.

 

NGC will correct this slab for me at no cost. They have corrected a number of slabs for me in the past. I'll include the coin when I send in the next submission of coins for slabbing.

 

I think what Doug meant is that the market price for an erroneous NGC attribution might bring a higher premium than the less common date.

Beautiful coin, by the way.

 

Without regards to Doug's point of view, it seems pointless to me to keep a coin in a slab with misinformation on it when you can get it corrected at no cost. I can't imagine anyone paying more for a slab because NGC mislabeled it .

 

Very handsome tet. Me likey.

 

Svarog, Nice group of Tets . The top example has a lot of character, Trajan looks contemplative & Hercules looks angry .

 

You can't imagine it and I can't imagine it, don't mean it isn't real.

 

Exactly Al, super angry

 

There are those who can't think of any other reason to keep a coin in a slab. Slabs are for selling coins to people who want slabs. Those of us who intend to keep coins long term and enjoy the coins would crack the coin out. To some of us, collecting coins in slabs is not much different from collecting photographs of coins. I can see why you might feel comforted by the opinion of a TPG (at least NGC whose opinions I would value) but after you have that opinion has been received, there is no reason to leave it in the plastic except to make it salable to people who like slabs.

I had no idea they made that many mistakes. What sort of corrections have you had? I really thought the NGC duo would be right 99.9% of the time.

 

Attached are photos of two more coins I'm sending back to NGC for corrections with the next submission. The 1st coin is pictured in McAlee's book as 250(c)/1, & not what is labeled on the slab. The next coin has a variety of problems: it has been mounted about 30 degrees off from center, the slab says the coin is AE24 but it measures 34 mm, & it is labeled "Livia, wife of Augustus"? when it should be labeled "Tiberius" along with a date range A.D. 14-37. I guess with the amount of coins they handle screw-ups like these should be expected.

 

Not an ancient, but here is my NCG error coin; 1885 Morgan in 1887 slab. Love it and would never let them fix it.

 

You know, if there are people out there who collect rare slabs ( and there are ), then there might be people out there who collect slab mistakes that are rare.

Jes' sayin'

 

Is this Oea a case of the submitter dictating what they wanted on the label? I would have thought it was a case where two coins were swapped when put in the plastic but the obv/rev descriptions are right. Very interesting. Obviously the demand for slabs has exceeded the abilities of minimal staff but finding staff willing and capable of doing that work can't be easy. We never did hear if they hired anyone after that post saying they were looking last year. Perhaps we should expect more errors.

Another question: If slabbed ancients become more common will the hobby develop young 'experts' suitable for doing the work that places the coins in correctly labeled slabs? The gentlemen that do that work now got that skill level by handling many thousands of coins in many thousands of types. Will hands that never touch coins be prepared to replace them when they retire? I'll never know.

 

The Oea bronze is really puzzling. I think it's just a case of sloppy handling, especially considering how far off the rotation is & the diameter measurement. I took the coin to a machine shop where I used to work & measured the diameter with an optical comparator & measured the dia. at 34 mm. That's a ridiculous error that should have been spotted without the use of a measuring device. Doug, I'm sure everyone using the ancient coin forum knows your opinion on slabbing, it's been repeated many times. Some people find it acceptable & others don't. Make no mistake, slabbing ancient coins is becoming more popular & it's drawing more people to the hobby; that's a good thing! Let's be honest, no one will ever become an expert by handling slabbed coins alone. Examining raw coins is the only way to go.

 

This is where we disagree. Anything that draws investors to the hobby who do not care to learn about the coins but price young people out of it is not a good thing. We risk a generation who has been taught all coins are MS or defective and uncollectable. Kids (like me fifty years ago) are not drawn to the hobby by slabbing $5 coins and selling them for $50.

...and that is why I have no problem with experts selling their opinion (as with Sear) but do not like sealing the coins as mindless commodities in slabs.