Think you already knew it, but these last pictures confirm that the knives and spade are sadly unoriginal. A bummer, but let’s hope something neat at the bottom!
I am not so sure its a bummer really. Look at the tags that are associated with them. They look quite old, so those repro's are antique and still have some nominal value. They have their own story to tell.
You could just scan the entire contects and @AnYangMan and I would tell you everything you need to know.
If one of the dealers is absolutely useless, I hope the one they choose is Perfection personified !!! (Reply to lordmarcovan re. his relatives visiting two different dealers).
Huh? Oh, I think I see what you meant. The Romans and ancients are going to @Aethelred. The Chinese stuff will go to @Ken Dorney, if it proves worth his while. First I'll post pix of that stuff, once I have the chance. Just coming off the road after a death in the family.
I believe it was Crassus - member of the so-called 1st Triumvirate with J. Caesar and Pompey - who after losing a battle with Persians (or some other Mesopotamian group who supposedly either had molten gold poured in/on him or perhaps the story is garbled and it was his skull which was covered with gold to make a "chalice" for the victor. There's also a fairly good chance that Valerian was simply killed in the battle with the Sasanian Persians in 258 and the whole footstool/tanned skin on wall or as upholstery story was official "spin" to rile-up popular opinion and feelings against the Persian Empire in order to make mounting a follow-up excursion easier to sell.
All right, then. Here are just a few more semi-random, quickie glimpses of the Chinese stuff. There are some cash coins, and a few do appear to be ancient. There is a smattering of other Far Eastern material from places like Thailand, and just a little bit of silver. Much of this stuff appears to be from the Chinese Republic in the early 20th century (there's a lot with those crossed flags). There is also a brothel token of some kind (likely a 20th century fantasy issue, which is just a tiny bit too R-rated to post here), and one or two other pieces which might be tokens. It's a pretty good-sized accumulation which slightly overflows the box it is in, which is roughly the size of a child's shoebox.
That Galba is a Paduan! Not super valuable--as a cast-- but still quite nice and interesting! Much better than a run of the mill fake. It's Klawans 3, I believe. I had a similar one that I sold after getting a struck paduan. Here are many more from acsearch https://www.acsearch.info/search.ht...s=1&thesaurus=1&order=0¤cy=usd&company=
Oh, thank you for that bit of information. Neat! I knew it was likely to be an older copy, since this is an older accumulation, after all, but it never dawned on me that it might be a Paduan. That's cool.