Just curious, because I would think Ebay would not where you wold go to sell top-end Ancients: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Marcus-Vip...rentrq:c537f5d716e0aad34f93df87ffdd554c|iid:1 https://www.ebay.com/itm/CALIGULA-3...rentrq:c594730316e0a9e46de20d79ffd759c7|iid:1
They are very likely to be real but the price is very high. There is a reason why this seller sells on Ebay.
Both coins are authentic. The seller, however, is well known here for pricing his coins astronomically high compared to other venues. I hear he considers offers but I have never bothered.
This dealer, Ilya Zlobin, is reliable in the sense that he doesn’t sell fakes and that you’ll get what you see. I bought a few coins from him and he did a good job (fast delivery, well packed, nice coins). You sure should not pay what he is asking...... You can make a reasonable offer (what you think the coin is worth) and he will let you know. Worked for me Btw; if you go to ‘sold listings’ in his webstore (a brilliant button on eBay) you can see he accepted a lot of best offers.
Zlobin is a bit of a sleazeball but he indisputably pulls in good revenue from sales. I have never bought anything from him, but I have heard that he will accept a reasonable offer, even 1/10 of his asking price if the shoe fits. At least unlike Centsles, he does not own and operate his own slabbing "business" to "certify" worthless coins as mint state rarities. Personally I'd say that $75 is reasonable for the Agrippa, maybe $1500-2,000 for the Caligula. Believe it or not, eBay often is a better place to sell ancients than through various auction houses. Many, many more people will see a coin listed on eBay, and the lure of periodic 10% ebay bucks promos can push people to irrational behavior.
Too expensive for what you get. I imagine he has a nice business separating coin buyers from their hard-earned cash.
I agree with Marsman. I have purchased some nice coins from Ilya but only when we could come to an agreement on prices which means a small fraction of his price which is already discounted from his sky high original listing. I have never seen a coin he listed that was fake. The Agrippa is far from a high end coin considering its rough surfaces. To me it is worse than a smooth surfaced VG or beat up Fine. I believe Finn is close to my evaluation of these coins. Unfortunately, IMHO, eBay rewards people gouging prices by not charging them for listings that do not sell. As a result, sellers can list a thousand coins at dream (for them) prices and have them relisted over and over again until some sucker gives in and buys the things. As more and more people move to grading by wear alone not discounting for surfaces, he will do better. The fact that our OP here could call the Agrippa a 'top end ancient' proves my point. Mine sold in 1970 (Minns) and again in 1988 (Edwards at $42).
Sometimes I send him offers that are half of actual value (which translates to 1/50 of his list price) to annoy him. I don’t know how to exclude his ridiculous listings on the bay so since I have to look at that garbage he can deal with my offers.
In the Advanced Search page, if you scroll way down, you'll see this section: That Include control is actually a drop-down: Set it to "Exclude", and your search will show items from all sellers except the ones you list in the box. There may be a limit on how many sellers you can exclude, but it should take at least ten or twenty.
Sure enough, here's one that was listed at $650, and he accepted an offer of $65: https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=352874604221 Another listed at $250, "discounted" to $100, offer accepted at $33.44: https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=232234627692
Thanks guys...so even his "discounted" offers are still way above FMV I take it. Have any of you ever dealt with Pegasi ? They seem pretty upstanding.
I don't mind someone being high and negotiating, but 5-10X FMV is ridiculous. Unless you're an expert in the field, you have no way of knowing if you got a fair deal or got ripped off completely. He's actually hurting the business even if he deals in legit coins and does a good job with knowledgeable guys like you. Newbies will either be scared away or get burned.
This Caligula was sold in 2016 at The New York Auction for $2500 + buyer's fee -- about $3,000: This is a very desirable sestertius of Caligula. These tend to be generally available although difficult to find in EF condition. This particular example is well centered both obverse and reverse, with all devices and legends readable, and doesn't appear to have any tooling. However, its surfaces are rough which detracts from its overall appeal. Based on its last sale price, my guess is that a fair offer for this coin is in the $3,500 - $5,000 range, although I doubt the seller would let it go for less than $5,000.
Ancient coins remind me of the old OTC/Nasdaq stock market of the late-1970's/early-1980's: The Wild Wild West. I mean, all the things we take for granted with moderns -- mintage numbers, good conditions for the most part, expectations of what a mint state coin looks like, etc. -- none or very few exist for Ancients. I realize you are going back 1,500 - 2,500 years or so, but that would make creating counterfeits even easier I would think (don't need to make mint state copies).
My strong believe is that people who have no knowledge about ancient coins should stay away from eBay. They are asking for problems. Once you understand ancient coins you can buy on eBay and won’t be fooled by high prices.
It took me less than 60 seconds to research and find the 2016 auction sale of the Caligula sestertius listed by the EBay seller, including its price (although the hammer price required having a subscription to that service, without which I would have had to research the price on the auctioneer's website). I'm not a collector of modern coins but I would be surprised if you could find equally useful information on a particular type of modern coin in less than 60 seconds. As for "...mintage numbers, good conditions for the most part, expectations of what a mint state coin looks like..." this data is considerably less useful for collecting ancients since genuine ancient coins are essentially unique (when it comes to condition) and hence a collector's purchase evaluation is generally made based on the specific coin, not the general type of coin. My intention here is to help you understand that your initial impression of the ancient coin market, summarized by your observation "...all the things we take for granted with moderns... none or very few exist for Ancients." is actually not true. Collecting ancient coins is very, very different from collecting modern coins, and your expectations and approach to collecting ancients cannot be simply an extension of your experience in collecting modern coins. The good news is that the Internet provides a very large amount of useful (and some not-so-useful) information, starting with this site, and you can learn very quickly (depending on your level of effort and interest). If you do decide to start collecting ancients, you'll get more than sufficient support here to help you avoid any rookie mistakes.