Another Fake from Lanz

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by Nemo, Nov 8, 2019.

  1. octavius

    octavius Well-Known Member

    Well I have no reason to harbor any preconceived ill will to Lanz since I have never purchased anything from him in the past; But as mentioned before , about 3 years ago or so I purchased a sestertius of Titus from Oblos auction. About one year later I saw the EXACT coin offered by Lanz. I emailed Oblos as well as Lanz to point this out. The next morning there was a gracious reply from Oblos agreeing that the coin was a forgery and a full refund including mailing costs were forthcoming. Oblos as well as myself notified Lanz who responded to me saying something to the effect that mistakes can happen. Yes indeed they can; however , the coin was never removed from his auction and went for about 1700 euros if I recall. Apparently they allowed someone to buy a fake.I seriously doubt the buyer would willingly pay $2000 dollars for a known fake.

    Interestingly, another identical example of this coin showed up in an Italian auction. I notified them and they promptly thanked me and removed the coin from their auction as well.
    Again, I have no reasons to personally bear a grudge with Lanz - I had no business with them directly, but this certainly stunned and worried me.

    here is the coin in question in case it turns up again.

    image00249.jpg
     
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  3. Nemo

    Nemo Well-Known Member

    Here is a listing in a current auction from a very well known and honest dealer. Note the excellent provenance. I notified them but haven't heard back yet.
    [​IMG]
    Titus. AD 79-81. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.50 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck 1 January-30 June AD 80. Laureate head right / Pulvinar (throne) of Jupiter and Juno: square seat, draped and surmounted by horizontal winged thunderbolt. RIC II.1 119; RSC 316. A few scrape, shallow smoothing scratches. Near EF.

    From the collection of an English Queen’s Counsel. Ex Lanz 164 (23 May 2017), lot 158.

    There are at least three or four in the Forvm Fake coin reports.
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  4. pprp

    pprp Well-Known Member

    We have to keep in mind that reported fakes in forum are sometimes not fakes, there's no real control, whoever wants can report anything as a fake.

    The report says high quality cast. If this is fake, the forger just have been really dump to implement that characteristic edge split. I would say that if fake, it is pressed. And the coins above are in fact the same coin. The Lanz one must be the same one which has been intentionally damaged and smoothed.

    I invoke the deus ex-machina @Barry Murphy to help us

    BTW as I said before not all lanz coins are bad. For example I got this ex lanz in another venue and it's perfectly fine

    Lesbosram.jpg
     
  5. Stevearino

    Stevearino Well-Known Member

    @Curtisimo holds up something that I find to be so true and yet so common: sellers in any type of business often choose the short-term lesser gain instead of the potential long-term greater gain. "Cheapness," IMHO, never pays in the long term.

    I could share numerous instances where, IMO, I was stiffed or treated "cheaply." Like several who have posted, I stopped doing business with that person. And, it seems to be human nature that we are more likely to complain, loudly and long, about poor service rather than praise good service. As hard as it is to build a good reputation, it is amazing how many choose to toss it away. Penny wise, pound foolish. I've never bought from Lanz, nor an ex Lanz (to my knowledge), but I've heard enough from people I respect that I never will.

    Suffice it to say that I am incredulous when a seller "of whatever" cannot place him/herself in the shoes or mindset of the buyer.

    Steve
     
  6. Barry Murphy

    Barry Murphy Well-Known Member

    All the Titus denarii are fake. There have been quite a few of these around the last few years. I've seen 2 this year at work.

    The first and second coin I don't think are the same coin, as one is listed at 3.62 grams, the other 3.50 grams. There are some other differences as well including a small flan flaw at the P in VESP and another below the X in XV on the reverse.

    The auction house of the first coin has already been contacted.

    Barry
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2020
  7. Barry Murphy

    Barry Murphy Well-Known Member

    The first Titus will be withdrawn over the weekend.

    Barry
     
  8. Broucheion

    Broucheion Well-Known Member

    Ditto. And that was before this thread, which has hammered the point. I say keep the thread going to hear more from 'satisfied customers' (if there are any).

    50 Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong (Sophie Tucker)


    - Broucheion.
     
  9. Nemo

    Nemo Well-Known Member

    Well, here is an interesting epilogue to this thread. About a week ago I got an email from Lanz. All it contained was a partial snippet of his correspondence over the fake electrum he sold me.

    To me, and this is pure conjecture, it had the appearance of cutting and pasting an email to someone else and accidentally hitting "send" to me.

    Well, since he reached out to me, accidentally or not, I responded very politely and informed him of the fake in this thread. So far no response....
     
  10. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    The point here is not that all his coins are bad but when you intentionally patronize (send money to) a known crook, you are enabling him to stay in business and cheat other people. Buy coins from honest sellers. Send their kids to college not the fake sellers'.
     
  11. Alegandron

    Alegandron "ΤΩΙ ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΩΙ..." ΜΕΓΑΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ, June 323 BCE

    To me, reputation in ANY marketplace is everything. Trust, Honesty, Fairness, and by golly, EVERYONE and ANYONE can misinterpret or make a mistake.

    UNFORTUNATELY, I have heard WAY too much negative about this Seller. I have observed no other Auction / Seller getting so many complaints.

    I have never bought from them, and I do not plan to buy from them.

    The only defender in this thread has dug their hole deeper in my opinion.

    I know one thing, PEOPLE WILL VOTE WITH THEIR FEET. I will not visit their site / auctions to purchase.

    LOL, I wonder how many have not posted, but have read this thread?

    My experience in Consumer Products: For every ONE person that complain or makes comments, there may be 100 or even a THOUSAND that agrees, and just do not make a comment. Ouch.

    REPUTATION IS EVERYTHING.
     
  12. pprp

    pprp Well-Known Member

    Sorry I don't get your point. You just used an extract of what I wrote. My next sentence read "For example I got this ex lanz in another venue and it's perfectly fine". I don't think I will get the embola virus if I buy a coin that passed sometime in the past from one of his auctions nor would I be endorsing in this way his business.
     
  13. Insider

    Insider Talent on loan from...

    AGREE - NOT EVEN CLOSE!

    :rolleyes::stop: I guess the reason you think the two coins match is because they are silver in color and have a round shape.

    Old thread alert! I hate it when I'm wasting my time.
     
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  14. Nemo

    Nemo Well-Known Member

    Sorry Lolli, your faith and praise of Lanz is misplaced. First he made fun of me for missing the fact that the coin was described as smoothed and tooled in the German listing. My bad but still, it was sold as authentic. Below is the unedited reply.

    "!! Erhaltung: Geglättet, überarbeitet, sonst sehr!! I was described in German" Geglätted=Smoothed Überarbeitet=tooled sonst=otherwise Sehr schön=Very fine

    Somebody must has thougt it is extremely rare.

    You should never have such a bad coin in Your collection and graded by NGC or anyone. It was probably ungradable.
    Regards
    Dr. Hubert Lanz"

    After showing him the replica die matches, I asked if it was a genuine ancient, his reply was simply,

    "Nothing is fake, just Your assumption."
     
  15. Alegandron

    Alegandron "ΤΩΙ ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΩΙ..." ΜΕΓΑΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ, June 323 BCE

    It is ok to have another opinion. However, why must you insult people? You have no right to insult or degrade anyone’s opinion! Period. Leave your insults in the Modern collecting area. They are not welcome in the Ancients. They are childish and really denigrate the expertise you “supposedly” have, Skip.
     
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  16. Ryro

    Ryro Trying to remove supporter status

    giphy-5.gif
     
  17. Lolli

    Lolli Active Member

    "After showing him the replica die matches, I asked if it was a genuine ancient, his reply was simply,"

    "Nothing is fake, just Your assumption."

    This coin is fake and he must have refunded you, there can not be 2 opinions!
    And in such a clear case this or better his behavior can not be excused.
    The evidence for your other coin you bought from Lanz being fake were not convincing enough for me to be sure that the coin must be necessarily fake but it could well be fake but in such cases it is not obligatory to refund the money if doubts are rised and only some dealers and auction houses will still refund you they money but some will not! To know taht a coin is fake can be easy with some skills and experience but to prove it can be in some cases very difficult and time consuming.
    I still think that Lanz never ever offered you for the other coin to send it back for refund, only to send back to sell it again for you without charging fees for selling it again, because this is how he did it in the IBSCC condemned Mithradates case.
    And if you then send it back he possibly thought you accepted his offer because he offerd you only the resell it and never a refund.

    That he made fun of you is well possible, it would fit to him and I think he and other auction houses and dealers have often the problem that some buyers regret later their buys and want to have a refund. And some dealers and auction houses are not so great too if it comes to a refund and it can be really annoying to get the money back :( Made bad experiences and good experiences too if it comes to a refund of money for fakes or misdescribed coins bought by reputable dealers or auction house. But will not make public, at the end I got my money back and from the ones I made bad experience I will not buy again and from the others I amde good experinces I bought again and will do again in future.
    You only notice if an auction house or a dealer is reliable if there will occour problems like refunding money for fake or misdescribed coins or stolen coins in mail.

    Like always you only notice the real character of humens if there will be problems.

    "You should never have such a bad coin in Your collection and graded by NGC or anyone. It was probably ungradable."

    NGC is actually grading even manipulated and polished fakes, Chinese fake of German Thaler, posted to another Forum, I post here pictures of fakes from same dies with identical scratches and the NGC fake has deeper scratches missing on the other fakes and softer details from polishing so the NGC piece can not be the mother, if so they must have been recutting details and removing deep scratches and they can not remove scratches.
    The problem that you can not see and authenticate the edge and alloy of slabbed coins and this makes it later really difficult to authenticate slabbed coin in slabbes without removing the slab. Not sure how they missed this fake generally NGC is not that bad if it comes to modern coin.

    https://www.ngccoin.com/certlookup/2311759-001/NGCDetails/

    https://coins.ha.com/itm/german-sta...taler-1840a-/a/3014-23949.s?type=acsearch3014

    https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=980774

    https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces30792.html

    On ebay this fakes cost 30 Dollar, the on from 1845 and 1855 have identical scratch on revers so this reverse was recut from 4 to a 5 and obverse is identical with identical scratches.

    https://www.ebay.de/itm/1845-A-GERMANY-Anhalt-Bernburg-Two-Thaler-High-Guality-Silver-Copy/324144019232?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

    https://www.ebay.de/itm/1855-A-GERMANY-Anhalt-Bernburg-Two-Thaler-High-Guality-Silver-Copy/324144019218?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649


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    Last edited: Jun 13, 2020
  18. kevin McGonigal

    kevin McGonigal Well-Known Member

    Question, please. I started collecting decades ago and over the years I have picked up a few fake ancients, usually at shows and did not find out they were fakes until years later. More recently I have bought coins from dealers listed on a popular coin consortium of sellers. I do not buy from auction houses. I have to ask this question. I am probably paying some kind of premium to do this. When I buy from these sellers from this consortium, dealers who have been selling there for years, am I wasting my money doing this or am I less likely to pick up fakes? There is one gentleman who has his own site as well as advertises on the consortium. He really is a student of numismatics and though the coins he sells are not as numerous as others, the research he seems to do on the ones he offers makes me feel secure about what I am buying. Am I just whistling past the graveyard or are coins from dealers like this less likely to be fakes than what the auction houses are offering?
     
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  19. Silverlock

    Silverlock Well-Known Member

    If you are referring to VCoins or MA-Shops, the sellers are (almost) all reputable and dealing in good faith. The chance of a fake is low. If one is discovered, you will receive your money back.

    You may run a slightly higher risk of a fake there than from an auction house, however, because other things being equal the more eyes on a coin the less likely a fake survives the scrutiny. Auction houses hire experts, but they also attract knowledgeable clientele who help in filtering out fakes. More trained eyes may see an auction coin than a typical dealer listing.

    In both cases, your risk of a fake is minuscule compared to the risk from a random seller on eBay, for example. Yes, you may pay a premium for using these services, but for my money buying from reputable sources is worth every penny.
     
  20. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    I have known small dealers, past and present, who were every bit as qualified as the best employees of the big houses. Some of them once worked for the big houses and got a lot of training there. Others paid less attention so the question has the worthless answer: It Depends.
    +1
     
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