Lanz and Roma

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by tibor, Mar 19, 2021.

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  1. tibor

    tibor Supporter! Supporter

    With quite a few threads about Lanz and Roma and the questionable
    authenticity of many of their ancients and that they collude with each
    other on ancient Roman and Greek coins, i was wondering about the
    reliability of their Byzantine coinage offerings. I was especially curious
    about the bronze and gold coinage from this period in time. Is there
    a web site that discusses and shows comparison pictures. Thank you
    in advance.
     
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  3. OutsiderSubtype

    OutsiderSubtype Well-Known Member

    If you don't feel like you can trust them on Greek or Roman, why would you trust them on Byzantine?

    If you think the dealer is not trustworthy or engaged in shady practices you have to cut them off altogether, both because of the risks to your collection and because you don't want to support someone shady.

    There are plenty of dealers I just won't buy from because I don't trust them. They may well be honest but I just don't have trust. Even on supposedly "reliable" sites.

    I don't trust the vast majority of dealers on biddr. Honestly I think I could set up as a biddr dealer and run "Outsider's Web Auction 1" and nothing would stop me which is scary.

    I only trust like half of the sellers on VCoins.
     
  4. Limes

    Limes Well-Known Member

    This raises many questions, and I am interested in an answers since I frequent Roma auctions and have bought quite a few coins from them without any bad experience whatsover. Are we talking about the same Roma, from the UK?

    So, not to defend one or another, but when and where was it concluded, that "many" of their ancient coins are questionable? And who's exactly? Lanz? Roma's? Both? And to what extent do these two work together? To what extent was Lanz "bad", if that's really the case, so to say? Is it "guilty by association"? Or are there members here with examples of "questionable" coins sold by Roma? If so, have there been

    I can remember a few threads concerning Roma (UK). There was a complaint about a package that got lost, I think? And something about shipments taking forever. But I haven't frequented this board a lot, so perhaps I've missed a few threads.

    Edit: I wanted to add that if indeed can be established that the mentioned dealer offers questionable coins more then on an incidental basis, I agree that you should do best not to go there for Byzantine coinage. I will consider to do the same for Roman/Greek coinage.
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2021
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  5. acsearch.info

    acsearch.info Well-Known Member

    If you have a registered company, provide references from reputable dealers who will vouch for you and agree to our terms of business & code of conduct, then yes. Otherwise, no ;)
     
  6. OutsiderSubtype

    OutsiderSubtype Well-Known Member

    I would love to learn more about the reference checking because there seems to have been a flood of first-time auctioneers lately and creating a company is something anyone can do.
     
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  7. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    I've never bought anything from Roma, largely because most of their coins are way beyond my financial means. But so far as I know, they're a highly reputable company, even though every dealer inadvertently sells fakes now and then. The only substantive criticism I've read concerns their apparent association with Lanz, which I had never heard of until very recently. And there doesn't seem to be much doubt that Lanz is no longer considered a reputable dealer.
     
  8. tibor

    tibor Supporter! Supporter

  9. acsearch.info

    acsearch.info Well-Known Member

    That's quite a straightforward process: You provide us with references of reputable dealers and we contact them and ask them about their experience with you as an individual and business.

    The flood of first-time auctioneers is not just lately. It has been an onging phenomen for at least the past decade. The reason is quite obvious, the internet and platforms such as biddr make it quite easy to start a new auction business. Something that was incredibly hard to achieve before the internet, unless you bought the business of someone else.
     
  10. OutsiderSubtype

    OutsiderSubtype Well-Known Member

    See this sounds to me like you don't, or can't, vouch for the expertise of your dealers.

    Only that they pay their bills on time.

    Which isn't bad, necessarily, that's all that eBay feedback does after all. But I think some people think that just because a business is on biddr they are trustworthy and that is not true.
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2021
  11. Pavlos

    Pavlos You pick out the big men. I'll make them brave!

    Totally agree with @OutsiderSubtype. At the new auction houses like Zeus, NSB etc. I saw (known) fakes listed between them. I contacted them and either they ignored me or the said it is impossible it is a fake, well if Mr. Barry even says they are, it must be true. But biddr does not think they are responsible at all, and they don't do anything about it, just like eBay, these auction houses bring money in the pockets after all.

    On eBay there are sellers with 99% positive feedback and 10000 reviews and they regularly sell fakes, especially silver but I saw bronze fakes as well. How do they do it? They sell authentic low valued coins, build positive feedback and reputation, then they start to slip fakes between them. And people keep buying and buying thinking they are authentic. The first I think about is "ancientground".
     
  12. svessien

    svessien Senior Member

    I personally think that the amount of fakes is less of a problem than the potential number of coins being robbed from archeaological sites and sold to fund wars and terror and the attempt to turn back time to the dark ages. What kind of dilligence does biddr or sixbid have to check the sources of these new dealers?
    I suspect that NSB and Zevs are «auction houses» set up for this purpose: They regularly have a lot of the same coin types with the same patina, often a lot of provincials from the Middle East and crusader coins. They have low premiums, NSB only 3% I think, and one has to wonder if the consignors are they themselves.
    I agree that having a logo and a business on biddr doesn’t provide any guarantee that it’s good business at all. I don’t have Roma on my «black list» though. I have always considered them as reliable.
     
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  13. Pavlos

    Pavlos You pick out the big men. I'll make them brave!

    I think I said it before here on the forum: Zeus, Biga, Ares and NSB are all from the same Turkish owners in the Netherlands (eventhough they are sometimes registered to an address in foreign country, with 100 other companies registered to it). I am indeed not surprised they use the business on biddr to money launder these illigally excavated coins through Turkey to Europe.
     
  14. acsearch.info

    acsearch.info Well-Known Member

    If you are asking if we know all of them personally well or do some kind of exam to test if they are numismatically knowlegable enough, then you are right, we don't. That's simply not possible for a platform of that size.

    And even if we could do that, there is no 100% guarantee. Even reputable dealers can go rogue, as the example of Lanz perfectly demonstrates. There is always something that can go wrong. We, as a platform, can't prevent that. What we can do is check the information that is available to us, talk to the people that are given as references, have them sign our terms and our code of conduct and provide support whenever problems arise. And that's exactly what we do.

    In your initial post you made it sound like everyone can become a seller on biddr. And that's simply not true.
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2021
  15. Severus Alexander

    Severus Alexander find me at NumisForums

    My 2c, as the owner of a minor auction house on biddr:

    In my own case, the biddr staff have shown an admirable concern for ensuring fakes are rare on their platform. For example, in my first auction there were two coins that I acquired from CNG and were (unbeknownst to me) the subject of controversy. Biddr brought this to my attention with the result that I edited the listings to note the controversy (e.g. https://www.biddr.com/auctions/amcoinscanada/browse?a=407&l=398188). That is biddr going above and beyond the call of duty, and I was very impressed and grateful!

    Some auction houses on biddr are clearly less knowledgeable than others, or deal in high volumes without paying a lot of attention to each individual coin. Should biddr bar these auction houses from the platform because they occasionally list fakes? Arguably not, at least I (as a collector) would be sad to see them go. Of course one must do one's due diligence in these cases, and any fakes should be flagged and withdrawn. I encourage everyone to write to biddr when they find one, though obviously you need to present evidence that would persuade an unbiased observer the coin is questionable.

    I agree that auction houses deliberately selling fakes or coins with significant unmentioned alterations should be barred from the platform. As @acsearch.info mentions above, they are - this clearly violates the code of conduct. However, a few data points are not enough to know dishonesty is involved as opposed to lack of knowledge or attention. Eventually the evidence builds up, though - and again, feedback to biddr is what's needed.

    Finally, re: Turkish and similar provenances and antiquities laws, I'll just note that there's such thing as unjust, stupid, or even seriously harmful laws. @Valentinian has written eloquently on this subject many times in this forum, for example here and here. Failure to compensate finders, draconian penalties, prohibitions on export, etc. etc. all demonstrably harm not only collectors but knowledge, whereas the UK treasure trove laws and similar are beneficial to all. It's a no-brainer. If a coin comes to my collection by way of someone way back in the chain of transactions who is willing to break a dumb law in order to make ends meet, personally I'm OK with it, though I don't take consignments for AMCC from such sources. (And no, coins are not financing terrorism.)

    OK, stepping down from soapbox now. :D Here's a nice coin I acquired from Roma:
    db_file_img_142926_544x262.jpg
    Bohémond III of Antioch (1163-1201), denier, from the Dr. Murray Gell-Mann Collection (the Nobel Prize winning physicist).

    I don't know what the nature of the Roma-Lanz relationship is, if any, so I have no comment on that.
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2021
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  16. Archeocultura

    Archeocultura Well-Known Member

    If you wonder about a seller, you can always visit Forumancientcoins.com and have a look in their long list of fake sellers.
     
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  17. panzerman

    panzerman Well-Known Member

    I have gotten 3 coins from Lanz about 7 years ago, all had previous auction tickets/ where conservatively graded. Probably 20+ coins from Roma/ no problems with grading/ authenticity:)
    John
     
  18. OutsiderSubtype

    OutsiderSubtype Well-Known Member

    There is a long tradition of vest pocket dealers and I think that's okay. Dealers make mistakes sometimes and I think that's okay.

    But in my opinion lack of numismatic knowledge, at least when demonstrated repeatedly, is the same thing as a lack of honesty. You're selling something that you don't know is real, and if it is real, you don't know what it is. Is it just to be caveat emptor all the time?

    When a business is brand new and immediately starts running into issues with fakes or poor service it's really hard for me to presume good intentions.

    I don't really think volume of sales should make a difference, what would make a difference is the percentage of sales that are problems.
     
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  19. kirispupis

    kirispupis Well-Known Member

    FWIW, I use "trust relationships" when deciding whether to buy from a given dealer or auction house. For example, I trust Forum. So, if Forum lists several coins with provenance from DealerA, then at least at some point (Forum often gives the year), Forum trusted DealerA. If other dealers I trust also exhibit such a relationship, then I feel safer in trusting DealerA.

    I'll also search this forum and others for experiences on a particular dealer.

    Common sense also prevails. For example, there was (still is) a dealer on ma-shops that had a coin I really wanted, in great condition, for a very reasonable price. The coin looked a bit odd, though - a bit too clean. I then found another coin they listed, also at the top of my list, and also a bit odd looking. When I noticed this dealer only accepts bank transfers - no credit cards, that gave me cause for alarm. With a credit card, I would at least have some measure if the coin turned out to be fake. I didn't buy the coin, and then the listing disappeared - presumably sold. About a week later, though, it came back - the exact same coin. Perhaps the dealer relisted it and they're reputable, but this dealer is on my black list now.
     
  20. OutsiderSubtype

    OutsiderSubtype Well-Known Member

    What I find extremely problematic is when people tell new collectors that anything on VCoins or biddr can be trusted. That is very much not the case.

    I'm mostly talking about reddit here. That's where that bad advice is repeated.

    Like I said, I only trust maybe half of VCoins dealers and I trust less than that on biddr.
     
  21. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    I'm pretty sure that those are all ebay sellers. I don't think they list anyone on vcoins or ma-shops.
     
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