My first ancient gold coin: a solidus of Arcadius

Donna, You raise some good points, however, your solidus has less wear than the V-Coins example , & far more eye appeal . For comparison here is a solidus of Theodosius II that I bought from Harlan Berk a long time ago. He graded the coin MS, but it looks like a choice AU to me. Never the less it has strong eye appeal .

 

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I am sorry Donna but the use of "ytyyyr3t" is restricted to those having a root canal

 

Sorry for my late reaction to your new acquisition. It took a while to read through the thread. In short, your coin is fantastic. I absolutely love the look of it. A hearty congrats on a superb pickup.

 

Thank you, and thanks for all the other nice comments.

Not that I'm losing sleep over it, because only one person brought it up, but do people agree that my coin looks like it was formerly mounted as a jewelry piece? More importantly, even if it were mounted sometime in the past, would that really matter so much in terms of its visual appeal or its grade or its value? Not that I ever plan to send it to be graded, never mind sell it! Personally, I don't see why the mere possibility of such a jewelry-mounting history should make such a big difference if it isn't obvious and doesn't detract from the coin's appearance.

Also, do people agree that the fact that Dr. Busso Peus apparently bought the coin for about 720 Euros including the buyer's fee, and sold it to me 5 months later for a gross profit of only about 140 Euros, really constitutes evidence that the dealer knew something was wrong with the coin (whether a history of jewelry mounting or something else), and was eager to get rid of it right away? Why did the dealer buy it in the first place if that's the case? It's not like it didn't have access to all the same photos.

Anyway, a "neutral" opinion might be helpful. I wouldn't want to think I somehow bought a lemon, despite the coin's 60-year old provenance!

 

If that coin is a lemon I'll take a bushel full just like it. I would also be happy to sell anything for a 47% annualized return like Dr. Peus made.

 

Donna, you have the coin in hand and no one else does. If you think that there are no traces of mounting then you are probably correct. Even it were previously mounted that would not limit its appeal to me as a buyer. As for the seller...I think he was doing what sellers always try to do...buy low and make a reasonable profit when you sell. If he made that margin on every coin he would be doing well imho.

 

OK, I'll offer my neutral opinion. I respectfully disagree with pprp on both counts. The flan above the helmet is the strongest indicator of a mount, but it just looks like the flan shape to me. Even if there's some evidence of mounting that we can't see in the photos, it's obviously very subtle and so would not affect the value much. (Things might be different for a very high end coin.)

Here's an ex-mount Shapur II which is pretty obvious - there's significant damage to the coin, which certainly affects the value:

As a result I got a decent portrait of Shapur II & a nice reverse for cheap ($30 all in, retail). Maybe a 40-50% reduction?

This next example (a popular Bahram II type) is more equivocal, it was described as "likely old mount removal":

Clearly there is more damage to the coin (11-12 o'clock on the obverse) than what may or may not be damage to your solidus. Even so, this did not reduce the price by much - maybe a 20% discount? (My winning bid was $200, and there were quite a few nicer pieces in the auction.) So the value of yours would be affected significantly less... even assuming the slightly wonky flan shape is due to a mount, which is far from obvious.

IMO mounts only have an effect on value equivalent to the same non-mount damage to the coin. In other words, it's the damage that matters, not the mounting.

 

A beautiful coin with a captivating story around it , congrats @DonnaML !

Arcadius AE3. Antioch RIC IX 97
DN ARCADI-VS PF AVG, helmeted bust facing, spear across shoulder, holding shield decorated with cross / CONCORDIA AVGG, Constantinopolis enthroned facing, foot on prow, head right, holding sceptre and Victory on globe. Mintmark ANTΓ.
16 mm / 3.2 g

 

Thanks so much for the detailed explanation. Very reassuring!