Okay. We need to talk about Katz...

Lansky. @romismatist provided a link to a fake sold for 8000 EUR.

 

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This is a great idea...I might try and do this

 

The thing that surprises me in all this is that other, bonafide, auction houses on Biddr don't take action in such cases when they become aware of it. Tainted auctioneers on the site cast a shadow over the others as well.
The same applies to Biddr itself, even more so.
Being a host to questionable enterprises is not helpful in establishing a trustworthy reputation. Apart from the ethical aspect, it is bad for business.

 

Donna, A kind old neighbor, Mr. Smith, tried to make a stamp collector out of me too when I was 9 or 10 years old but I never took to the hobby . He knew I was fascinated with strange looking covers & gave me some real gems that I saved after all these years . Pictured below are some of those covers. Click the photos for an enlarged view.


This was a hand canceled cover dated 1860 !








My mother saved this cover that I mailed from Viet Nam. I used to doodle cartoons on many of the envelopes; this one shows a Viet Cong chasing my letter.

 

View attachment 1314623
My mother saved this cover that I mailed from Viet Nam. I used to doodle cartoons on many of the envelopes; this one shows a Viet Cong chasing my letter.[/QUOTE]

Funny seeing the Rochester, NY address! I grew up just south of there in Rush, NY. My grandfather, from whom I received Luxembourg citizenship, collected stamps from when he was a kid - mostly the US and Luxembourg. He got me involved in stamp collecting and many a summer I pored through his albums. Once a year for my birthday, I was given an allowance of $25 to buy stamps from a store in Midtown Mall. It was the only time of year we went downtown. I would spend months analyzing price lists to decide which to buy. I mainly focused on smaller countries since I figured they were like Luxembourg.

When he passed away, I was given the choice between his albums and two golden eagles. For me, the choice was simple.

I still have his US album, though it's at my parents' house. His Luxembourg album was unfortunately grabbed and sold by an unscrupulous relative before I could receive it. Since then, I've focused on rebuilding his Luxembourg album and also collecting from the former Soviet Union.

I stopped adding to the collection several years ago when I picked up photography (expensive hobby), and now that I collect ancient coins I have no idea when I'll pick it up again. However, it does seem like stamp collectors are dwindling, so perhaps the prices will go down enough some day that I can resume.

One final piece of mystery: before my grandfather died 30 years ago he said one of his US stamps was worth $40k. He knew other relatives would sell his albums before we could obtain them, so he removed the sheets from the album, stuffed them in a drawer (so they didn't appear valuable), and told my mother where the sheets were - but not which stamp it was. I received the sheets, but as a kid I wasn't able to determine which stamp it was from my Scott catalog. I did find one stamp with potential, but I came to the conclusion that the grill size was wrong and something like 2mm was the difference between $40k and $4. To this day I have no idea if there's a valuable stamp in the pile, but I've decided to not find out since a) I don't trust anyone with the stamps and b) I'd rather have the mystery than the suspected disappointment.

 

nope - Lansky. It looks like their first auction was in October 2019, so they are relatively new. I am having trouble finding a website (which is a red flag, I guess), but they are on Biddr and SixBid:

https://www.sixbid.com/en/lansky/85...=large&auctionSessions=&sidebarIsSticky=false

They did their first few auctions in partnership with another auction house iBelgica. I'm not that familiar with them either.

 

Lansky. New auction house out of Estonia (red flag?).
https://www.sixbid.com/en/companies/lansky

 

I'm new to ancient coin collecting, but the following are basic principles I use for buying.

1) Don't buy off EBay
2) Don't buy off EBay
3) Don't buy from any company in a non-German speaking country east of Germany.
4) For all but the cheapest coins, check the Forum known fakes first
5) Only buy from companies that a CT/Internet search reveals several positive reviews and no negative ones.

I know several Estonians, have visited to Estonia, and my company has an office there. They make amazing sweaters, but no way would I ever buy a coin from there.

 

Funny seeing the Rochester, NY address! I grew up just south of there in Rush, NY. My grandfather, from whom I received Luxembourg citizenship, collected stamps from when he was a kid - mostly the US and Luxembourg. He got me involved in stamp collecting and many a summer I pored through his albums. Once a year for my birthday, I was given an allowance of $25 to buy stamps from a store in Midtown Mall. It was the only time of year we went downtown. I would spend months analyzing price lists to decide which to buy. I mainly focused on smaller countries since I figured they were like Luxembourg.

When he passed away, I was given the choice between his albums and two golden eagles. For me, the choice was simple.

I still have his US album, though it's at my parents' house. His Luxembourg album was unfortunately grabbed and sold by an unscrupulous relative before I could receive it. Since then, I've focused on rebuilding his Luxembourg album and also collecting from the former Soviet Union.

I stopped adding to the collection several years ago when I picked up photography (expensive hobby), and now that I collect ancient coins I have no idea when I'll pick it up again. However, it does seem like stamp collectors are dwindling, so perhaps the prices will go down enough some day that I can resume.

One final piece of mystery: before my grandfather died 30 years ago he said one of his US stamps was worth $40k. He knew other relatives would sell his albums before we could obtain them, so he removed the sheets from the album, stuffed them in a drawer (so they didn't appear valuable), and told my mother where the sheets were - but not which stamp it was. I received the sheets, but as a kid I wasn't able to determine which stamp it was from my Scott catalog. I did find one stamp with potential, but I came to the conclusion that the grill size was wrong and something like 2mm was the difference between $40k and $4. To this day I have no idea if there's a valuable stamp in the pile, but I've decided to not find out since a) I don't trust anyone with the stamps and b) I'd rather have the mystery than the suspected disappointment.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the interesting post, you sound like a serious collector (Philatelist) in a hobby that's slowly dying .

 

OK some news.

On Biddr, the lots have been withdrawn. However, on the Katz website, the coins are still for sale with "Collectors Copy" added to the listings.

Most of the fakes currently have bids, unfortunately

 

Almost all have been marked. I notice that the Constans galley from Siscia is still there.

 

I’m not sure, but I have concerns about this coin too. The style of this type can vary a lot, but the coin below shows a style that looks strangely off to me, but again I can be completely wrong. I would not have posted the coin, if the auctionhouse had not just withdraw a whole lot of forgeries.

https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=4813&lot=49

 

My fear is that a many dealers are moving such a large number of coins on the net that is has become physically and logistically impossible for them to check to see if they are legitimate. They may be knowledgeable and careful and buy their product from resources they believe are reputable but the sheer volume of coins they seem to be marketing militate against them checking out each individual coin close enough to detect the fakes.

 

My fear is that a many dealers are moving such a large number of coins on the net that is has become physically and logistically impossible for them to check to see if they are legitimate. They may be knowledgeable and careful and buy their product from resources they believe are reputable but the sheer volume of coins they seem to be marketing militate against them checking out each individual coin close enough to detect the fakes.

 

Most of these should have been detected by a cursory glance.

 

I agree, most of these fakes should have been detected at first sight. Also, if they can’t detect these fakes, be it because of large volume or lack of experience, then they should not be in the business of handling and auctioning such coins.

 

If you search the Katz auction (on their own site at least) for their euphemism "collectors copy" [sic], there are masses of coins from various time periods including modern Russian. At least the ancients are mostly awful quality fakes, but I assume you'd have to be a bit more knowledgeable to know the moderns were fake too. Katz appears to know exactly what they are selling. I've heard they blamed the lack of "collectors copy" warnings on the ancients on some sort of spreadsheet upload SNAFU, so already knew they were fake before the complaints came flooding in.

It's interesting to see the different response on the different platforms. On their own site Katz have just added their trademark "collectors copy" labels. biddr.com made them remove the coins, and so far on SixBid nothing has changed.

 

I have dealt with Katz two times, and that was one too much.

 

This is what he has posted on Facebook. So convincing!

Станислав Кац
Dear colleagues. When we were concatenating the auction lots excel table, a failure occurred and the remarks we added about copies into separate cell simply were not included. Thank you so much for your vigilance and help. We have already fixed everything on our site and sent out our changes to all other platforms. Obviously we did not want to mislead or trick anyone. You know that we always mark copies as collectors copies to inform market of possible forgeries. If you see more errors, please let me know. We have a new bidding platform and can throw out mistakes like this or with bidding process.
Respectfully, Katz Stanislav

 

Он думает, что мы глупы?