Glued fake "patina" raises price from $1,500 to $5,900

Either does lacquer. However, now its use has fallen out of favor and lacquered coins get "detailed." Now don't get me wrong, I admire "coin doctors" in every degree they come in.

 

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20 years ago, green was the fake patina du jour. A pretty artificial patina can distract from a multitude of sins including skillful tooling. Caveat emptor.

 

I guess I mean in terms of appearance - both drastic alter the appearance and both are generally reversible.

 

Surprised no one brings them up in discussions about fake sand patina, but a certain “S” dealer on Vcoins also has a suspiciously high amount of coins with what looks like sand applied onto them.

 

I agree. Ren wax is something completely different to glueing a modern sand patina to a coin.

I am a bit divided on the issue: On the one hand, I would not consciously buy such a coin, no matter how much I want a Constantine Spes Publica. Or at least, I would only buy it at a massive discount, even to the untreated original.

On the other hand, if people are happy to buy these coins at a premium that takes off some price pressure. More coins are available, so the price for the real thing may be lowered as well, which, at least from a buyer's perspective, is a good thing.

From a historical numismatic perspective there is probably no disagreement. Glueing something modern to an ancient object is a complete no go.

 

Here is a coin that I bought back in early to mid 2000s from a seller called "monneron". There was a lot of discussion at the time about whether the coins from this seller were real or not and then a separate discussion on their patination, which was generally this waxy, green with varying degrees of coverage and thickness.



I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the coin. It is stylistically correct and there are no signs of casting etc. Many however questioned the authenticity of the entire "hoard" / "collection" due to the nature and mix of coins being offered where there were simply too many scarce / rare varieties being offered. Others questioned the style of some coins. As a result of this many rejected the entire offering as "fake" whilst others came to the conclusion that if they are all fake then a master craftsman was at play producing many coins that were metallurgically correct and of correct style from a whole array of dies. Some dealers refused to entertain any coins with this patina whilst others accepted them as real.

With regards to the patina... it may be an attribute of the find situation (chemicals in the soil for example) or as a result of the cleaning process. The patina doesn't bother me in this case as I removed part of it to find perfectly normal toned bronze beneath. It was not applied to hide anything and really didn't achieve anything if the intention was to enhance the look of the coin. I still have the coin as shown in the image above.

I think that there are several pages online dedicated to these coins which come to a variety of conclusions. I seem to recall that some coins were authenticated by Sear (with full disclosure around the doubts surrounding the coins), others were processed by cgb.fr whilst others were provided by the seller to Frederic Weber for his analysis and opinion.

 

A very interesting post about that hoard. It's the first time I've heard about it since I am not a "serious" collector of ancients. I vote fake patina as it looks more like a "wash" of some kind; however, I've see enough things on coins to know that "Mother Nature" can do some strange things - many of which look perfectly artificial. Since we were not around, who knows anything for sure.

 

I have several coins from a Serbian source that all have a similar mottled green appearance. They don't appear to be fake, or applied, I believe the cleaning method used led to the similar appearance across most of these coins.

 

This looks like real "patina" to me. Also, I'd expect coins from the same location to look similar because they were probably exposed to the same conditions.

 

Ha, I remember the Monneron controversy! At the end of the day, wasn't it decided that the odd patinas were the result of French soil conditions and unorthodox cleaning methods?

 

Agree with some of the other users here, Ren Wax is more of a sealer. I personally find the practice of adding patina to a coin to be highly misleading as it hides details that could or would be a deal breaker for me personally. I see it as false advertisement of condition, even if they add the note "re-patina". Not saying the coin wouldn't be authentic, just saying that there may be corrosion that would have made me change my mind on making a purchase.

If other collectors like it, that's fine, it is their money to spend however they wish.

 

I agree that Ren Wax is not a repatina, but it certainly changes the appearance of the coin in an extremely drastic manner, as drastic IMO as an applied patina.
End of the day, if a coin is more pretty one way or the other, and people are willing to pay, then so be it?

 

Heck, we have pink sand dunes here in Utah down by Zion National Park. I took the family there for our first post hibernation trip. It doesn't ever show up as pink as it is in real life.
Here is Alexander with teddy (we accidently left the bear at our airbnb... little guy was inconsolable!):


For the record, I am not a fan of fake applied patina at all. In my eyes it's cheesy and used to hide coins imperfections which makes it shady as well.
Do these two coins have fake applied patina?
I suppose I'll never know.

 

I have seen many pictures of "red sand" patina coming out of the ground that way. So I in no way doubt it can happen naturally.

Having said that, ever notice most of these "sandy patina" coins are in actuality low grade? I think tons of low grade ancients have this applied to make it look more attractive. I buy sandy patina coins, but NEVER pay extra for it, and judge the coins on their true level of preservation, not pleasant contrasting appearance. I have many VF/XF examples I believe are natural since the patina actually gets in the way, and the coin would be better off with it removed. Most I have seen posted here are simply VG/F coins, coins I am much more leery of with this patina. I especially question it when its "perfect", the patina highlighting every high aspect yet is fully covering fields. Most natural ones are either too thick, obscuring devices, or splotchy in the fields. "Perfect" versions of the patina on VG/F coins I assume is fake.

 

I remember this as well. I was in the "natural" camp. Any single find can have some weird chemistry going on over 1700 years. I never considered the toning that attractive, so why would they fake it?

 

A few years ago, before I knew about these deceptive practices, I purchased this Uranius from Athena/ Salem:


I’ve looked everywhere, but I cannot find an image from previous auctions showing what the coin originally looked like before it had the sand applied.

I’m not unhappy to have a Uranius - but given it was very expensive, the alteration should have been disclosed. Maybe I wouldn’t have paid so much.

Athena / Salem gets called on this practice regularly via complaints to vcoins - which inspires him to add “desert patina applied” to some of his listings for a little while, before forgetting to do it altogether.

 

Ryro, posted: Heck, we have pink sand dunes here in Utah down by Zion National Park."

Please send some to me.

For the record, I am not a fan of fake applied patina at all. In my eyes it's cheesy and used to hide coins imperfections which makes it shady as well.
Do these two coins have fake applied patina?
I suppose I'll never know.

I vote yes for at least one of them.

 

That is always the problem with fake patina, sand or not. I was educated by a dealer who started in the 40's. He said the reason the market in the 60s and 70s preferred dipped coins was toning was very regularly applied to hide imperfections.

That is definitely part of it. However, I still assert its to make a low grade coin much more attractive. Like I said, most of these coins, if you truly look at the details versus attractive highlighting, are VG or F coins. Its almost never a gVF or XF under the sand. To me its simply a way to market mass common coins in low grade. Of course the OP coin is not common, but most of these are.

If I want to pay for attractive patina I will choose a glossy green sestertius or a rare blue toned coin. "Sandy patina" is not patina at all, and simply forces me to pay more attention to the real grade underneath.

 

I have bought a couple coins of Roman Egypt from a certain Z. They didn't have patina applied. But I see from the selection of LRB's that they all seem to have a sandy patina. This dude seems to have cornered the market on Roman Egypt coins because they have so many, some kind of supply pipeline between Egypt today and this guy, who also is located in the middle east. That said, caveat emptor.

 

..ahaha!.. the 1st thought in the educated coin collectors mind