Hello all! I am new to both cointalk and collecting world coins in general so first of all I want to say thank you in advance for the benefit of all your collective numismatic knowledge Anyway, I think I may have made my first rookie mistake. I bought this 1874 A 50 Lepta (Greece) coin on eBay and then noticed that the seller had another Greek coin of the same vintage that was pointed out as fake in the eBay comments. After seeing this I realized I don't have the knowledge to tell if mine is real or not. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks again!
Looks good to me. It's not a rare coin so it's unlikely to be fake. Many Greek coins from the 19th century are rare, but this isn't one of them. Here's what mine looks like. Yours looks just like it.
The coin appears genuine. Did you purchase it from an eastern European seller? It's a common practice for a lot of those sellers to sell fake and problem coins alongside genuine ones.
Thank you for your response! I thought it unlikely that anyone would bother to fake these low priced coins but knowing that there were questions on some of the sellers other offerings made me wonder. Plus the coin is in the right weight range and diameter. On a related note I'm curious to learn more about what separates a G/F coin from a details coin. I know mechanical damage and improper cleaning are common distinguishers but are there other common factors? Which of these applies to my new coin? I would also be interested in any books or resources you recommend on grading so I can continue learning the finer points of grading! Much appreciate the response. Curtis
Looks OK to me. The greyish toning is not displeasing, though I suppose it could be "secondary" toning that resulted after an old cleaning. This coin has a few minor surface issues (scuffs and such) which would probably make it a less than ideal candidate for third-party grading (TPG), i.e., "slabbing", but who cares. This is not the kind of coin that really belongs in a slab anyway (due to its price point), and is no less enjoyable as-is. Slight issues noted, I will say that I actually do like it. I am pretty sure these were struck under contract by the French mint in Paris. The anchor is a French privy mark. PS- welcome!
Hello , In my opinion the coin is not fake ! it is F/F+ , with some money extra you can buy an AU coin without problems , 50 lepta 1874 is an "easy" date of George's A 50 lepta I will upload some photos from my 50 lepta 1874 PCGS MS64+
I think you may be right. The other coin in question was selling for under its typical value as well which is a big red flag. Of course the commenter could have been claiming fake to keep others from bidding against him too. Goes to show that good information and experience is essential in this hobby. This is why I am glad I discovered the forum here
This just popped up in my newsfeed. I am the seller of this coin. I am curious as to which coin was referred to as being fake? If that's the case I'll take it down. One thing to notice that I do tons of $0.99 auctions. What a lot of people don't sell is the fact that everything jumps up pretty significantly in the last few seconds of the auction. As with all my items I have a 30 day no questions asked free return policy. If you have any questions regarding an item feel free to contact me.
I just saw which one you were talking about. Notice that the comment about fakes is dated for September 10th, yet the item wasn't even listed until last week. The problem with eBay reviews is that they are applied to any item with the same date and description. You can have a review for an item that sold years ago, yet the review is applied to a current item of the same type. This causes a huge amount of problems.
Hello Adam, I came on here to get some feedback from the forum because I am new to buying world coins and also brand new to eBay. I will try to go back and find the specific auction in question where the comments mentioned that the coin was fake, I believe it was a 19th century 1 drachma. Of course I would never leave a bad review for someone unless I was sure that I personally had bought a fake coin and even then only if the seller didn't respond in a fair manner. The above feedback from the knowledgeable folks here more than put me at ease and I admitted above that it may have been a bidding strategy by the commenter (if so, not cool). Thank you for coming on to comment and respond to my question.
I see. Being new to eBay I was not aware of that. Still enough to make a nubee a bit apprehensive though! Again thank you for responding.
Yes having reviews on ebay for things like coins is problematic. I recently made a thread about this very thing: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/product-reviews-on-ebay-and-coins.285574/
That's a problem with eBay and coins - a lot of their features really don't apply to coins, but they try to fit everything into the same bucket. I sometimes get emails after a purchase asking me to rate the coin, but of course I ignore it. I'm a little surprised they haven't mandated entering a UPC code to be able to sell coins yet. They started as an online yard sale but now they want to be Amazon.
Hello to all. Coin is 100 percent genuine. I'm very familiar with Greek modern coins as I'm collecting them since 2001.
