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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;nerosmyfavorite68, post: 24855537, member: 134416&quot;][MEDIA=youtube]eQH26rmLCIc[/MEDIA]</p><p><br /></p><p>Aaron Berk, a well-known ancients dealer, discussed the raw/slab markets, and the differences between the ancient market and the U.S. markets, respectively.&nbsp; And just so there won&#039;t be any surprises, Mr. Berk, like most collectors of ancients, isn&#039;t a slab fan.&nbsp; The meat of the discussion starts about 26 minutes in, and the table&#039;s at 29 minutes.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m not trying to stir up controversy; I just thought that the differences between the two markets are interesting.&nbsp; I generally agreed with his table for the ancient side of collecting.&nbsp; My two main criteria for my coin buys are, can I afford it and do I like it?&nbsp; Condition (within reason) isn&#039;t very important (although I generally won&#039;t buy something really horrendous or with bronze disease). Or, more accurately, stated grade isn&#039;t too important to me.&nbsp; Many ancients listings don&#039;t even have&nbsp; a stated grade.</p><p><br /></p><p>If one overlooks his barbs at slabbing, it&#039;s a rather interesting discussion in philosophies.&nbsp; Full disclosure, I generally don&#039;t collect modern (non-struck) coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>I tune into the podcast mostly for the &quot;Doofus buy&quot;, when he lampoons an auction buyer for having spent way too much on an ancient coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Most fixed-price ancients dealers have raw coins, although the slabs are more common at my local coin store, and those are my only slabs. My favorites from the local store have always been the raw ones (different supplier).</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s a couple of examples of where stated grade wasn&#039;t the most important thing to me:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1593285[/ATTACH] </p><p>Q. Cassius Longinus, AR Denarius, 55 B.C.</p><p><br /></p><p>This was one of the few coins which I fell in love with instantly when I saw the listing.&nbsp; The ghastly damage was probably done by a plow, when the coin was in the ground (common).&nbsp; The beautiful artistry of the obverse and the lovely toning is what sealed it for me, and the coin was c. $65.&nbsp; The issue is also relatively expensive in high grade.&nbsp; If the damage had been on the obverse, I wouldn&#039;t have bought it.</p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s definitely one of my favorite buys of the year and I like it better than coins which cost five times as much.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1593287[/ATTACH] </p><p>This is a Gordian III Sestertius.&nbsp; While I usually go for patinas lovelier than this, I bought the coin for <i>only</i> its patina, which I found intriguing and quite different.&nbsp; The coin also came with a 1990&#039;s tag from a dealer in Rome.</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin wasn&#039;t the star of that order. It was just a throw-in.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m not going to post too many pictures, it&#039;s a bit of a pain to have to copy and paste the picture to a temp folder and rename it.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m not sure if it was in this particular podcast, but Aaron Berk also brought up how difficult it often is to put a grade on an ancient coin.&nbsp; Here&#039;s an example of a time where it&#039;s rather difficult:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1593288[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>The coin&#039;s not that worn, possibly even XF by wear, but the reverse die was totally worn out, and the obverse die was beginning to go.&nbsp; A grade might be VF/VG.&nbsp; The coin&#039;s also blast-white and lacking toning, which is a minus for me, although I don&#039;t mind as much on common Antoninianii.</p><p><br /></p><p>And let&#039;s take the Cassius Longinus denarius.&nbsp; Without the damage, it would be relatively easy to grade, VF/F+ by my old-school grading, or a liberal VF.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or, (too lazy to post a picture), but how would one even grade an uncleaned ancient coin?&nbsp; I went through a phase this year where I&#039;d pick up examples of coins less encountered in an uncleaned state, like AR Tetradrachms, etc.</p><p><br /></p><p>(And that also brings up differences in what gets assigned a certain grade).&nbsp; Many fixed-price modern dealers, especially the European ones, often assign a laughably high grade in their listings of ancients, not that many collectors really take much note of it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Insofar as Byzantines (I&#039;m too lazy to go through the rigamorole of copying and renaming), the AE&#039;s generally looked like crap (my mother dubbed them &#039;slag heaps&#039;) the day they left the mint (with exceptions).&nbsp; I buy those because I&#039;m interested in the history.</p><p><br /></p><p>Like many collectors of ancients, I buy the coins not for investment, but because I like them.&nbsp; It&#039;s a hobby.</p><p><br /></p><p>I brought it up, not to aggravate U.S. collectors, but to bring up interesting collecting philosophy differences.&nbsp; What factors drive your collecting?</p><p><br /></p><p>Ancients might not be your thing, which is totally okay.&nbsp; I&#039;m asking people steeped in U.S./modern collecting; did you think his comments (based upon the &#039;How are they sold?&#039; table at 29 minutes in) about slabs/the U.S. market were BS, something in-between, etc.?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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