Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;nerosmyfavorite68, post: 24858540, member: 134416&quot;]It&#039;s interesting how ancient and U.S./modern collectors go about things in the opposite way, generally speaking.</p><p><br /></p><p>1) Cleaning - I believe cleaning is a no-no for U.S. coins.&nbsp; The only U.S. coins I have are circulation coins, so I&#039;m going off what I hear.</p><p><br /></p><p>All ancient coins are from the ground (or sea).&nbsp; Cleaning has to be done, in the great majority of the cases.&nbsp; It&#039;s how much or how skillful the cleaning was, and what shape the coin was in when discovered.&nbsp; Stripping the patina (like the Heraclius Seleucia above) is frowned upon, but sometimes it can&#039;t be helped.</p><p><br /></p><p>*Here&#039;s some uncleaned or partially uncleaned ones.&nbsp; I wanted to assemble a set of &#039;befores&#039; for different denominations.&nbsp; The large AR Tetradrachms are very difficult to find uncleaned. There are cases where a coin looks better uncleaned.</p><p><br /></p><p>The top two are silver Denarii.&nbsp; The bottom one is actually a shekel, but it&#039;s the closest thing to a Greek tetradrachm that I could find, uncleaned.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Cleaning the top two would just result in unremarkable coins.&nbsp; These two have eons more interest as remaining uncleaned.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1593871[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1593872[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1593873[/ATTACH]</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>**I suppose that some 18th/19th century U.S. coins are ground finds.&nbsp; Wouldn&#039;t they have to be cleaned?</p><p><br /></p><p>2) Grading. As I mentioned earlier, stated grade isn&#039;t too important to most ancient collectors.&nbsp; Probably 80% of posts on numisforums, no matter how expensive, don&#039;t have a stated grade.&nbsp; There&#039;s a difference between grade and condition. There&#039;s cases where condition goes out the window.&nbsp; I&#039;d rather have a Brutus EID MAR denarius in clear Good (clear outline present, but otherwise good fields) than an EF Marcus Aurelius Sestertius.</p><p><br /></p><p>U.S./modern - Stated grade is very important,and even tiny grade fractions can make a big difference.</p><p><br /></p><p>3) Slabs - (mostly covered earlier) related to stated grade. I&#039;m told that the purpose of slabbing is to preserve the grade.&nbsp; I.e. that no substitutions are made (although I&#039;ve heard of funny business).</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;d guesstimate that about 80% of ancient collectors don&#039;t like slabs, to various degrees. I&#039;m also told that it&#039;s more of a U.S. thing, and not as much in Europe.</p><p><br /></p><p>3) Errors.&nbsp; A mint error can make a U.S. coin valuable.&nbsp; It&#039;s generally more of a curiosity with ancient coins (or can decrease the value).&nbsp; I generally avoid them.</p><p><br /></p><p>4) Toning/patina; Here&#039;s where we have a similarity.&nbsp; Both fields enjoy coins with good toning/patinas.&nbsp; I think some of those Morgan dollars with rainbow toning have been helped along (a certain dealer in ancients gives his silver something like naval jelly, to get the rainbow look).</p><p><br /></p><p>Oh yeah, phoney patinas are often frowned upon.&nbsp; But, with a coin which HAD to be stripped (because of BD or something), I&#039;d rather have a faux patina than no patina.&nbsp; There&#039;s a couple of ancients dealers who are notorious for often having an orange patina.</p><p><br /></p><p>5) Rarity; It definitely can be important with ancients.&nbsp; Like the Aaron Berk podcast touches on, there&#039;s also times where it&#039;s not.</p><p><br /></p><p>6) Provenance - While I can appreciate a stellar provenance, it isn&#039;t greatly important to me, but it is to many collectors of ancients. I&#039;m not sure about U.S., but I suppose a good provenance wouldn&#039;t hurt.</p><p><br /></p><p>7) Tooling - I.e. re-engraving a design.&nbsp; Generally a big no-no in ancients.&nbsp; I don&#039;t like tooling.&nbsp; I would assume that tooling would totally ruin value for a U.S. coin.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>*There&#039;s also a gray area in ancients to what is tooling because they have to be cleaned of dirt. Is removing corrosion tooling?&nbsp; That&#039;s a gray area. I&#039;m talking about the egregious examples when I mention tooling.&nbsp; I also don&#039;t like smoothing of fields.</p><p><br /></p><p>8) Value guides. While some ancients references have stated prices (more as a rarity guide), there&#039;s no value guide for ancients.</p><p><br /></p><p>Are there any other factors which I&#039;m forgetting about?&nbsp; I don&#039;t collect U.S. coins, so I don&#039;t really know what makes a U.S. collector excited.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in