Alexander III Drachm re-submission tale

YOU TOO!!!

Well, this has certainly been a lively thread LOL

 

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Hey, tequilaDave ... man, I absolutely love your name, but I don't agree with your slabbed views

oh well, that's an overall score of 50% (congrats on a solid passing grade)

 

And where did you go to school? Given the fact that you blow things up, I wonder if something a little better than 50% might be required (just jokes little brother - I love ya).

 

I'm not at all a collector of ancients. My collection is primarily classic world coins with some US. All coins in my primary collections are slabbed, and while I buy something like 85% of my coins raw, I submit hundreds of coins to NGC each year. I'm also a vest pocket dealer and buy coins on a regular basis for resale.

My responses were based on my experiences dealing with collectors of ancients. I have several friends who are primarily ancients collectors, and have spent time with the local ancients club. While I'm not an expert on ancients, I get them not infrequently from several sources where I regularly buy, and I always resell them. I don't know a single local ancients collector who slabs their ancients, and I've been told by many that a slab is a negative to them when evaluating a coin for purchase.

Is it possible that slabbing a particular ancient would result in a higher price when selling online? Sure. You may, however, get a comparable price selling raw with sufficiently detailed photos. I also think if you regularly dealt in ancients and submitted them in quantity for slabbing, you'd lose money on the whole.

 

Excellent posts, gentlemen...

 

I've passed off on slabbed coins in favor of non-slabbed because as an ancient collector each hand-made coin is unique from even other coins that came from the same die, and you learn quickly that you have to evaluate each coin independently instead of on one uniform standard as you would do modern coins. Slabs get in the way of properly evaluating the coins. For me to buy a coin on a slab, it would have to be substantially better than a non-slabbed coin, and then I would just crack it out. I certainly won't pay more for plastic, so if a dealer is trying to sell me a $50 Roman coin for $80 or $90 to compensate for the slabbing fees, I'll pass.

 

I largely agree with IOM...

The OP simply chose the wrong venue for his question, which would be better received on a forum aimed at making money in hobbies or perhaps on the TPG's forum.

There's nothing wrong with making money from flipping coins-- just don't except the collectors of ancient coins to be interested in or praising of the OP's little coup.

As for the surprise about how it graded, without good images it is difficult to say.

I've seen ugly "AU" coins and beautiful VF coins. Most collectors are more interested in the coin's overall appeal, of which strike, surfaces, and style are important. What appeals to one person may not appeal to another. The history behind a given type of coin, or even of the individual coin, adds another dimension to consider.

With ancients there is more potential for disagreement about the grade since there were so many individual hand-made dies for most coins. That is certainly the case with common coins such as Alexander III drachms.

In my non-scientific observation of price trends through a couple of auction houses "specializing" in slabbed ancients, there appears to be a premium paid if the label says AU or MS-- the premium is beyond what I feel is warranted for the appeal of the coin in most instances, based on overall appeal and by comparisons to prior sales of similar coins. I suspect the buyers are more interested in bragging about the label. (Yes, I'm biased ). Obviously there are times when a slabbed "AU" or "MS" coin is breathtaking and desirable by almost everyone, but not always.

One small bright side about these slab-happy auction houses: sometimes I have been able to nab fantastic coins at good prices because the label didn't say AU or MS-- the coin was ignored as unworthy by those whose collections are dictated by someone else's opinion of grade.