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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;sand, post: 7756469, member: 118540&quot;]I have mixed emotions about Ilya.</p><p>The cons :</p><p>1. His coin prices seem unusually high. But not stupid-Ebay, ethically-questionable high. Not like $150,000-for-a-crappy-looking-worn-common-coin-from-Egypt high. However, I am basing this statement, on his Byzantine coins, which I used to look at frequently, back in 2019. I&#039;m not familiar with his high end Greek stuff.</p><p>2. I don&#039;t know, why he believes, that he needs to pretend, that his coins are highly discounted. Back when I used to shop on Ebay a lot, back when I was an ancient coin newbie, which was a couple of years ago in 2019, it seemed like he periodically jacked up the prices of his coins, just so he could drop the prices soon afterward, and claim that the prices were discounted. One day, a coin&#039;s price, would be twice as high, as it was, the day before. Then, soon after that, the coin&#039;s price, would drop back down, to its usual &quot;discounted&quot; price, with a slash through the jacked up price, and saying &quot;save 50%&quot;, or something similar. This seems ethically questionable, although somewhat ridiculous. Who cares, whether a coin is &quot;on sale&quot; or not? I just care, about the price, of the coin. I&#039;m not the type of person, who buys something, just because it is advertised as being &quot;on sale&quot;. However, I know, that some persons, fall for this sort of marketing. I don&#039;t know, if Ilya still does this. If he does, then it is his biggest downside, as far as I know.</p><p>3. Maybe he believes, that his niche, is the newbie market.</p><p>4. Maybe it&#039;s difficult, to make a decent amount of money, if you only sell on Ebay, and don&#039;t sell on more numismatically responsible web sites. Maybe he has to have high prices, in order to cover the expense, of some Ebay customers, who fraudulently claim, that they never received the coins they paid for. I don&#039;t know.</p><p>5. Maybe he pays more, than most dealers, for the coins he buys, and therefore has to pass the cost on, when he sells the coins. I don&#039;t know.</p><p>The pros :</p><p>1. I have really enjoyed watching his Youtube videos. Here is one of my favorite Ilya Youtube videos, about Byzantine coins :</p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]At2mR_tJ4Yc[/MEDIA]</p><p>2. His coins seem to be authentic, as far as I can tell. However, I am only familiar with his Byzantine coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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