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Message:: [QUOTE="Marsyas Mike, post: 3113505, member: 85693"]I really enjoyed this post, both the OP coins and the opinions expressed. As a bottom-feeder collector with a limited budget, I have to say I am perhaps more forgiving of problems than a more serious collector is.  Most of my ancient suffer from some problem or another and yet I enjoy them a lot. There is one comment I'd like to make about damage and pricing.  Years ago (30!) I used to scoop up world crowns with holes or jewelry mounts because dealers back then used to sell them at a fraction of what they were worth (10% catalogue value, or melt).  To this day I search eBay's jewelry sections for such coins.  This way I can get coins I otherwise couldn't afford.  They aren't really "hole fillers" - they are my "permanent" collection! Although I do not collect for investment purposes, I do find that holed or jewelry-marked coins tend to actually be pretty pricey on eBay the past 10 or 15 years.  I recently sold a 1790s Mexico 8 reales for $40.  It was nice-looking but had a hole and I bought it from a local dealer for $8 c. 1995.  This kind of price rise does not seem atypical to me. Ancients are harder to gauge because of the array of "problems" they tend to suffer from.  But my suspicion is that tooling/smoothing isn't a huge issue with mid-range common sestertii on eBay - not so much as at the "real" coin auction houses.[/QUOTE]