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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 938317, member: 19463&quot;]I get a little humor out of that owl being termed too good to be true.&nbsp; There are a million owl tetradrachms and they include many that make this one look very ordinary.&nbsp; The price on these varies extremely since there are several points of comparison that work against each other.&nbsp; First is date and style.&nbsp; Collectors prize some of the mid 5th century &#039;transitional&#039; coins to the point that they sell for several times a commom Peloponnesian war coin.&nbsp; These have beautiful style and the owl&#039;s tail shows three separate feathers rather than one unified prong.</p><p><a href="http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=392292" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=392292" rel="nofollow">http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=392292</a></p><p>Even the common coins vary in style but centering seems to make more difference.&nbsp; The dies were much too large for the flans.&nbsp; I knew one specialist that would not even look at a coin where the nose or chin touched the edge of the flan.&nbsp; Big money is paid for coins that show all or most of the crest on the helmet.</p><p>These are nice ones:</p><p><a href="http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=14521" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=14521" rel="nofollow">http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=14521</a></p><p><a href="http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=38052" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=38052" rel="nofollow">http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=38052</a></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Wear is not a big problem since these were trade coins and many never circulated spending much of their time in a jar with a thousand just like them.&nbsp; EF examples are not hard to find.&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Some of us like owls with personality and Athena should have a Mona Lisa smile.&nbsp; Coins that fit all these characteristics bring a lot of money.&nbsp; Collectors like me feel lucky to afford a worn coin with a test cut that doesn&#039;t completely wreck the thing.&nbsp; I&#039;ve never owned an owl tetradrachm without a cut and probably never will.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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