Athenian Owl Tetradrachms

I am thinking about buying some Athenian Owl tetradrachms and found these.

Are they real?

What is your estimated value?

Where is a good place to buy an Owl tetradrachm?

Thanks

 

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CNG

 

I'm far from expert but I would say fake, fake, fake and maybe real on those.

 

Try Vcoins.com. They have a big selection. I would avoid ebay if you're not familiar enough with ancients.

 

agreed, fake

 

Those look suspicious to be casts.

I would look on vcoins.com. They have reputable dealers who are required to guarantee their coins for life.

Nice owls cost $750 or more. If these are cheaper, that is a bad sign.

Buying ancients from eBay from sellers you don't know makes it fairly likely you are buying a fake, especially for more expensive coins.

 

These are not on Ebay. They are from a very large auction site dealing with a very large amount of ancient artifacts. The coins are in the $600+ range.

 

The examples you posted all look suspect to me on the basis of style/surface.

I would say almost any major auction that deals in ancients will have a few of these on offer. I agree that CNG is a great place to look. They have a few on there right now.

https://www.cngcoins.com/Coins.aspx?CONTAINER_TYPE_ID=2&VIEW_TYPE=0

Vcoins is also a good place to look. My advice is not to go in looking to score a deal from a less well known source. It will save you money and headaches in the long run to pay fair market value. Classic tets are one of if not the most faked ancient coin.

 

At least three are fake.

 

I wouldn't recommend buying a single thing from this auction house whoever they are. They obviously don't care about authenticity or are just incompetent. When it comes to sellers both are equally bad and both reasons to run in the other direction.

 

Yes. Fakes. I have researched the site and its owner. Large store in New York City. Known for selling fakes. Thanks everyone. Dodged a bullet there. I will stick to Agora or Vcoins~

 

@MerlinAurelius, which auction house is it? It's good for me to try and keep track of such things.

 

Sadigh Gallery The site looks quite legit but I guess I am not as good at recognizing fakes as I thought...

 

Yeah I'd stay far away from that seller. Some of the pictures only show one side with descriptions like "Bronze coin with the head of the ruler. On the reverse inscriptions." No references or nothing lol pretty shit tbh.

 

Learning to judge sellers is a similar process to learning to judge coins(and to accurately judge sellers, you need to be able to judge their coins and this takes lots of practice) and this is why we harp on buying from sellers like Vcoins, CNG, Agora, etc. for new collectors so much. Don't feel too bad, just buy from good sellers and try to learn as much about coins as you can and don't get sucked into buying coins from questionable sellers because you see what you think is a good deal.

 

Also as another tip: I highly recommend looking up any coins you're considering purchasing in CNG's Sold Coins Archive. CNG is in my opinion, in the top tier of sellers. They do occasionally make mistakes but rarely, and they are one of the best sellers about pointing out things like tooling, smoothing, etc and are a good place to try to get a feel for the style, weight, etc of authentic examples of a given coin type and importantly, their archives are completely free.

 

Here is a real one to scrub the stench of feces from our nostrils after having been exposed to that pile of refuse.

I'm glad you came to us to ask for guidance before departing with good coin in exchange for the fake offerings by those thieves.


*Mine is a later coin with different styling on Athena, instead of the earlier archaic design with the bug eyed Athena you might be more familiar with.

 

Great advice. I will definitely do that. Saturday morning already here in South Korea~~~

 

Beautiful thank you for that. I hope this thread can turn into something positive about Athenian Owl Tetradrachms. If I find some others I'd like to purchase I will post here first!!! Thanks everyone!!!

 

You guys every buy from Forum Ancient Coins? They don't have Owl Tetradrachms but I'm wondering what you guys think of the site?