The hunt for a pocket piece owl goes on... There is a flood of low grade owls on eBay from two sellers: Zurqieh and Eternitycoin. The owls from Zurqieh are substantially underweight. I’ve dealt with him before on VCoins without issue, but I’ve never seen owls that light (11 - 15 grams?). Eternitycoin generally deals in slabbed, optimistically priced US coins, and these are the first ancients I’ve seen offered (though of course that doesn’t mean there haven’t been others). For those reasons both give me pause, but I’m interested in what folks think. Worth a look?
I just bought one from EternityCoin 2 weeks ago. His photos tend to have a lot of noise and a yellow hue. They look a lot better in hand. I got lucky on mine. It was described as a 454 to 404 BC that most of us are familiar with; but it was a transitional type, 465-454 BC. I can't speak to Zurqieh's lots; but he seems to have a poor reputation spanning about 13 years; if you google his name. As far as a pocket piece is concerned. Were you planning on slabbing it? I wouldn't carry anything worth over $50 in my pocket.
There is a big hoard of Athens tets just come to market. From what I have seen they are all good ef and all above $1,000 retail. Now would be the time to get a cheap one. Prices tend to move up when this happens. Lower priced examples move up as they look cheap compared to the expensive ones.
That's an interesting dynamic, Ken, and one I've heard of before but haven't been collecting long enough to see it in action. Do you think that dynamic will still hold true once word gets out about the incredible number of these "new" Athens tets?... more than 20,000 (per several sources)? I was hoping that once everyone knew just how many there are, prices would decline. Surely the best of them will be offered by dealers first, so I'm going to wait a year or two and see what happens.
I have noticed a flow of owls with the same distinguishing surfaces hitting the market since 2 years now. It started with CNG, then HA, then ROMA and I think now several dealers have them. On my inquiries -which were not on their numbers- but from purely an scientific point of view no one could tell me the place origin of these hoards. I would not be surprised if these are stolen from museums in Syria.
I’m not sure of the exact number but there are a lot of them. In the past with big boards coins do get set aside. Some people hold onto them for a couple decades before selling. But each hoard is different and prices sometimes do not go down. Only time will tell how it works out.
That would be a tragedy! Looting and destruction of World Heritage sites is really a crime against humanity. Welcome to the Ancients Forum @pprp !
I appreciate the heads up, I would have expected exactly the opposite to occur, with lower grade examples getting squeezed out.
Indeed. One my disappointments is that the find location of the coin isn’t included as part of its provenance. I would be very interested in learning where a particular coin was found, possibly traveling some distance from where it was minted. In cases of looting that provenance would be false, of course, but for the legitimate finds it would add to our knowledge and the appeal of the coin.
Absolutely! Knowing where a coin was found relative to it's place of origin would be fascinating. Welcome to the Ancients Forum @Silverlock !
Not going to slab it, carry it in a leather pouch attached to my keychain. My concern with Zurqieh's lots are how underweight the coins are. They are drachm weight in some cases. I don’t know what to make of that. Glad to hear you had success with eternitycoin (a transitional type is a nice find!), a few of the cheapest owls could fit the bill.
