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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Orielensis, post: 7654011, member: 96898&quot;]I&#039;ve had <u>good experiences</u> with:</p><p><br /></p><p><b>CNG</b>: In my eyes, CNG is the gold standard for buying ancient coins at auction in the US. They are absolutely reliable, very knowlegdeable, and as professional as it gets. Their coins tend to be expensive, though.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>AMCC</b>: A favorite place to buy coins, which is run by [USER=84744]@Severus Alexander[/USER]. Many coins previously owned by CT members are sold there. It&#039;s obvious that a lot of diligence and effort go into AMCC&#039;s online catalogues and photography. They offer a lifetime guarantee of authenticity. I&#039;m very much looking forward to AMCC 3, which I hear is going to go online very soon!</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Artemide</b>: They tend to have an interesting mixture of ancient coins, including medium and lower grades. Their Vienna branch (Artemide Kunstauktionen) ships from Austria, the main auction house (Artemide Aste) from San Marino. I&#039;ve purchased from them often and never had any reason to complain. A while ago, a very deceptive fake was spotted in one of their auctions by another forum member, and they immediately pulled it and apologized after I contacted them. That speaks in their favor.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Tauler &amp; Fau</b>: I buy from them frequently and was always happy with their service. Their auctions usually have very reasonable starting prices and include good Roman Republican selections, which I&#039;m partial to. When some coins I won (value c. $200) vanished in the shipping chaos caused by Covid, they went to great lengths to recover the parcel and make sure the coins arrived in the end. They are based in Spain, which can cause shipping delays due to export bureaucracy.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Savoca</b>: In their &quot;blue&quot; auctions, they sell a great number of ancient coins in various grades, at low starting prices, and with minimal attributions that you should probably check before bidding. Something for bargain hunters. Savoca is based in Munich. They ship extremely fast using FedEx and accept PayPal with no additional fees.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Frank S. Robinson</b>: His website, auction catalogues, and business practice are old-fashioned and sometimes a little quirky. At least for the most part, I appreciate that. All coins I bought from him were better than expected, and Frank is upstanding, honest, and fun to deal with.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Ken Dorney</b>: A sympathetic coin dealer who sometimes does auctions on biddr. Reliable and recommendable.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Kölner Münzkabinett</b>: A well-respected and larger German firm with more than fifty years of experience in selling ancient coins. On occasion, they do auctions on biddr. Their starting prices and fees are reasonable, and their service is top notch.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Teutoburger Münzauktionen</b>: A long-standing and experienced German auction house. Their auctions consist mostly of medieval and &quot;serious&quot; world coins as well as a small ancients section. I bought from them several times and had only positive experiences. They ship to the US at reasonable costs.</p><p><br /></p><p>I had <u>okay or neutral experiences</u> with <b>Leu</b>, whose coins and service I can&#039;t complain about, although I find their practice of sending out massive amounts of advertising e-mails and physical mail somewhat obtrusive. <b>Aureo&amp;Calico </b>at one point &quot;lost&quot; a bid that I entered via their website. This might have been a software glitch but was still irksome.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for <u>negative experiences</u>, <b>Lanz</b> has absolutely no scruples to sell fakes or heavily tooled coins – caveat emptor! I haven&#039;t bought from <b>Zeus/Biga/Demos/Ares </b>etc. personally, but they appear to be run by the same person using different names, have often offered heavily tooled and other problem coins, and are at least somewhat intransparent in their business practice. <b>Emporium </b>(Hamburg, Germany) has offered large amounts of migration period fakes in their auctions and was apparently more than reluctant to pull them. I once bought an authentic bracteate from them but now make sure to stay away from their auctions.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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