Buy help required.

Hi Everyone,
I'm quite new to ancient coins...
I'm interested in buying Ancient Rome Julius Ceasar Elephant Denarius but not really sure if it's genuie.
It seems to be quite a good example, could anyone advise? I'm quite worry as there is a lot fakes of this coin.
I wasn't able on any auction to find exactly same coin... always some diffrences.

Dimensions: 18 mm Weight: 3.41 grams

 

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Looks like a fake of this.

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/fakes/displayimage.php?pos=-6923

 

I don't like it either, sorry.

 

what about those ones?

 

I am not an expert by any means. I am not sure about the Trajan, possible pearls on the obverse. If I find a seller with a fake. I walk away. Is this on eBay?

 

I have to agree. I find I suspect all coins when a dealer is found selling a fake until proven otherwise.

 

I'm with Pishpash. I believe both are fakes but I am less certain and really don't care about the Trajan. People who are 'quite new' should not be buying from sellers who have a mix of good and bad. If you want a Caesar elephant, you will find a genuine one with a little looking from reliable sources but it will not be cheap due to the popularity of the coin. Trajan's coins both nicer looking and certainly genuine are not at all hard to find and not expensive. 'Walk away' is a skill we all need to develop.

 

Try looking on vcoins.com and avoid ebay until you are much more knowledgeable or know which sellers to trust.

 

Hi it is ebay actually.
I've retracted all my bids as I'm really uncertain.
There is link to seller:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/trinvestment?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

Some of them looking pretty good authentic.

 

You have gotten some very good advice on this thread. If you choose to ignore it, that is up to you.

 

They may look good to you but you are very new to ancient coins as you mentioned in your first post. Until you've handled several coins and spent some time studying authentic coins as well as fakes, I highly recommend against buying anything on eBay. There are plenty of good sellers and good coins on there, but there are also a number of fakesellers and fakes and you cannot trust the feedback system, so you have to learn both how to spot a suspect coin and how to spot a suspect seller and there is no shortcut for either one.

Because of this, my recommendation is to stick with sellers on Vcoins, sellers in the for sale section here and auction houses like CNG, Roma, Agora, etc. If an eBay seller is recommended by a collector here on the forum they're probably a safe bet as well but I would shy away from other sellers on eBay for the time being. Too many new collectors fall into the same trap of buying their first coins on eBay and find out later that they're fakes.

 

This seller is on his second ID. He has a feedback of 9 and his sales are "Private" (red flag). He sells all sorts of "antiquities", all look dodgy to me. If you buy from him, I fear you will be disappointed in the long run. He has a few low grade coins which look OK, but personally I won't support a seller who sells fakes.

 

I've give it up, I've retracted my bids.

thank you very much for yours advice.

 

A wise decision @boro, by all means post coins you are interested in for advice, ebay is a minefield for newbies. Before making bids, you should always check to see whether they are on the FORVM's fake sellers list.

When I see a seller I haven't dealt with before, I check their feedback, whether they have had other ID's and also their other items.

 

good advice buy from good sites, only you have to pay

 

A good place to start, but not the most reliable. If a buyer returns a coin because it turns out to be fake, feedback can't be left. Better, like you said, to check the fake sellers list, and then check FAC's fake database.

 

Exactly. There are many fakesellers with impeccable feedback because eBay doesn't care if they're selling fakes as long as they return money when customers complain.

 

I fully accept that, but if we try and put everything down, it would be like War and Peace

 

sad times

 

Thoughts on this coin?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/332328306824