Cast Bronze selling for almost $300.00????

Renaissance, yes but then it should be 500 years old, 1850 till now not worth while the effort...I would rather look at a Rafael painting from 1520...hahahahah

 

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This is why I dont put any credibility to Ebay auctions (though many nice provenanced coins sometimes end up there). However, if the buyer asks, the seller (if legitimate provenance) will supply the information. There are so many legitimate collections out there most people wont have any idea what they are.

 

True, but it also a marketing vehicle that seems to be abused. Like encasing ancients in plastic. There is the hobby and then there is the business around the hobby.

Some of the so called collections are just quick hit investors trying to add panache and price to their lots. Buy a bunch of top line coins, hold them, pump them, sell them. These folks exist, it's a business model.

 

Did no one notice that the description on the sale was for a Spes reverse not the one shown in the photo? The photo shows what I have always heard called an 'aftercast' meaning the coin is not an original Paduan but a copy of one. These vary fom early aftercasts that are almost good looking. This may be a not bad relatively early one but It is in no danger of being mistaken for a struck original.

I regret to note that the price is not all that much compared to some of the things we see offered and/or sold these days. Maybe we are to the place that people really don't care if their baubles are real any more than they did in the time that Paduans were created to supply demand for things that can not be had. I have a couple Septimius Severus aftercast fakes of lower value and with no provenance. Of course I didn't pay anywhere near this one either.


Not a Paduan (not in the catalog of the) is this Pertinax sestertius. It is not too recent and not too likely to be something I'll be replacing with a real one either. It cost about the same as some LRB's I've seen. One could have a nice collection of hundreds of 19th century or earlier fakes but demand is getting to the point that it would not be cheap.

 

Replicas and fakes always have their places. For one on a budget they might be very willing to put one in their collection if they cant afford the real thing. And in many instances the real thing is unobtainable. Many British Museum replicas fill spots in collections of the highest caliber.

 

I was going to mention, but Doug hit the nail on the head. I dont think this is a Paduan, but likely a cast made from a paduan (a fake of a fake???). It can be difficult to determine the age of many of these, but they are still collectible. Grand Tour antiquities, while not ancient, are still highly collectible and command good prices, though not much more than 100 years old.

 

I like the equating of these to Grand Tour pieces. They show what I consider to be an interest in ancient coins at a time when some things that were wanted were not available. The obvious leader is the Otho sestertius needed to complete the 12 Caesars series. Most Paduans were medallions rather than coins and I do not recall hearing any suggestion that they were sold as anything they were not. However I also consider genuine first generation Becker fakes as a part of the hobby. The problems with all these things comes hen people start selling them as originals.

 

Doug: Your fake Divus Pertinax sestertius reminds me that in the late 90's I bought a genuine example, but with the funeral pyre reverse, for my collection, for $4,500. I sold it about 10 years ago for $7,500. The collector I sold it to was ecstatic, but it is an extremely rare coin and I rue the day I sold it!

 

Except... as an after cast rather than an original struck Cavino, it isn't an authentic Renaissance medal either.

Phil Davis

 

Part of the reason I bought that one is I owned a worn Divus Pertinax denarius which I sold to Joel Malter in 1974. I rue,too. You don't see these often. For that matter, you don't see the old fakes all that often but there sure are a lot of new denarii with poor style out there.