Corinth AR Stater Pegasus - My 2nd Ancient Purchase

Hello folks,

Starting to get into ancients after collecting U.S. coins for the past 10 or so years. I've wanted a Pegasus for a while now and the opportunity to act on that desire finally materialized. I'm a newbie so let me know if I'm making any serious mistakes.

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
Joe2007

 

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Ancient collectors are not fans of slabbed ancient's & it takes the fun away from collecting them.

Not sure what your paying for this but it may be double what the average goes for raw due to the slab. Many dealers double & triple the cost of a ancient just because it's in a slab.

But the coin itself looks OK to me. Pictures aren't great, could look better in-hand.

 

Mat is right.

 

Not bad at all!
Cheers!

 

I agree with the above.

From what I can see, it looks like a nice example of an early Corinth stater. Photoshopping out the $*#@ plastic and tweaking the image, you can see some great toning on the obverse, which has a good strike. The reverse surfaces don't look as appealing but overall, I suspect it is probably a great coin in hand (literally in-hand, as in out of the plastic), when viewed with good lighting and crisp focus.



I'm not very familiar with these earlier staters and don't recall seeing that reverse style. Where is the long hair? Where is the leather flap? I'm not saying it's inauthentic, I'm just curious about the style, which looks more like a Pamphylian portrayal of Athena.

 

The coin does look better in hand, unfortunately my photography skills leave something to be desired. I've done a bit of checking online and the price I paid doesn't seem to far out of line with the prices I'm coming across although I've not found results for this exact variation of Pegasus and Athena.

 

I do wish the pictures were better, because what I see here is a really nice-looking Corinth stater with a curled-wing pegasos and Athena in an incuse square. I have a few of these colts, but not one of these from the earlier period. I'd gladly welcome your example into my collection.

I think two major mistakes collectors starting into ancients make are buying fakes and paying too much. While not advocating slabs, if yours is in an NGC slab, then you've probably avoided the fake pitfall. As for paying too much, some here will suggest that by buying this coin in a slab, you probably have done just that. I don't think this is necessarily the case.

You can easily check comparable prices for coins sold at auction at websites like acsearch and CNG (bearing in mind that the prices there do not include what is typically a 15-22% buyer's premium). Here's a search from CNG showing hammered prices for coins similar to yours:
https://www.cngcoins.com/Search.aspx?PAGE_NUM=&PAGE=1&TABS_TYPE=2&CONTAINER_TYPE_ID=1&IS_ADVANCED=1&ITEM_DESC=Corinth stater pegasos incuse&ITEM_IS_SOLD=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_1=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_3=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_2=1

Edit: TIF makes a valid point about the portrait of Athena - I hadn't taken a good look at that and had missed out on that. The lack of the flowing hair and neck flap is not familiar to me too.

 

If you had bought it without the slab I bet you would have gotten it for quite a bit less than you probably paid for it. Funny how that works, you put a slab on a $100 ancient and now they are trying to sell it to you on Ebay to you for $200. Break it out of the slab.

I used to be a huge slab fanatic myself, coming from US coins. I was such a slab snob that I even collected coins for the limited edition tag NGC put on that holder...you know, the Christmas tags with Rudolph the raindeer, Whyat Earp, George Washington, etc.

2 weeks into collecting Ancients and I loved the feel of a raw 2,000 year old coin in my hands so much that I gave up on slabs. It's been a couple of weeks since then, and 8 ancient coins later, I could never see myself buying a slab again.

Anyway, good coin though. Not bad for a second ancient. What was your first again?

 

The NGC grade is
Choice VF
Strike 5/5
Surfaces 4/5
Fine Style

Thanks for the comments!

 

Take those grades with a grain of salt. NGC tries to apply modern American grading standards to Ancients which is very problematic. I love it when they give an ancient coin MS grade. How can a coin after being buried and exposed to chemical changes underground for 2000 years, then cleaned, be mint state? Not to mention how they overgrade Ancients.

But yeah, yours does look "VF" to me.

 

In my opinion the coin is extremely phat and desirable.

 

Slabbed doesn't necessarily mean higher price. It depends on the context: auction or fixed-price, dedicated ancient dealer or "little bit of everything" dealer, competition that particular day if the coin is in an auction, etc.

Echoing Zumbly, I'd gladly take that coin into my collection (for the right price, whatever that may be). I'd remove the plastic though .

 

it's an attractive coin joe, and a nice first ancient. don't be afraid the ask folks here before before you buy if you're uncertain about authenticity or price.

i'd love to have it as well!

welcome aboard.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'd gladly take that one off his hands too. If he wants to trade, I think I still have a slabed coin somewhere with an NGC special edition Frosty the Snowman tag he can have.

That is still a very sweet coin, despite the slab.Good second ancient. He did well.

 

I do not encourage breaking the coin out of the slab. It is a nicer than average coin and was fairly graded by NGC. I would love to have the coin. Of course I never buy slabs but you could find someone who only buys slabs if you want to sell and they would pay you more than I would. Be happy with the very nice coin and consider participating here whether or not you feel the need to pay extra for the NGC services.

 

There is a stylistic progression one can follow in the Corinthian staters, from the earliest "archaic" portrayals of Athena...



To the transitional style in which the OP coin belongs...



To the classical, elaborate rendition which we are most accustom to...

 

Not being as familiar with these types as others, I would have thought the OP coin looked 'off' a bit, especially if it was sold raw...but JA's transitional photo array clears up that concern for me.

It seems like a wonderful purchase and I'll be after one VERY soon

Congrats 'Joe' !!!!

 

Welcome to Ancients Joe. Stick around. The others have said it all, so I can only echo what they said. Congrats.

 

Ditto. I like it muchly.

 

The early staters are not all that common. I always wanted one but settled for the more common hemidrachm with Aphrodite from the period which has the best display of columnar crystallization (obverse top) of any coin I have.