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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Andrew McCabe, post: 3142324, member: 90666&quot;]It depends.</p><p><br /></p><p>If it is an ordinary coin type in ordinary condition, even a nice Julius Caesar portrait denarius, it adds nothing to my sales value. I&#039;ve lots of accumulated numerical evidence.</p><p><br /></p><p>If it is something unusual - rare or a nice style or a good provenance or a better strike, especially if (and if not already obvious) I note what&#039;s unusual, then it adds something relative to the same scarcity/condition coin from the market in general. The McCabe stamp adds a level of security and endorsement that &quot;yes this is a better than usual strike&quot;, &quot;yes this is rare&quot;, that confirms a higher value. Sure that may be higher than the market in general, but when a collector is looking at something similar in the market in general he is wondering &quot;is this really rare?&quot;, &quot;is this really a good style?&quot; and so on. There&#039;s a value added when I add that endorsement.</p><p><br /></p><p>Within this category of something unusual</p><ul> <li>unique types, unpublished overstrikes etc. especially get a boost from having someone with knowledge, first of all notice it, and then confirm it with reference to what the books say</li> <li>my bronzes are correctly classified, including reference to the very latest research. Mostly this isn&#039;t the case. In fact one of the very worst books ever published, Rainer Albert&#039;s dreadful handbook of RR coins, has over 100 (out of about 1000) totally incorrect attributions because he was so dumb as to believe the attributions of dealers who had no knowledge or experience. If an author can make money from a book where 10% is just wrong (and you don&#039;t know which 10%), that means collectors really value having some help to ensure they know what they are buying<br /> </li> <li>my bronzes aren&#039;t messed about with!! (but if, by exception, one is, it gets pointed out). In fact they are generally under-cleaned. I don&#039;t have to specifically point this out, but the absence of comments indicates no one has messed with my bronzes. That&#039;s a really big extra security blanket for buyers who aren&#039;t aware of every style and die and are fearful of buying a tooled, altered coin. It translates into higher prices.</li> </ul><p>So, I&#039;d deduce from this that it&#039;s not my name that adds the value. It&#039;s the whole load of extra research and verification that is added permanently to the coins that makes them actually worth more.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have the sense that collectors of my coins are generally astute and discerning and knowledgeable. They know what adds value or not. Caesar portrait in the usual condition? - no added value. Rare symbol on a denarius with checks carried out against the Babelon database, Crawford, and the Charles Hersh manuscript in the ANS? - lots of added value. Fully explained die-clash? - added value. Rare bronze with untouched surfaces - added value. Unpublished overstrike? - added value. 1970&#039;s Ratto provenance? - added value. Unusually good strike in good style on a large flan explained by me? - added value. Correctly classified anonymous bronze which turns out to be a no-symbol variety of a type ordinarily having a symbol? - added value. Decent legionary denarius - no added value.</p><p><br /></p><p>Wisdom prevails.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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