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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ken Dorney, post: 3245289, member: 76086&quot;]Ah.&nbsp; Ebay.&nbsp; The great underarm of the coin collectors world!&nbsp; I think just about everything has been said about it before, but often there are new collectors who dont look through old threads, and sometimes others dont comment so I will take a stab here.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ebay can be a good place to get your &#039;feet wet&#039;.&nbsp; But for us older collectors we remember a time when fakes were extremely rare and replicas were scarce (compared to the genuine examples on the market).&nbsp; We have to adjust our current thinking to what is happening in the collecting world in general.&nbsp; A great many people are getting exposed to ancient coins through Ebay and no other place.&nbsp; That is just a fact.&nbsp; And it&#039;s a minefield.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The numbers presented in these threads are likely very close to reality.&nbsp; There is an old saying in this hobby, &#039;if you&#039;ve never bought a fake you are not buying enough coins&#039;.&nbsp; I think in this day and age that should be re-adjusted to &#039;you will definitely buy a fake at some point&#039;.</p><p><br /></p><p>CT is full of stories about uber cheap bargains and ultra rare coins found amongst Ebays listings and just as many about fakes they were stuck with.&nbsp; But CT is a good place to simply ask.&nbsp; Take a screen shot and show us the photo and most often we can identify the most obvious fakes and frequently the less obvious ones as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>But then again Ebay combined with Paypal has really good buyer protection.&nbsp; I&#039;ve never thought twice about buying on Ebay as I know I can send it back if it turns out to be fake (as long as the seller allows returns, if they dont that is a big red flag).&nbsp; I&#039;ve bought many coins there that looked &#039;iffy&#039; in the photo, but I bought them anyway as I had no fear that I could not get my money back.&nbsp; I&#039;ve been buying on Ebay since its inception and have only bought several fakes, a couple I sent back, a couple I kept as experience, a few the seller refunded back but did want the coin in return.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>But then there was one time I bought a South Italian skyphos (a wine cup), he refused to ship it to me as he did the $1 opening thing and it sold for about $15 (sellers remorse).&nbsp; As consolation he sent me a Marc Antony denarius which turned out to be fake.&nbsp; Didnt get compensation for that situation, but it was only $15 and I decided it was not worth the hassle (he still sells there and is a very popular dealer).</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, I&#039;m rambling.&nbsp; I just thought I would make a couple comments.&nbsp; Ebay is not the place for serious collectors but can be when the buyer has a decent amount of knowledge.&nbsp; I know some have said they cant find coins in their budget elsewhere but they aren&#039;t looking closely enough.&nbsp; VCoins as an example has many thousands of inexpensive coins.&nbsp; One just has to search for them just like they do on Ebay.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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