I am in the very fortunate position of choosing coins from a large well established collection that has been accumulated over many years. Many of the coins are later and inexpensive in the $20-$50 range but there are also superb coins I could not consider but within my budget are several uncommon coins. The majority were sourced from reputable dealers or auction houses but I have a few that have been commented on and I would be grateful for opinions from my peers and can explain my concerns. I am experimenting hard with my photography and I know it needs improvement as the coins look "soapy" from my images and are better looking in the hand but here we go. The first one is a Pompey the Great Denarius, RSC 21 , Weight 3.51 gms 18.86mm x 15.83 mm. The coin was purchased many years ago from a reputable dealer but the price of around $500 seemed cheap even then when it catalogued at more than that and it is listed as excessively rare. It seems similar but not identical to the coin on Forum reported by Martin Griffiths in October 2009. The second is a Julius Caesar NRCV 1425 Weight 2.25 gms 17.74mm x 18.14mm. I have looked at it with my microscope and it is definitely not cast but my concern is the weight which appears to be low. Again this was purchased from a member of the BNTA so a reputable dealer. It seems too rough to be a fake and I cannot find it on the fake listings but my lack of experience makes me concerned about the weight. My last coin is a Pertinax NRCV 6046 Weight 2.77 gms size 17.35 mm. I have checked Forum and cannot find a match and the concern pointed out to me was the weight. This was also purchased from a reputable dealer many years ago. The Pompey seems to be too good to be true and if that is the case, the owner needs to reappraise its valuation if it is real. Having had a few problems, mainly from Ebay and reading the recent thread about a fake coin purchased from Roma auctions I am somewhat nervous and would really appreciate comments good or bad. Many thanks Dafydd
Research on this coin in ACSEARCH indicates that the weight (at 2.25 g.) is really low. Most are in the 3.5 - 4.0 g. range, and the lowest I found was 3.08 g. The weight alone would make me very wary. Plus, what's going on with the obverse? Here it is: It looks as if there are two layers on this obverse, the topmost layer having been mostly removed to expose an underlying area of the coin. Personally, if this were my coin, I would pay to have it authenticated, or I would return it to the dealer and request a refund -- more likely, the latter .
If the collector was fooled by that Pompey you shouldn't buy a single coin from that collection. No collector should be fooled by that coin and any collector who has been probably has a collection full of more fakes than authentic coins.
You posted the same coin back in April and were told it was a fake. Something fishy is going on here...
Yep, that Julius Caesar denarius DID seem a bit familiar, plus my deja vu feeling when I did the ACSEARCH on it a few minutes ago...
No red_spork nothing fishy, I have photographed it on black and was offered it previously. I am looking for advice not criticism and I think you are giving good advice so I think that is the end of my interest in this collection. In all the years I collected milled coins I never had a fake so this is proving to be a complete nightmare. Milled coins hold no interest for me as they have no real history and I have had more fun researching the life and times of these coins than any milled coins but the potential for picking up fakes is quite frankly really putting me off. I am not committed to any of these thankfully and I assume they will all be returned to the respective dealers. There are several hundreds of coins in this collection which are being liquidated and I have been picking out "exciting" ones within my budget but they are proving to be more "exciting" than I would ever wish for.
Bing, I hadn't posted the Julius Caesar coin previously as it had only been offered to me recently but had posted the Pompey. I have been sorting through them and concerned that with a lot more knowledge than I had previously, weights and sightings on Forum are raising my hackles. It's good to have people confirming my fears but it's a pretty miserable affair and I guess where ever there is money there are unscrupulous people. As its nearly midnight over here I am off to bed to read a book. On the advice of Doug I bought 100 greatest Ancient coins and also had Andreas Pangeri's excellent book "Portraits" as a Christmas present so will satisfy my enthusiasm with images that could not possibly be fake........
Fakes are a risk of collecting just about any type of coins and mitigating that risk is part of collecting as well. The best way to do that is to spend as much time studying and handling coins as possible but since many of us don't have access to a world-class library and collection to study for 10 years before buying our first coin, the second best option is to buy from experienced, reputable dealers such as those on a site like Vcoins or from FORVM or an auction house like NAC, CNG or Agora Auctions and to avoid eBay completely(100% feedback and thousands of sales does not make a seller reputable). That said, even if you only ever buy from the best dealers and auctions you still need to study coins and I cannot stress that point enough. Start by just looking up coins similar to the ones you're considering buying on ACSearch - if you did that for the Pompey you'd quickly see that it's totally wrong.
If you are going to listen to my 'advise' on anything, forget the book and grab on to the one where I advise not buying rare and expensive coins from sources that can not BOTH be trusted AND be proven to know enough to avoid high quality, deceptive fakes far better than these It would be nice to see the less 'exciting' coins. Many collections consist of 95% genuine, boring coins and 5% coins that are both exciting and fake. . +1 - I do not claim to know enough to expertise high end coins for others but I would not touch any of these or any coin sold by what you call 'reputable' dealers who handle them. I will state and restate one point I consider a fact: If you can afford to buy coins like these, you can afford to employ an agent to represent you in the purchases and save you from coins like these. Question for our 'high end' collectors: What do you pay for such representation? 5%? 15%? 25%??? a minimum per lot? (50% would be cheap if it saved you from Pompey.) How did you find the agent you use? The last person I paid for such a service retired and I'll never again be buying coins in this bracket.
Thank you Doug and I will take your advice. The less "exciting" coins are of equal interest to me but of course when you see scarce coins they certainly draw the eye and I think I accomplished my mission in posting them. What I have learnt is that I can buy great coins for far less money and some of those I have previously posted and the research into them is more fun than working out if something is fake. I'll take all the advice I can get.
In my case, the specific percentage I pay my dealer for his expertise and representation varies based on the auction (some auctions "participate" with dealers and hence I pay a smaller commission). If my dealer negotiates a price with a private seller, I pay the seller's price plus a fixed, higher (percentage) commission. While the actual dollars I pay in commission can be well into the thousands, compared to the coin's price these amounts are relatively low -- lower than the "buyer's fee" charged by auctions. In all cases his commission is well worth the cost. I found my dealer quite accidentally when I was browsing his website and inquired about some of his high-quality coins. When he learned of my interest in such coins, he suggested I engage his services, since as a novice I was sorely in need of guidance. He's saved me from many poor decisions during the last 10 years.
Several people have called the OP coins fakes and thrown the quality of the whole collection from which they came in doubt. Make that several plus one.
