High prices for common ancient coins

Some common coins in high grade have fetched remarkably high prices recently. (Given prices include the buyer's fee):

$456 for a common Maxentius follis:
https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-impe...2035-64210.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

$228 for a very common Constantine campgate:
https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-impe...2035-64214.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

$432 for a very common CONSTANTINOPOLIS:
https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-impe...2035-64221.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

Some of us have these in very nice grade for which we paid a small fraction of those prices.







I could be wrong, but I don't think those very high prices for really excellent common coins will be "the new normal." I think they are too common in near-perfect shape to maintain prices like that. I opine that there are at least two new ancient-coin collectors who don't know that a high-grade ancient need not cost a lot.

 

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I've been totally blown out of the water in recent Heritiage auctions. It's like money is no object for these bidders. "Buyers' fees?" What are those? Oh, it's a tiny fee they add to my outragious bid.

 

Doesn't it seem likely that the reason for the high prices is a confluence of two circumstances:

1. The coins are slabbed and have high marks for Strike and Surface.
2. They were purchased by novices/first time buyers who feel comfortable with the slabs and ratings, and don't know how to research ancient coin prices online.

That would be my theory. I would also agree that such prices are unsustainably high.

 

It appears that the slabs comprise about 90% of those prices. Absurd. I've had a feeling for a while that some dealers who sell common ancient coins in slabs are using them as a sales device to achieve inflated prices. Primarily on Ebay, where the asking prices for slabbed coins are often 10x their usual market value, but I guess it's not limited to Ebay. Caveat emptor.

 

I've noticed relatively higher prices for common coins as well, and the fixed price sellers at vcoins and m-a shops seem to be boosting their prices as well, e.g., $160 for a common antoninianus of Diocletian, $200 for folles, Phillip I antoniniani going for $150-180 (and not the saeculares types).

 

Great Collections, too. Common denarii in VF of common emperors, such as Elagabalus or antoniniani of Philip I or Gordian III, with opening bids of $150. SMH.

 

Victor Clark once gave me a campgate out of the blue that looks as good as the one that’s been slabbed.

 

He gave one to me, too.

 

I have been shopping for a denarius of Aquilia Severa, who was the Vestel Virgin wife of Elagabalus and perhaps his only "true love." The only nice ones I saw were certified example on ebay. They wanted three times the prices I could find in the more recent auctions.

 

And to top it off, I don't care for these coins in slabs ...

 

I won't buy on these auctions. I am not going to buy a coin and pay a fee for doing it.

 

Here is a Camp Gate that I dug out of a pile of uncleaned ancients.

 

I feel like ancients are getting a lot more attention, probably from people coming from areas like US classics where a high grade coin routinely goes for $500, so surely paying $300 for a mint state Constantine is a rational thing to do, right?

I'd need to dig it up, but didn't someone sell a slabbed AE-4 Theodosius (common as dirt type) for over $2,000 on ebay because it got a MS 5/5 grade?

 

Hopefully whoever bought those stays on HA and doesn’t discover my normal watering holes! Otherwise I will never be able to win a coin again!

 

That Camp Gate is nice but I have several nice ones that I got out of uncleaned coins. I don't buy coins that are already cleaned and identified. I enjoy cleaning and identifying them myself.

 

Many will never buy unless they have their hand holding of slabs. Hopefully once they realize what their coins are really worth, they will not blame ancient collectors.

I have been noticing high grade lots of LRB have gone up a lot. I wonder if these are being bought up by dealers for slab material.

 

There is actually some logic to that. I have been able to buy an envelope full of nice ancient coins for the price I was paying for one so-so U.S. piece. Plus Constantine had a more interesting life that, than the U.S. Lady Liberty.

What drove me out of U.S. coins was CAC. You guys have to hope that slabs never take over the anceint market. That combined with cult of collectors who think that CAC is run by the greatest grader in history has made collecting U.S. coins very unattractive for me.

 

I have collected US for over 70 years. I don't buy slabs and never will. The vast majority of modern US coins will never gain value over what the mint is putting them out for. I have turned to ancients in the last couple of years. I wish I had done it much earlier.

 

Nice coins!

It looks as if there's coin-flipping going on with the three slabbed coins sold by HA. It seems that the new owners are taking offers at a set level or higher.

I know that HA offers this option to lots that did not sell, but I did not know that this option was also available to successful bidders.

Here in California there was a lot of house-flipping going on for the past decade or so. Housing prices, because of the shortage of units, went through the roof, literally and figuratively. The house-flippers certainly fueled that trend.

So coin-flipping reduces ancients and other coins to commodities, traded much the way stocks, bonds and futures contracts are traded, with an eye to making a quick buck.

Woe to the coin collectors, who must, as noted earlier, rely on dealers and certain auction sites for affordable coins, always in fear that the tsunami of investors flush with cash, many of whom cannot distinguish a follis from a denarius, may at any time descend on their last refuges and buy up anything that looks old, perhaps even some elderly collectors themselves, with the objective of making a quick kill in the market.

 

We with bad attitude are betting on the people paying these prices to lose interest and dump their coins when they want to start travelling or buying other toys currently on hold.
I am surprised that Valentinian posted his Maxentius against the slabbed one. They are not the same type. Valentinian's is better with 'angels'. Did two real specialists bump heads looking for that exact variation or did people who did not know there are several other variations just want that plastic? We will never know why anyone does anything.

Mine are all lesser coins with the most expensive being $50 at a show. The others were $20 each so that makes the six $150 or $306 less than the slabbed single. Condition is everything; pay as you wish! Oddly, that $300 would be about the cost to get my junkers slabbed. That would be foolish since they would not sell in slabs labeled VF 3/5,3/5 (being generous). I prefer my six trashy coins just as they are. The buyer of that coin would not like Valentinian's single (worth $150?) or my set. He paid for the best.

Here is the big question: When they learn that fact, will they swear off coins and go buy something else or will they continue to buy and leave that problem to their heirs?
The $50 one.