I went to a coin show this past Sunday, and there was 1 dealer that had Romans. So I looked, and bought 2. 1 was horribly mis-attributed. Not for the good, not for the bad, I bought it because of the reverse which fit my collection. The dealer said it was Tacitus, when it was Licinius. Granted, the portrait looked like it "could" be Tacitus, but the legend said IMP LICINIVS AVG. How often does this happen? I mean, that is a 50 year difference. It was my first time buying Romans at a coin show.
Misattributions happen frequently. In my own case I have bought many misattributed coins. This has been deliberate. In many cases I have picked up some very rare and desirable coins because of a careless misattribution. Sometimes it is an imperial acclamation, other times it is a legend variation. With some coins it is very easy to make a mistake. Dealers can handle hundreds if not thousands of coins. It is also easier to copy an attribution than it is to check the attribution of every coin you handle with a reference book. It is not surprising that mistakes are made. While many get it right most of the time it is fairly common to spot a misattribution. By the way, this not only happens with dealers but it is common with big name auction houses as well. A case in point. A very famous German auction house made a mistake on a coin they had for auction. I saw the error and won the coin. If I had not identified the error I might have been upset when the coin arrived and I realized that a mistake was made. The best defence is information. When you see a coin attributed, try doing the attribution yourself. It is good practice and a lot is learned in the meantime.
Coins are often mis attributed. If you see it one can make a great deal of money. Happens quite often.
One of the most common dealer errors is attributing Elagabalus as Caracalla and vice versa. Happens all the time.
Dealers like everyone else have differing levels of expertise and they all can make mistakes. Often a dealer will buy a group of coins which he is unfamiliar with because that group came as a part of a larger assemblage. As a collector I feel that it is incumbent on me to know as much as I can about the coins I collect so that I can either profit from or not be burnt by mistakes made by others.
Did this dealer primarily deal in modern coins? If so, perhaps he didn't attribute them at all but copied the former owner's incorrect attribution or otherwise just guessed. If the coins were inexpensive late Roman bronzes and if the dealer handles mostly modern coins, the effort to correctly attribute them may not have been worth the dealer's time. Plus, if the buyer is versed in identifying such coins, it makes the buyer feel smart. Well said.
I've had a few instances with misattribution - A Tacitus that actually was the much rarer Macrianus, Maximinus Daia misattributed as Galerius come to mind. In the case of Macrianus I got a great deal because the dealer was careless or too busy to get it right. It's also easy to get the late Alexandrian tets of Alexandria wrong as the legends are sometimes indistinct with emperors after Gallienus.
Dealers aren't the only ones to screw-up, the major auction houses screw-up on a regular basis. Here is a good example from Christie's in NYC, from the Irving collection of oriental art. Although this isn't a coin Christie's auctions coins from time to time. On March 22nd the jade pictured below was attributed by Christie's as a copy of a Hongshan jade pig-dragon, with an estimate of $5,000 - 7,000. See photo below. In fact it was a genuine Hongshan jade nearly 6,000 years old, & sold for $2,295,000.00 ! See the link below. https://www.christies.com/lotfinder...9307&sid=3941bc6e-804b-4ab2-8bc7-a8260617cdf3
None of us mind when a seller identifies a rare coin as something common but we do not like it when there is a common coin misattributed as something rare. Pointing this out to an ignorant seller will do no good if he things you are trying to cheat him out of the coin rather than help him stop looking like a fool. Perhaps the most common in this category are early coins of Septimius Severus that include PERT in the obverse legend and can fool the unknowing into believing they have a Pertinax. I have had to leave Septimius coins behind that were reverses I wanted but was not willing to pay a Pertinax price to obtain. Over the years I have helped more than a few sellers distinguish between the various mints of Severan coins when they requested such service. In most cases, they were willing to sell me the coin reasonably even though I suggested to them that the coin was an upgrade item. In most cases these differences are not great so they were not losing anything great. Later, however, it probably cost me money when they correctly uplisted coins they had learned to separate. More often at later shows I would be shown a coin with, "I got a new Alexandria denarius, do you have this one?" That helped us both. I have many times enjoyed telling the tale of a seller in Baltimore I did not know who apparently knew me by reputation as a Severan specialist and refused to sell me a Septimius denarius saying, "If you want it, I must have missed something." He was wrong. At that point in my collecting life (no longer) I was buying coins from dies I did not recognize including things that were worth no premium. I don't recall seeing that seller at a show again. I suspect he discovered that selling coins for a small profit is better than not selling anything.
I've gotten some very nice coins as a result of mis-attributions. I've noticed it happens quite a bit at auctions like Savoca Blue where they are selling up to a thousand medium or low value coins per category, and probably only spending a couple minutes per coin. Proper attribution takes time, and sometimes it doesn't make sense to spend up to an hour to ensure a $20 coin isn't something special, when it won't be 99% of the time. I'm sure I've missed my share of things, most recently when what I thought was a $20 Khusro II drachm sold for $70. I'll echo Doug that intentional or careless mis-attributions of common coins as rare is a pet peeve of mine. Can't even begin to tell you how many Valentinian IIs I've seen on ebay listed as Valentinian III. Or downright common coins in horrid condition listed vaguely as "extremely rare".
I think most of the potential answers have already been given, but no comments from dealers I think. As a dealer I confess to having made many mistakes. Some simple, some egregious. The most common I make is spelling or cut and paste errors. The other problem is when I attribute a coin, photograph it and put it into its flip with the inventory number. Sometimes the wrong coin gets into the wrong flip creating two mistakes. Sometimes I dont have the knowledge to spot minor differences on a particular issue. Im always happy when someone brings these errors to my attention. Either I correct a dumb mistake or I correct and learn something new. This is very true, especially so for the larger dealers. When one gets a bag of 500 Byzantine coins it makes no sense to give each one too much time. But this situation of course allows collectors to snap up some nice rarities for sometimes pennies on the dollar (and inventory for dealers).
Knowledge is power, which can be turned into money. Some dealers are specialists, who get it right more often. Some are generalists, like me. I rely on good, knowledgeable customers to help me ID anything I have a question about, and price it right for their help. Win-win.
@TheFinn One of my favorite misattributions was this coin, being sold as Hostilian as Caesar when it is in fact an Augustus issue Thinking of it, I'm surprised that more "non-classical" coins aren't misattributed by auction houses.
