If NGC wants us to take them seriously, they need to stop lying.

I don't think @panzerman should be called a "greenhorn" for illustrating the fine line between Unc and AU. All here should know there are many factors besides a little rubbing that make grading ancients very different from U.S. dimes.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

So far so good, just stay in bounds, but this thread seems destined to attract someone who will just have to jump in without reading all before and say something they shouldn't.

 

No, it cannot be any more obvious. Hey Paul, we better stay off the ancient thread since we're just two dimeheads.

 

100% (A+)

=> you guys figured it out

Hey, look over there!! ....... squirrel!!



... just jokes ...

Hey, we should do this again next year (please don't reply)

 

Let's put down our weapons, climb out of our trenches, and sing Christmas carols together like they did in 1914!

 

I love this thread....I was able to actually see a moderator, read "snarky" comments and enjoy Steve's hilarious comments. I am not all that hungup on authenticity...that's why Im voting for Edited......oops, almost made it worse!

 

Unfortunately sallent you are 100% wrong. Long before the seven hills hoard, colliseum hoard, and Byzantium hoard were slabbed, these hoards were on the market. They are real hoards, not made up groups of coins. I saw them intact. I did not see the golden age hoard although I was aware of its existence. I have seen pictures of the seven hills hoard prior to cleaning. This was all years before I went to work at NGC. Now the names of the hoards are perhaps made up, but the hoards themselves are not. Unfortunately none of these hoards were academically recorded before being sold on the market. The only record we now have is the NGC holders identifying the coins from specific hoards. From an academic standpoint this information at this point is pretty valueless as trying to put the hoard back together would be impossible. Also some of the coins from these hoards were sold prior to them being sold to the people who submitted them for slabbing. I purchased several hundred coins from the seven hills hoard before slabbing.

To suggest that someone can submit any group of coins and call it a hoard is absolutely false.

Barry Murphy.

 

I was bidding on some ancient Chinese coins in ANACS slabs, and they sold for 2-3 times what I would pay for raw coins. Now I know that I should slab my collection before I sell it.

Most of these are $1-3 coins. Keep in mind each has $4.95 shipping tacked on.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=china+anacs&rt=nc&LH_Auction=1

 

Perhaps you can explain to us what the criteria is for designating a hoard? Is it a certain number of coins, or a certain value? How does NGC decide what is worth putting on the slab, and what isn't?

Because I know that "pedigrees" can be put on any slab for a small fee.... it is natural for us to assume that a "hoard" name is just an extension of that.

 

A hoard has to be a real hoard, just like a pedigree has to be a real pedigree. Value is irrelevant, number of coins is irrelevant. A hoard can be 5 coins or 50000 as long as they are discovered together. You can't put a fake pedigree on a slab for a fee and you can't call a hoard a hoard if it's not a hoard. A hoard does not have to be published although the smaller the hoard the higher the criteria for calling it a hoard. A small hoard would most likely need to have been published, perhaps in a newspaper article or journal to identify it as such. 10000 coins are much easier to identify as a hoard versus an accumulation due to similarities in composition, cleaning, surfaces etc.

In order to have a hoard designation or pedigree put on a holder we have to be able to identify it as such. You can't ask to have Ex Newman collection on a holder just by paying a fee. Dealers talk when a hoard is being sold, so we know when a hoard is an actual hoard. You can't ask just to make it up for a fee. If we identify a coin as coming from a published hoard, we will include that information for free.

Barry Murphy

 

In your zeal to be argumentative and disagreeable (in the literal sense, i.e., disagreeing with everything anybody writes), you entirely miss my point. I can be proven wrong about my opinion (and that's all it is) regarding the tooling on the wings of this coin. If I am, I'll acknowledge that I'm wrong and will have learned something. This has happened to me previously on this Forum, and will likely happen again.

But an assertion isn't a proof. Your response above just reinforces my impression that you can't prove your assertion. When one's response is to write that "It's totally obvious to anyone with two working eyes..." or some equivalent verbiage, I'm pretty certain that the the person who wrote that is completely at a loss to factually support his/her opinion.

In my experience, hiding behind the "it's just obvious" excuse is the last bastion of someone who is unable to back up his/her assertions with facts or compelling logic. As a mathematician by education, I know that something isn't a fact unless it can be logically proven. I'll await that proof. I retain an open mind about the possibility that I'm wrong; do you?

 

Could not find a dislike button, so I have you a like. I figure politics is the act of being two faced and doing opposite anyway.

And here is a coin to at least make this coin related. Caracalla for President 2016. His campaign slogan is "Make Ancients Slab Free Again." I'd so vote for him if we could figure out how to bring him back from the dead.



Speaking of politicians, didn't Benjamin Franklin say " Threads about NGC Ancients and Fish stink after three days? Yeah, I am starting to smell it now. Perhaps it's time to wrap this up?

 

I cannot count the number of times I have used this line on first year students "Things are obvious only if they are already known". The 'this is obvious' non-argument is used to shut down debate and not to pursue thoughtful conversation. It shows a reluctance on the part of the person who made the utterance to examine their own underlying assumptions.

It is related to the bandwagon hypothesis and the bandwagon effect. People often jump on the bandwagon even when their underlying beliefs are in conflict with the stated goals of the movement in question. Consider elections and how people will desert the sinking ship once their candidate is perceived to be losing. People want to belong to the winning side. Just because a position is popular does not mean it is correct. In other words 50,000,000 Frenchmen can in fact be in error.

Whenever someone starts an argument with 'everybody knows' or "it is obvious', they have already conceded their argument with the use of a logical fallacy.

 

Ok @Barry Murphy , you probably have been in the hobby longer than I've been alive, so if you saw some of these hoards, I believe you. However, coming from an academic background (I got three degrees hanging on my office wall) if something can't be proved, examined, or studied, then you shouldn't run with it. By your own admission, the hoards you saw were never studied, were dispersed, and coins were sold without any analysis or recording to private outfits

If I had been NGC, I'd be very hesitant to give any hoard assignation to any coins later on submitted to NGC for grading, when some outfit claims they are from such and such unrecorded, undocumented, and unstudied hoard. If I couldn't document it and back it up with facts, I wouldn't do it. But that's just me.

This also brings up another interesting point. We as collectors need to demand more ethical behavior from suppliers. Let the academics and historians study a hoard before any coins get released to the public. That way we won't give them any excuse to later go to the politicians to demand tough laws against ancients collectors because they are part of some nefarious market that destroys cultural patrimony or whatever. Don't give the government ls any more excuses to come down on us any more than they have.

 

NGC will not assign seven hills hoard or any of the others referenced to coins that were not submitted with the original hoard.

I agree from an academic and political standpoint it would be much better if the hoards were studied and published. Unfortunately we live in a less than perfect world and sometimes reality is less than ideal.

In the end, the only record of these hoards will be the NGC holders. In my opinion, these labels don't add anything to the value of the coins, but I've been doing this a long time. If a new collector sees value in then his opinion is just as valid. As a new collector, I could see an added level of confidence that a coin was genuine knowing it came from a specific hoard.

Barry Murphy

Barry Murphy.

 

Most of the ancient coins I have are not from published hoards and do not have find data. Several of the cast pieces in my collection mention Central Italy because many have been found there. The coin above is only a bit different, it has a generic hoard reference. It has some good names attached: ex - Nilus, ex - CNG, ex - RBW (and thus ex NAC?), ex - Elsen Auction #37 in 1994. Trying to attach find data to a coin is not new or done only by slabbers.
I asked Elsen if they had any information about the sea hoard. They sent a copy of the sale page shown above.

 

You want to spend $10+ apiece to slab a $3 coin so it can sell for $9 + $5 shipping? That doesn't sound wise to me.

 

Same here, as long as it remains civil.

John.