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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 8334714, member: 72790&quot;]I would not buy an ancient coin based on some third party telling me that the coin in question is absolutely guaranteed as ancient. There are so many variables that I think it is impossible, given the huge number of ancients on the market and the very clever ways coins can be falsified (and have been for centuries), that any kind of guarantee would be meaningful other than a number of people (experts?) have examined the coin and think it probably is what it is purported to be. Jeeze, i can do that for nothing and my opinion would be worth just that and nothing more. Getting stuck with fake coins is one of the certainties of collecting ancients. Collect enough of them and I can guarantee some of them, statistically, will not turn out not to be what they are said to be. One learns what are signs of fraud (cast coins, pressed coins, wrong metals, wrong weights, etc), who has acquired a reputation for selling junk, all the while studying as much as possible about ancients (and enjoying that part of the hobby) and accept the fact that if one acquires a large collection that some of them will not turn out to be what you had hoped they would be. And when some of them are eventually shown to be fraudulent put them in a black cabinet and collect them as curiosities and examples of that aspect of collecting ancient coins. If there is something in life that want absolute, metaphysical certitude about, don&#039;t try to make it the certainty that an ancient coin is a genuine ancient coin.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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