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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 7948425, member: 19463&quot;]From my 2011 coin show web page:</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: left"><img src="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/0junk.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>As enjoyable as was seeing my dealer friend&#039;s coins, the trip had a sad side, too. Another rider, I&#039;ll call him Junior, was what we old guys might term a &#039;young numismatist&#039;. Usually we reserve that term for kids but in this case he was taller than I am and had been collecting US since he really was a kid. Now, at twenty-one, he wanted to add some ancient coins to his collection. What he showed was over 40 coins he had bought as a group from a U.S. coin dealer at the bargain price of $39. His source claimed to know nothing about them except they had come to him along with a U.S collection which he had purchased. How could he go wrong at under a buck a coin? Surely there would be one coin in the bunch that would be worth the $39 paid. &quot;Right?&quot; In any event the lot would be good practice for learning to identify old coins. &quot;Right?&quot; At first glance, I was able to identify well over half as certainly being coins. At least half of those I could label as &#039;Roman&#039; or &#039;Islamic&#039; but only six were clear enough that I could give a relatively full ID. Unfortunately, two of those were well known fakes that seem to find their way into the coin stock of dealers who claim to know nothing about what they sell. All the rest were, as advertised, genuine old pieces of metal and, probably, coins. Were they worth $39? Not to me - but collectors of ancients quickly learn to be a little gentle in pointing out when beginners have acted foolishly - it keeps down the number of times we are called &quot;snobs&quot;. Who wants to be accused of lying about the value so we can buy the treasures for a song. As far as using the lot for ID practice goes, my skills after 45 years in the hobby enabled me to identify between 10% and 50% of the coins depending on how complete a listing is required. If Junior develops better skills while working on this bunch, I&#039;ll happily admit to being a slow learner. The same $39 spent on four or five individually selected coins from the junk boxes of the lowest end of the ancient dealers would have had a better result in one sense but Junior was proud to have forty coins actually older than he was. (Even the two fakes were older than Junior.) I&#039;m glad Junior really was over 18; taking good money from real &quot;young numismatists&quot; should be illegal. ...and for the record: I did stack the photo to show the better coins - what lies below is worse.</p><p><br /></p><p>Numis-fiction?&nbsp; Sure.&nbsp; This still reflects my opinion on junk lots.&nbsp; You may get your money&#039;s worth from the experience but less likely from the coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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