IS THIS SMALL AE A THOUSAND DOLLAR COIN?

A few of this coin type are around now. As far as I can tell the first one- image below- sold for a thousand bucks on ebay-link below- last February and the second one sold in May for 450.00. It doesn't say it is rare or unlisted. Why would this coin fetch so much money? The seller of the one pictured does not respond to the questions about it. None of the sellers of the ones listed now say they have any idea where they came from? Just quite curious, maybe this happen all the time? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Asia-Minor-...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

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Where to start? First off, the Ebay seller is very well known for preying on new collectors and charging anywhere from 10 to 1,000 times what a coin is actually worth. Seems to work for him, but I could not sleep at night. The Savoca example illustrated above is likely closer to the actual value.

Please, avoid that Ebay guy. If you buy from him you will likely regret it. But dont take my word for it, ask around.

 

What do you think Bing? I am mystified but not an expert.

 

What Savoca example above?

 

Uh, look at the image.....it has a 'watermark', "Savoca Coins" and the logo as well.

 

You must have known where you got the image, right?

 

Oh OK- but the image came off the ebay coin- on the link? I will recheck- maybe I uploaded the wrong one.

 

I find it hard to believe he actually sold it for 1K. Like Ken said, I stay away from this guy because of his notoriously high listing prices. Yet he does sell coins. To who? I don't know.

 

Ok- so yeah that is the Savoca for sale for 175.00. I copied a few of them.None of the sellers can say where any of the six that they say exist came from. I am just wondering if they are authentic? The first for a thousand just seemed very odd.

 

So do they fake the sales on ebay sometime- to get up interest for the coin type?

 

I truly have no idea since I have never sold anything on ebay. It doesn't seem like they would, but hey, I'm just a collector.

 

I have purchased coins from him but never at the inflated prices and only after carefully making sure of the knowable facts. The last time I bought a coin from him he had it priced at about $900 but had "reduced" it to something like $250. I bought it for $43. It's a big game with him, and if you don't know how to play you get burned. But every so often he turns up something worthy of attention, and then the game is on for real. You need to know the material better than he does to play it safely. There is a guy on Vcoins following in his footsteps.

 

The coin pictures looks ok to me, but it is not my collecting area => do not put much weight in my words.
A quick look via google images and acsearch found about half a dozen examples that sold between $100 and $300. All had ruff surfaces, irregular shapes and centering issues.
All it takes for a coin like this to hit $1000 are two bidders with more $ than ¢. I do not use ebay unless I know the dealer.

ASIA MINOR. Uncertain (Pontos?). Ae (Late 2nd century BC).
Obv: Pilos decorated with star.
Rev: Star.
BMC -; SNG ANS -; SNG v. Aulock -; SNG Copenhagen -; Isegrim -.
Condition: Good very fine.
Weight: 1.92 g.
Diameter: 13 mm.

 

Good Lord! I cant believe anyone would take this person seriously. Here is a link for people to look at:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GALBA-68AD-...1f6085132:g:TrcAAOSwXYtY3~zi&autorefresh=true

$42,500 list price, 'reduced' to $11,475. But he has the audacity to give the provenance. It last hammered for 3,600 CHF (that was about $2,780 at the time).

Look, I would not buy anything from this guy, nor would I take any prices seriously. There are plenty of legitimate dealers you can do business with.

 

He is not the one selling the coin anymore. I was just searching out the previous sales of this "unlisted type" to see if I could figure if the coins available are genuine. One of the present sellers had originally said there were only six known to exist and they just appeared. So when I found the crazy priced one the red flag really went up as to if it is all a hype. I guess the crazy prices on the first two sold this year was just due to the one dude who does that as we now know. A lot of scams out there.

 

I've done the same thing even though I really hate supporting sellers that act like he does, but he sells a lot of coins and when a seller lists so many coins, mistakes are inevitable. Most of the mistakes he makes are bad(i.e. attributing a common type as much rarer) but he also overlooks rare varieties and things like that relatively often and deals can be had.

 

Oh don't get me started on Ilya "high rating low price" Zlobin. He'll rip you off if he can get away with it, but settle for a reasonable offer if he can't.

A completely unethical jerk; please don't support his business. There are plenty of coins and plenty of coin dealers. Nobody needs a coin so badly that they need to deal with this lowlife.

 

Sounds like someone got caught up in the "OMG IT IS SO RARE THAT MUST MEAN IT IS VERY VALUABLE" bandwagon.

 

There is no reason to assume that the coin sold. At the top of the page linked to, it says "This listing has ended."

I think what this guy probably does is find interesting coins on other sellers' web sites, copies the photos and then lists the coins on eBay for around 10X the sellers' asking price. If anyone is unfortunate enough to actually buy the coin from him, he'll purchase it from the original seller and then when he receives it he'll send it on to the eBay customer.