*Title Edit: Provenance Tickets Yes, I know you are probably sick of hearing about this coin, but it finally arrived! Not thrilled about the Civitas Gallery sticker that said flip is not for long term storage. Is it too much to ask for a PVC free holder? Thankfully that problem has been remedied with a PVC free 2x2 flip. So what came with the coin? First up, an old NFA ticket with "Joel Malter 1-23-75" written on it. I see Mr. Malter bought the coin for $75 in early 1975 and tried to flip it for a quick buck...$4.50 extra to be exact. And here is the ticket from Civitas Galleries, which makes reference to the NFA sticker. I ended up paying less than their suggested retail price of $195.00. I'm glad, because I would not have bought it for that price...but still, nice of them to have had higher aspirations for the coin. And last but definitely not least, the coin itself.
Lovely coin Sallent! I calculated how much $4.50 in 1975 would be worth today - $19.89. Not a bad mark-up!
So inflation has made things 4 times as expensive since 1975? Ouch! Good thing this coin did not appreciate at the same rate as inflation. I'm happy to say I only paid double what Malte paid for it in 1975, and not 4 times as much.
In my opinion, $195 would have been a full retail price for the coin, a little on the high side, but not unfairly so. I'm glad you got a discount though - that always feels good. You've got to take the prices dealers list on slips with a grain of salt. Most of them are on the high end of what's reasonable, because they expect some haggling - it's just part of the business. But some dealers get ridiculous about it. The highest retail prices I've ever seen are on Pegasi slips, ie., $100 coins marked at $350, etc. They have a very high opinion of their coins indeed, lol. Anyway, I'm not tired of seeing this coin. I think its marvelous! Congratulations. Civitas always ships real fast - kudos to them. Nobody likes to wait for their coins. I've got a trio of denarii that I won Monday night, they were in the mail Tuesday morning, and delivered yesterday. That's the right way to do business!
Wonderful coin!!! Fantastic details and toning!!! I'm glad you also scored it at a bit of a discount!!! I LOVE IT!!!
Ditto what John said about the prices on dealers' tags. I have a nice but common Tetrarchic follis worth perhaps $60. I didn't pay anywhere close to that price, but the Vcoins dealers' tag that came with it read $250. One can dream, but sometimes you just gotta wonder... Ditto what John said about the OP coin, too. Great coin - not tired of seeing it either!
I think those high prices on dealers' tags are also attempting the psychological ploy of making a buyer feel like they got a super-duper bargain, when in fact they may have bought the coin for a fair retail price. Dealers may not be aware that those prices could potentially cause problems with the spousal unit. "You paid $350 for that thing??!!" "No honey, lol, I only paid, um, er...cough cough $100 cough"
In fact, I think I'll start marking all my tags with prices like $2.50 and $1.75, etc. I got your back fellas!
Useful idea, but I see a potential problem here... when it comes time for the family to sell them off, they'll be happy when they're offered $3 on the coin marked $1.75.
Here's one I haven't posted yet. Purchased from an auction house and came with previous collector's/dealer's tag with $290 written on it! I didn't pay anywhere near that and I hope the previous person didn't either. More likely it was a dealer who was trying to ask for that price, expecting to get maybe half of it.
Please remember that a price written on a tag has nothing to do with what a coin sells for. I regularly go to a dealer at shows who seems to specialize in stock from other dealers who gave up on their ridiculous prices. I still have the flips handy from the last couple shows. One coin was $240 without any haggling but the printed tag from a better known dealer read $395. Another was marked $295 but came with me for $125. The third dropped from $95 to $50. Two other tags quoted Sear catalog prices but were sold for much less. Last year I searched acsearch and found my coin listed as sold by an auction for double what I paid. In some cases these may be coins that were won but never paid but some may just be numbers made up by dealers I don't buy from directly. Numismatic Fine Arts was a business name used by Joel Malter for a while before he sold it to Bruce McNall. The box 777 address is a sign of a coin from that period. I bought coins in the 1960's from Malter at that address when he was dealing under his own name. I have several time recommended here reading McNall's autobiography, Fun While It Lasted still available for one cent plus postage used from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...448585901&sr=8-1&keywords=fun+while+it+lasted The first chapter talks about his time working for Malter. I also suggest picking up any NFA catalogs you can get cheap or free. A few of them are great books worth good money if you like to look at coins you can't own. I still enjoy every coin I bought from them (the dregs of an NFA sale was high end for me).
