Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Severus Alexander, post: 7839030, member: 84744&quot;]Like others here, I&#039;m leery of Leu due to their reputation for shill bidding and making up nonsense provenances.&nbsp; (For example, a former AMCC coin was once listed by them as coming from &quot;a Swiss collection put together in the early 2000&#039;s&quot;, long before AMCC existed. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie12" alt="o_O" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />)&nbsp; I would add: plenty of unnecessarily re-patinated coins.&nbsp; But also like others, their offerings are too tempting sometimes not to bid.&nbsp; [USER=19463]@dougsmit[/USER] would rightly ask me why I give them my money.&nbsp; I suppose it&#039;s because I&#039;m not sure if they&#039;re shill bidding, and I suppose I&#039;m kind of sympathetic with the &quot;old collection&quot; provenances if that&#039;s intended to snub the super-dumb MOUs the U.S. has with various countries with backward antiquities laws.</p><p><br /></p><p>So I bid on quite a few (34 in fact)... low pre-bids in every case since I couldn&#039;t attend live online.&nbsp; I won two:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1348130[/ATTACH] </p><p>Lot 165 TAURIC CHERSONESOS. Chersonesos. Circa 350-330 BC. Dichalkon (Bronze, 21 mm, 5.36 g, 7 h). Artemis Parthenos driving quadriga to right, holding torch in her right hand and reins in left. Rev. XEP Hoplite, nude but for conical helmet, crouching left, wearing round shield on his left arm and holding spear in his right hand. HGC 3.2, 2080. SNG BM Black Sea 734. SNG Moskau 3220-5. SNG Stancomb 464-5.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think 102 CHF was a good price for this, considering the detail on the hoplite.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s how the bidding went (closing time was 12:22) - </p><p>Me&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 102 CHF&nbsp; &nbsp; 13-Aug-21 08:15:47</p><p>Bidder 1&nbsp; &nbsp; 100 CHF&nbsp; &nbsp; 14-Aug-21 10:08:52</p><p>Bidder 1&nbsp; &nbsp; 90 CHF&nbsp; &nbsp; 14-Aug-21 10:08:31</p><p>Bidder 2&nbsp; &nbsp; 60 CHF&nbsp; &nbsp; 07-Aug-21 22:36:29</p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s a bit odd that Bidder 1 didn&#039;t go to 110 given that they saw my max was an off-increment 102.&nbsp; Shill?&nbsp; Hard to say, but probably not, given that they bid 90 then 100 in quick succession.&nbsp; If they already knew my max was 102, why bother with the bid of 90?&nbsp; More likely they just thought 110 was too much.&nbsp; (One reason to place off-increment bids.)</p><p><br /></p><p>I liked the following coin for its cute moon-faced portrait (which may in fact be intentionally &quot;sun-faced&quot;) :</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1348131[/ATTACH] </p><p>Lot 3691 ISLAMIC, Anatolia &amp; al-Jazira (Post-Seljuk). Artuqids (Mardin). Nasir al-Din Artuq Arslan, AH 597-637 / AD 1200-1239. Dirham (Bronze, 30 mm, 8.67 g, 6 h), AH 633 = AD 1235/6. &#039;al-Sultan al-Mu&#039;azzam &#039;Ala al-Dunya wa al-Din Kaiqubad Qasim Amir al-Mu&#039;minin&#039; in Kufic Large bare-headed and draped bust facing. Rev. In inner field, &#039;al-Imam / al-Mustansir billah / ✱ ✱ ✱ / Amir al-Mu&#039;minin / al-Malik al-Mansur / Artuq&#039;; around, date; all in Kufic. Spengler &amp; Sayles 47.2.</p><p><br /></p><p>In this case, I won it for an increment below my max, so no evidence for (or against) shilling here.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Yeah, no kidding!&nbsp; I won the coin above for 75 CHF, while this one:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1348134[/ATTACH] which was the immediately preceding lot, went for 950!&nbsp; It&#039;s not even that great quality, being fairly rough.&nbsp; Quite a few went over 1K, some over 2K, and a couple even over 3K.&nbsp; Nuts![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in