Macedonia under Roman rule Tetradrachm

Blake, These coins are fairly common & presently they're selling for more than they are worth. The coin pictured below I sold at a Heritage auction in January of 2018 for $468.00 including buyers premium. My advice is wait till prices drop & get a better example than the one you're looking at now .

 

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Nah it wouldn’t bother me at all if you decided to go bid on it and I lost because of it.

That just means you are willing to pay more for it and if so you rightfully deserve to have it.

I wouldn’t consider it to be swooping in and stealing it from me at all.

I’d just tell you congrats and I’d keep my eye out for another one now that I know they exist and what they look like.

 

Wow. OP has claaaaassic troll moves.
1 Post something nice, pretending it's yours.
2 When someone asks if it is indeed yours reply, "No. But 99.9% it's mine. "
3 When someone else points out that its bad form and not appreciated, to post a "live" coin...as posted in this forum many, many times by many people for years.
Take no responsibility and insist that it IS appreciated!
4 When a specialist politely points out your error/swindle and that it's not good for either person to discuss upcoming coins. You high road them! Smh. And for using a hypothetical situation... when earlier another poster points out that in this situation you have been outbid by them
Good for you
Here's the lesser of my two of the type, as that is what you deserve:


No more troll feeding

 

I’ll agree with some others here.
The OP coin has many great attributes but the die shift is… pretty significant and many (most?) discerning collectors would pass on this example

How can NGC can give it a 5/5 for strike while I’m over here getting a headache just trying to focus on the obverse?

I’m going to assume you are pretty new to ancients - much like myself just a few years back.

My advice?

It’s great that you’ve found a type you are enamoured with..now go to ACsearch or the CNG archives and look at as many examples of the type as you can. The beauty of ancients is the much wider variations between coins of same type (die, strike etc.)
You’ll get a better idea of how this one stacks up against the many MANY other examples that have (and will continue to) come up for sale.
The research archives at CNG are a lot deeper than HA, complete with prices

 

I really don’t mind the die shift much.

I’m not sure if maybe the picture makes it look worse than it is. Sometimes if the camera has any vibration it can really make it look bad.

Also I don’t think a die shift warrants losing points on grading.

I’ve seen modern coins with the doubled die obverse designation get high MS grades.

 

I don’t see them come up at auction often though.

Granted I’ve only been using HA but I don’t think the coin in my OP is too bad at all.

It does have a die shift but I really don’t mind that much at all.

 

The coin has excellent centering and tone and the state of preservation is quite good... it’s all about what attracts you to it and what doesn’t bother you. Almost every ancient coin comes with a concession of some kind.
Grade doesn’t mean much in ancients but yes I agree a coin can still be in ‘mint state’ with a die shift as a striking error has nothing to do with the state of wear

 

The way I see it is that the die shift happened during the minting/striking/hammering process so I would consider the die shift more of a “mint error” rather than a problem coin.

Kind of like this 1955 DDO penny. It has obvious doubling but the wear is minimal.




Sure it’s true that a lot of people wouldn’t like the die shift but it’s the same with error coins too. Not everyone likes them.

As far as wear goes you can definitely see there isn’t much wear and I think an XF is a fair grade for it.

 

CNG currently has two copies up for auction and Naumann has one. It's a common coin and appears in about every other auction. I agree with you, though, that this is a nice copy.

 

1st thing that caught my eye.

I'd question if I was drunk or not every time that I would be looking at it.

 

Just the nose. xD

The rest of the coin looks just fine.

Especially the reverse.

 

It's a nice looking coin. I know what I would willing to pay for it(considerably less than it will currently command at HA).

This popular type has also been on my radar for some time. Unfortunately (as already stated ITT), its avg. market price has skyrocketed in only the last couple of years.

It was not long ago that a pretty nice example of this type could be had for around $500(including the OP). Watch what this one actually hammers for.

I'm dealing with the same pricing issue with the Lysimachos Tets. What could be had in recent times for a few hundred, is now commanding 3x 4x 5x as much for coins in similar condition.

I can be patient and wait for the right one(s) -- perhaps being offered in less conspicuous auction houses -- at a price I'm content with.

That will never be at HA, where people choose to pay an inflated premium for what they believe to be 'investment grade' coins.

If price is a concern, and for most people it is; I see some of these people as foolishly overpaying for their coins.

The current 'bubble' (like all eventually do) will burst.

You ought to take heed of some of the advice of longtime collectors ITT.

 

I wouldn’t say people only use HA because they think the coins are investment grade/type.

To be frankly honest I use HA because of the huge variety of coinage. My local coin shops don’t really get many ancient coins in stock and the few they do get in tend to be very low grade copper stuff with damage.

Since there is no way for me to acquire ancients I like locally HA is really one of my few options. APMEX is even more expensive and has some good stuff but not much.

I am afraid to use some of the lesser known online auctions due to fear of getting screwed over and I know HA has a good reputation.

But to be fair to HA even though they are pricey they do have good customer service.

I had an issue with one of my coins taking forever to ship so I contacted Sarah at HA and she went out of her way to get my coin sent out that same day and even had it shipped to me overnight at no expense to myself.

A lot of times people are willing to pay a bit more to go with a business that has good customer service.

 

I can't fault that reasoning.

I also believe that one of the appeals to HA(for American buyers) is that they're primarily located in the U.S.

That alone can be a plus for those that may be more cautious about and/or may have concerns with potential pitfalls from dealing with firms abroad.

CNG is also a very reputable U.S. based auction house. If you haven't already, give them a look.

They (as well) have a lot of variety, and are customer-service oriented.

 

Yeah you’re right I live in the US and trying to buy foreign is both a hassle and kind of scary.

I remember looking at one overseas auction and all the prices were quoted in British Pound Sterling (£), Euros (€) or Swiss Francs (CHF) and trying to figure out the prices in USD ($) while the auction was going on was difficult.

 

Roma lists the prices in USD in parentheses, since they're aware that the US school system completely fails at teaching math.

Last weekend I won several coins at an auction in Germany. The auction closed on Sunday, they shipped the coins on Monday, and I had them on Thursday. Even CNG takes a few days to ship and then USPS needs a week to get them to the left coast.

 

So the OP coin sold for $3120 USD including premium.

I’m taking my ball and going home.. I don’t want to play anymore.

 

Yup it did. The person must have bid $2,600 + 20% ($520) premium = $3,120.

I thought I overbid a bit when I bid $750.

Previous HA sales of the same coin in equally good condition have sold for ~$600 so I’m sure I will find one just as good or better for cheaper.

But hey it’s still a cool coin. Just not a $3K+ coin in my opinion.

 

I paid a whopping 220 euro for mine, back in 2019

 

That’s a great deal!

I think €220 is about $250 or so since I know the Euro is worth a little bit more than the US Dollar but not a lot more like the British Pound Sterling is.

Hopefully I can get one for $500-$600 one day.