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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ken Dorney, post: 2761828, member: 76086&quot;]Tell me about it!&nbsp; It&#039;s one of the reasons why I am a &#039;bottom feeder&#039; dealer and not much more than that (and never will be).&nbsp; But at least I have a clean conscious. </p><p><br /></p><p>I remember about 25 years ago a new and budding market was opening up.&nbsp; Bulgaria.&nbsp; At a major show there was a new dealer walking about offering Celtic Thasos imitation tetradrachms.&nbsp; Few had seen these at the time, they were still mostly understood and not many examples were around.&nbsp; I bought two or three, one major auction house bought the rest (about 100).&nbsp; As I examined them I became concerned as under a magnifier they exhibited evidence of rotary tools used to make the dies.&nbsp; I panicked and before he left the bourse floor I tracking him down and returned the suspect coins.&nbsp; The other dealer however did not return them even after I explained my suspicions.&nbsp; They later appeared in their auctions and sold for big prices.&nbsp; Big name, one we all know and greatly respect and I am sure we all look at their auctions now and bid every month, but in this case they failed to cull out what should have been obvious.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, on to the topic at hand.&nbsp; All ancient coins have been altered in some way.&nbsp; Either through the cleaning process or in this instance embellished patina&#039;s.&nbsp; I remember once instance where I was at a fellow dealers table, he offered me a couple of truly magnificent sestertii.&nbsp; I commented something to the effect of &quot;I wonder what the original patina was?&quot;.&nbsp; He of course got mad, but admitted that they were not original.&nbsp; Didnt matter in the end as the guy next to me bought both for $5,000.</p><p><br /></p><p>So....I guess in the end it depends on what our expectations are.&nbsp; What we feel is acceptable.&nbsp; Sure, these coins are genuine but not the patina.&nbsp; The same applies to tooled coins.&nbsp; Many dealers dont mention it, some do.&nbsp; Many collectors are fine with it, many are not.</p><p><br /></p><p>BTW, VCoins is aware of this issue (i have had correspondence on the issue), but there has been a change of management and I have no idea if the topic will be addressed in the future.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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