My new purchase from Serbia

I am from the UK and one of the first things I picked up on/learnt, was to avoid "Eastern European" sellers, especially on ebay, as many, if not all, were fakes.
Nothing I have seen or read has changed my mind, and I do subscribe to other forums and mailing lists.
Very disheartening.

 

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What is the overall concensus, is this coin a fake?

 

A bad one
The style is completely off and the patina a mess

 

I am an inexperienced ancients collector, and when I look at e-bay listings, I often hit the North America filter. Am I limiting myself...absolutely, but I feel that any returns I might have to make are better handled in-country (to say nothing of the shipping since I often buy cheap coins).

 

Likewise.

It's an effective tool to filter out a large portion of the fake garbage on eBay. The majority of fakes are from overseas sellers.

The 'North America' filter is akin to antibiotics.

Does it kill some of the good bugs, in addition to the bad bugs? Yes.

Does it kill all of the bad bugs? No. However, it does make the site a little more pleasant to navigate.

 

I don't trust sellers on ebay at all, in North America or elsewhere, unless they're also on V-Coins or MA-Shops. I know they're not all disreputable, but there's too much dreck to wade through, and I don't want to take the time. So I haven't bought an ancient coin there in years. A huge change from 20+ years ago, when I used to buy British coins and medals from ebay regularly. Ironically, when buying ancient coins from stores on V-Coins, I've found out more than once that shipments from Canada can take longer to get to me than shipments from Europe.

 

I respect our opinion and am green with envy over your coins. I generally am a "bottom-feeder" for ancients, that's why I stay away from the good auctions . But need some sort of dreck filter...

 

I’ve bought several lots from a Serbian seller. The coins all appeared authentic, but were mostly abused.
Many were cleaned horribly, with very heavy tool roughing marks. Though no actual tooling.


several of the silver ant and denarii coins appeared to be fourree, or bronze. They appeared to have been electrolyzed down to pink base metal, and then underwent a failed replating in silver.


so, my experience with Serbia has been not fake, but the quality was so bad they may as well have been.

 

The original coins in this thread are forgeries.

barry Murphy

 

...don't tell me....you're also an out of work comedian too....

 

The headline of this post should say it all. I didn't need to look at the coin to say it's fake.

Personally, I don't touch EBay. Way too many fakes to take the risk. I understand some of the sellers I buy from also list on EBay, but I'll purchase from them directly or via vcoins.

Due to the number of fakes, I buy only from a small set of vetted auctions houses and a handful of vcoin sellers. I don't trust the majority of sellers on ma-shops and vcoins, though I understand they should be trustable.

For those on a budget, you don't need to take chances on EBay. Trusted sellers like Aegean Numismatics and Bargain Bin Ancients are reliable and have many nice coins for low prices.

 

You should believe Barry.

With enough experience and a good eye, you can (rarely) find a good coin at a good price from eastern Europe on eBay. But everyone cautions beginners from buying from there, and especially from any seller on the fakesellers lists.