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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;medoraman, post: 1361257, member: 26302&quot;]I got &quot;up to speed&quot; by going to an ancient show, and buying a couple of books with ancients. Then I bought some coins from good dealers who ensure they don&#039;t sell any fakes. If you wish to buy just a few ancients, there are hundreds of dealers all with lifetime guarantee of authenticity. With the flood of chinese made fake US coins, I would say the same thing to US collectors today. If you do not know exactly what you are doing, a good dealer lets you buy unslabbed coins. Same with ancients. I will grant you the slab for ancients is helpful if you are buying from Ebay and you have no idea what you are doing, but not necessary and a big expense if you either buy from good dealers or educate yourself.</p><p><br /></p><p>I find a lot fewer ancient fakes out there versus US fakes nowadays. Yes, 90% of Chinese material out there is fake today, but I do not see a lot of other ancient fakes percentage wise. There are two or three sellers on Ebay of cast fakes I have been trying to get kicked off there, but again if you see the coin in hand its easy enough to tell if someone has handled a few of these.</p><p><br /></p><p>You do have a point about newer collectors though, I grant you that. IF TPG used ancient grades and grading standards, I would have much less heartburn. I might even allow some to stay in slabs that I buy. Its the brazen affront of changing our entire grading system that really causes me to wage jihad on them. They simply have no right, and as long as I collect ancients I will bandsaw any erroneously graded slabs I buy.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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