Opinions please: Philetairos fine style tetradrachm

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by GregH, Jul 16, 2018.

  1. Nicholas Molinari

    Nicholas Molinari Well-Known Member

    I’m surprised someone hasn’t “repaired” it yet (thankfully).
     
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  3. Orfew

    Orfew Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus

    It is a beautiful coin. However, I think the price is too high given the obvious flaw.
     
    Nicholas Molinari and GregH like this.
  4. Terence Cheesman

    Terence Cheesman Well-Known Member

    Ancient coins are quite a bit different than modern coins as the grades tend to top out at EF. Thus they tend not to have the wild price fluctuations of the modern MS grades. The problem with ancient coins is that the pricing can be quite nuanced. There are a whole host of factors that can influence the price of the coin. These can include strike, centering, surfaces, style, lifetime vs posthumous, and many others besides the usual issue of grade. Very few ancient coins are perfect and often the buyer has to determine how significant are the various issues on the coin to him and if he is still inclined to buy the coin, is he okay with the price demanded.
     
  5. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    Rather recently it seems coin collectors stopped wanting coins that were not mint state and bought into the theory that MS69 is 1000% better than MS68. As far as I am concerned, that is the "Emperor's New Clothes" theory of collecting. Valentinian's theory that 98% is twice as bad as 99% is a level of calculation only a Math professor or modern coin collector could understand. We can decide if we see this as a glass half full or a glass half empty.

    Is that a bee? I have never been clear on how the type was given to Attalos I with that EYMO monogram. I never looked in it deeply since I knew it would be the only Philetairos I would have. I do like your coin and hope to see what you do with the 96.6% change.
     
  6. Valentinian

    Valentinian Well-Known Member

    True. If you could like "EF" or "VF" US coins, you could find lots of nice coins in shops that dealers are wondering if they will ever sell. If you could enjoy them, you could build a collection for (much) less than it would have cost years ago. The problem is, the forums and magazines and any collecting friends you have (if you have any) will subtlely and not so subtlely tell you your collection is inferior and hardly worth having; you really should be collecting MS-65. It takes a strong person to go against the tide.

    Fortunately, that is about US coins. The attitude may be bleeding over into ancients (Collectors who used to collect US coins can't help but think condition is key), but we long-time ancient collectors know a coin can be interesting without being in top grade. Personally, before the internet I was isolated from other collectors and no one saw my coins. I collected for over 20 years by myself with no one else (except my wife) looking over my shoulder and judging quality. The internet then made it easier to contact others, and CT makes it possible for many people to see your coins. But, at least by specializing in ancients we don't need to subscribe to Coin World which would tell us almost every issue about some MS 67 type setting a record price. That is a type of pressure to conform.

    Ancients are different. On CT I will press "Like" if a coin is written up well, regardless of condition. (And I won't press "Like" for a great coin if it is not written up at all. I regard "Like" as referring to the written post, not to the coin alone.) I hope ancients remain different.
     
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  7. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    I believe the main difference with ancients is that grading is not simply a matter of wear. NGC recognizes three factors but still places wear ahead of strike and surface. To me, strike, surface and style all outrank wear. Earliest modern coins share this to a degree with their 'details' grades but most modern collectors simple ignore coins with non-wear faults since there are so many available with none. Fewer than half of all ancient types even come in the highest grades. All ancients have been cleaned (some better than others). Many coins were not MS on the day they were made. Patina can actually improve a coin in most of our opinions so we might need a scale of 7000 levels rather than the Sheldon 70. Collectors who choose only to own perfect coins will never specialize in many fascinating areas of the hobby.

    Regarding write-ups: I enjoy write-ups that teach me something but tire of cut and paste from Wikipedia. I can read Wikipedia if I choose. Tell me something about the coin or how it might fit into either history or the big picture of the coinage of that period. I do not consider catalog numbers lifted from secondary sources as part of a good write-up and would rather have an explanation of the situation that made the coin RIC x rather than RIC y instead of a copied number that is not understood. I spent a lot of time writing up coins for my web pages but generally ignored calls for catalog clones from those whose only interest in the coins is the ID number.
     
  8. Svarog

    Svarog Well-Known Member

    sencond paragraph is really well said!!!
     
  9. Terence Cheesman

    Terence Cheesman Well-Known Member

    As very few ancient coins are perfect I have to get used to a medley of both good points and bad as I assess whether or not I want to buy the coin. Thus I am always asking my self Well this looks good but can I live with this issue or that one...... One thing however the more expensive the coin the less compromising I tend to get. One of the things I do with my coins is trying to teach students about ancient coins. I like to have nice ones which are easy to look at and decipher.
     
  10. Multatuli

    Multatuli Homo numismaticus

    This reminds me of the similarity comparison between human DNA and the DNA of a bonobo monkey, which is 98.7%. That is, it is enough to see how much 1.3% differentiates us. That is...
     
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