Quick question - desert patina: real or fake?

Gosh, you're right Doug. Nepotian before artificial patina vs after.

 

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I'm very disappointed in this seller.

 

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I just thought "vcoins dealer - must have ethics"... I know a certain vcoins dealer who was banned after items from the Baghdad museum turned up in his shop.

 

Unfortunately Vcoins is just a marketplace and while I feel that most dealers I've worked with on there were good dealers, obviously some aren't. If I were you, I'd take it up with Athena and, if necessary, Vcoins themselves and try to get my money back. And actually Athena has been in trouble for legal stuff related to artifacts before, Google his old business name "Holyland Numismatics".

 

I have no way of proving it, but I believe desert repatination started with Middle Eastern dealers, particularly dealers in Judaean coins because let's be honest: prutoh are probably the scrappiest, ugliest coins you can dig up on the planet. Then it sort of spilled over into other types. Hey, if we can make money prettying-up prutoh, anything's possible!

 

"Holyland Numismatics" => actually, he is the one and only dude associated with my lone "non-delivered coin" ... oh, and I had to settle and pay for half of the lost coin, etc, etc ... "FAIL"

 

That happened to me too(actually the coin wasn't lost - the wrong coin arrived 4 months after it supposedly shipped after the coin I actually bought was sold in an auction). But he wanted me to eat half the cost of it even though I paid for the more expensive shipping option. He only offered to give me store credit for the full amount after I called him out on a public forum and others agreed that it was the right thing to do. When the wrong coin finally did show up extremely late I paid him in full for it rather than go through sending it back and what not but I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone buy from him. This business with the altered coins makes it doubly so.

 

Well, when he was Holyland Numismatics, he didn't send me my $300 Macrianus coin ... until 6 weeks later when I asked him for registered post details... and he discovered he "forgot" to send it. Granted, that's more incompetence than fraud, but it paints a picture.

 

Deleting everything on my vcoins watch list from this guy.

 

Ooh I'm reading the forum thread that Red Spork pointed out. Athena appears and he has a hissy fit. It's juicy.

"English is my second language so I didn't know how to describe that I applied patina to the coin".

Well that was his excuse then. What about now?

 

*self edit*

 

Doug's response demonstrates a very valuable lesson:

While it's not always successful, searching the above website prior to a purchase (www.acsearch.info) for a specific coin, or similar coins, is always worthwhile.

It takes only a few minutes and in this case, would have disclosed the information that the coin had been artificially re-patinated to deceive and inflate its price (by about $1,200 - $1,500).

Personally, I couldn't care less about what, if any, "patina" that a coin has. As long as the coin does not appear to have been artificially manipulated, the patina is (to me) irrelevant. I'm not saying I don't admire a nice patina, just that it has no effect on the coin's value to me. In a choice between two coins, all other things being equal, I would not pay extra for any type of patina.

 

Good question... probably one for a chemist. Fortunately, @Kentucky is a chemist and a collector of ancients, so he might know. My guess is that alcohol is the least likely to do any harm, followed by acetone, and then water, but I don't think any of them should harm a true, genuine patina.

 

That sucks Greg. I'd try to get my money back directly from Athena or Holyland (whatever he's called now) as others have suggested, and if that fails, contact vCoins and take it up with them. I think they will take it seriously as this is unethical per their vCoins code IMO. It actually looks pretty cool, but you don't want a problem coin that cost a bunch of $$ because some day you're going to want to sell it.

 

Probably more acetone, alcohol and then water, in order of polarity.

 

My inclination would be to try washing the Nepotian first, in a distilled water bath. I've purchased a few doctored coins (knowingly, and for cheap), just to see if the applied dirt comes off. In two cases, it was applied with a water-soluble glue, and the sand came off within a minute. The coins weren't pretty, but they were clean.

The Nepotian is a damn good coin for a ruler set, and we all know Nepotians aren't exactly a dime-a-dozen. The shame is that it was a damn good coin BEFORE it was given a makeover that was ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY UNEQUIVOCALLY 100% UNNECESSARY.

 

I guess it's slightly reassuring that Athena applies this patina to coins with or without problems - ie the patination doesn't necessarily mean anything was wrong in the first place.

I am concerned about this Uranius coin that came from him. It's extremely rare and cost big bucks (I'm embarrassed to say how much - but well into the four digits). It's doubly interesting to me because it's a very rare emperor, and has the baetyl (meteorite) of Elagabal on the reverse in the temple in Emesa - which seems to prove that by 253AD the meteorite was returned to Emesa. As far as I know this obverse/reverse die combination is unique.

But now this discussion about patination has raised concerns. The patination on the reverse seems to be piled on quite thick. Removing it - and risking damage - is not something I want to do on a coin this valuable. I can't find a match in the coin archives, so I have no idea what the coin originally looked like.

 

4 figures....I would just leave it as is. Sucks it's most likely a fake patinia but for that much $ I would leave it be.

If it is really gnawing at you, then send it back.

 

Nah I'll keep it. It's exactly the coin that piques my interests. But had the patination been disclosed i would have negotiated a lower price.