Roma Numismatics ceasing all operations as of May 24, 2024

You've probably have all ready heard, but if not, Roma Numismatics is closing as of the 24th of this month.

It's too bad, but given the legal issues that have hung over the firm for over a year now, I guess it was inevitable.

 

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Never purchased from them, but I know others did. I stay far far away from over seas auction houses. Too many darn issues.

 

I've bought from them for the last 3 years. No issues except mailing items in a timely fashion. My biggest complaint was they didn't take PayPal.

 

That's a shame; as they were in my top 3 auction houses.

 

They weren't playing by the rules and made millions from laundering looted antiquities, deliberately erasing all the metadata. What about Athena Numismatics?

 

The coins at their auctions that I had any interest in all seemed overpriced to me, so I never bought any coins from them.

 

I do find auctions increasingly unaffordable, what with the fees, currency conversion for overseas auctions and rising shipping charges. It is easy to be lured into these venues when the bidding becomes heated and all common sense is thrown out the window. VCoins and MA Shops are becoming my focus these days.

Now, in Roma's case they did become a focal point for the selling of hoard coins, posted mostly in their E-Sale auctions. Their notoriety was centered mainly on the sale of the Alexander III decadrachms from Gaza, a few years ago, and the infamous Eid Mar aureus affair from last year. That's the straw that eventually broke the camel's back, I think.

I am sure that other auction houses are conduits for the sale/liquidation of coins coming from hoards, sometimes from conflict zones such as Syria. Documenting the trail is difficult if not impossible. I know from personal experience that a fairly large hoard of Egyptian imitation owls from Syria, I was told, appeared in 2022 in Israel. At the same time it seems that these coins were appearing in auctions, such as Roma and CNG, the two houses that I have followed, the former much more frequently than the latter.

This year, and 2023 as well, Tigranes II tetradrachms are appearing in quantity, another hoard no doubt. The last Roma E-Sale had several, along with over 200 Athenian owls.

For all of their problems, I will miss Roma, and I wish the staff the best of luck in their future careers.

 

Still plenty of others to purchase from. So I guess my Roma coin boxes are now going to be "rare" collectibles; I better send them in to get graded and slabbed.

 

I have lots of them as well. Maybe I could use them to build a boat!

 

A pity they'll be going. Being based in London, I'd say more than half of my collection has come from Roma. However, if the company has been behaving badly, then it's understandable it has to go. Hopefully some of the staff can continue auctions with other companies as I always loved it when a new online catalogue was published. I'd sit down with a beer and note down some coins I wanted with a rough price for each.

 

Like others who have posted, I have bought a few coins from Roma, most recently from the Anders Collection they dispersed which had a ton of less common Calabrian Magna Grecian issues from many minor mints that in some cases I had never seen on the market in 30+ years. But like several of you mentioned, the prices they've commanded have been stratospheric, and I tend to avoid getting sucked into crazy bidding wars. Sometimes I note that they try to pump up certain coins by saying they're an "unpublished variety" or "extremely rare" when this is clearly not true. During these times, I take stock in the collection I have built up until now, and that grounds me when I begin to lose my head in some of the spiraling auction prices.

As for the auction team, they may be down, but not out. I'm sure many of them will re-enter the market at some point, as the heady days of profiteering will no doubt entice them back into the fold. I just hope that they'll be more careful and stick to the rules the next time around.

 

Which auction had the Priscus Attalus medallion? I'd better download the info, before it's gone. I'd like to save an image of that coin.

 

What a shame! Killed by ludicrous cultural property laws that never should be applicable to coins - or anything else, but at the very least not to coins.

if I find old colonial coins, arrowheads or other objects from the past buried in my yard why would they belong to the government? I don’t understand how a coin struck in Rome most likely made of silver mined by slaves in Spain 2000 years ago and found on private property in Greece belongs to the Greek government - and the United States is expected to enforce that claim and even possibly put its own citizens in prison to enforce a Greek claim to an ancient coin. The government would even call it a “looted” object. The whole idea is preposterous.

if a country wants to have repressive laws involving ancient objects nothing we can do about it but there is no reason to enforce that insanity here.

Plus the laws in places like Greece result in the destruction of ancient objects - if someone is building a house or other development in Greece and they come across an ancient object it is quickly tossed in the sea or some place similar - the alternative being the site is shut down possibly for years while the “archeologists” investigate.

Or with respect to coins what’s found rots away in some humid museum basement where bronze disease destroys the non-precious metal objects.

That’s how countries like Greece protects its cultural property. Or so I have heard from friends and relatives over there.

 

I'd like that photo too! I can imagine Priscus Attalus made a medallion commemorating the sacking of Rome in 410 AD?

 

this one?





"Priscus Attalus AR '24 Siliquae'. Rome, AD 409-410. PRISCVS ATTALVS P F AVG, draped and cuirassed bust to right, wearing diadem with row of jewels between double row of pearls / INVICTA ROMA AETERNA, Roma seated facing on throne ornamented with two lion heads; she is helmeted and wears a necklace, armlet and bracelets, and is robed in a tunic which leaves her right breast bare, and a peplum, one end of which hangs over her left arm and is fastened to a fibula; in her right hand she holds a globe surmounted by Victory to right bearing wreath and palm, and with her left, a reversed spear; RMPS in exergue. RIC X 1408; Gnecchi I, p. 83, 1-2 pl. 37, 6-7; Toynbee p. 174 note 77, pl. 49, 2; H. Grueber, Roman Medallions in the British Museum 1874, p. 101, pl. 66 (77.98g); Cohen VIII, p. 205, 5-6. 64.05g, 51mm, 5h.
Ex Italo Vecchi Ltd - Bonhams, Auction 5, 19 March 1981, lot 457;
Reportedly found in Rome (date uncertain) stopping up one end of a lead pipe filled with solidi, most likely secreted around the time of the sack of the city.
Mint State; surfaces somewhat corroded. Of the greatest rarity: one of five recorded examples, and one of only two in private hands, with the others being in the Berlin Sataatliche Münzsammlung, the British Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris and one other in a private US collection.
The intended weight of these massive coins is calculated from the few known examples which indicate that they were struck to the equivalent of a quarter of a Roman pound - theoretically about 80 grams. The metrology of this coinage is unique and seems to reflect 24 so-called ‘siliquae’, equivalent to 1/24 of a solidus each as fixed by the law of 397 and later mentioned in a law of the year 428 (Cod. Theod. xii.4.1, and xiii.2; Nov. Majoriani, vii.6). The actual Roman name for this silver unit of what should by law have been about 2.7 grams is unknown.
It must be remembered that term ‘siliqua’ was officially applied to 1/144 of the Roman pound, the lowest weight of the Roman metrological scale, equivalent to 0.19 grams, for which there is no known coin in silver or gold. The contemporary ratio of gold to silver in the 5th century was 1:18 which renders this gigantic silver denomination the equivalent of one gold solidus. The reason for their issue is probably as an accession donative where 20 pieces would have constituted the customary four solidi and a pound of silver, a supplement to the solidi struck with the same types and legends. These particularly heavy silver coins are the largest silver issues in Roman coinage, excluding a unique medallion of Valentinian which is very unlikely to have served any monetary function.
Priscus Attalus was a Romano-Greek from Asia of noble descent whose father had moved to Italy under Valentinian I. He became an important senator in Rome, serving as praefectus urbi at the time of the Visigothic king Alaric’s second siege in 409. Angered by the western emperor Honorius’ lack of concessions, Alaric pressured the senate of Rome by threatening to destroy the granaries at Ostia. Faced with starvation, the Senate was forced to cooperate with the Visigoths by electing one of their own members to be raised to Augustus as a rival for Honorius, whose court was based in Ravenna. In so doing, Alaric hoped to bring Honorius to negotiations. Attalus was to be the last non-Christian pretender to the purple, and was twice proclaimed emperor by the Visigoths in an effort to impose their terms on the weak and ineffectual Honorius. Attalus’ first reign only lasted a few months when in 410 Alaric deposed Attalus, believing he was hampering his negotiations with Honorius.
After Rome had been intermittently under attack from the Visigoths for three years, Alaric led part of his army north to challenge Honorius in Ravenna. When the venture failed, he returned to Rome to depose Attalus and sacked the city for three days in August AD 410 AD, taking Attalus and Honorius’ half-sister, Galla Placidia, as hostages.
Although Rome had long been overlooked as a western imperial capital, having been replaced by Mediolanum in 286 AD and again by Ravenna in 402, the Visigoth siege of Rome culminating eventually in the sack of AD 410 dealt a keen blow to the Roman psyche. This was the first time that the spiritual and cultural heart of the empire had been conquered in fully eight hundred years. The legend INVICTA ROMA AETERNA – ‘the unconquerable, eternal Rome’ and image of an enthroned Roma holding Victory vainly invokes the invincibility of the city of Rome and are laughably ironic, but reflect the desperate faith the besieged Romans felt in the invincibility of their historic capital. Despite being crowned in direct opposition to Honorius, Attalus’ Rome issues show a marked stylistic continuity with those of Honorius, likely owing to the highly competent mint workers who remained in Rome during the Visigoth siege.
Attalus remained a prisoner of the Visigoths for five years until he was called on as emperor against Honorius again by Alaric’s successor and brother-in-law Athaulf. After heavy fighting between several different parties during these years, Athaulf allied the Visigoths with Honorius, cementing the partnership by marrying Galla Placidia in 414 AD. The partnership was short-lived and Honorius’ general Constantius (who would later become Emperor Constantius III) began to blockade the ports of Gaul. In reply, Athaulf acclaimed Priscus Attalus as emperor again. Attalus’ second reign was no more successful than his first, and he fell into the hands of Constantius and Honorius, who paraded him in triumph through the streets of Rome and banished him to the Aeolian Islands after relieving him of his right thumb and forefinger in a symbolic punishment against his revolt."

 

That stinks

 

Great answer

 

I like the pearls

 

Right - I just won a lot on a European auction site and between mailing, PayPal fee, handing fee, auction house fee and the because we want to make more money fee it cost almost 50% more than my winning bid - yes that’s correct - I should post the numbers - it’s almost but not quite to the point where I’ll enjoy what I have and tell the market they can eat the coins. It is really going back to being the hobby of kings. I’ll collect minerals or something.

well maybe not…