Roman Coin on Pawn Stars?

Listed at 3.62g shoots the possibility of it being plated. The CNG image looks less porous than the TV image did but the difference between $2.6k in 2006 and $8.5k in 2014 still seems steep.

 

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Note it is an obverse die link to the Agrippina reverse at the bottom of that same post.

 

The fact that the coin sold in 2006 from CNG also makes the guy's backstory about his family owning the coin support the show being scripted fact of life. The fact that David Vagi participated in the business also tells you something.

 

Barry just posted this on Forvm:

 

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

It was resold by CNG in 2008 for 4490$ + fees (seems to be a good investment when looking at the price go over time ).

http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=122294

 

Rick knows far less about coins than some dealers, yet he usually pays every bit as much for a nice coin as a dealer would pay. Most dealers offer 1/3 to 1/2 of the value of a coin. The Blue Book is consistently around 50% of Red Book values, historically.

I especially enjoy when Rick points out that an item is worth much more than the customer suspected or asked for initially. I recall seeing one man (who was in a hurry to leave town) tell Rick he had paid 75¢ for a jeweled Polish/Russian medal at a garage or yard sale. Rick consulted an expert, then paid the man about $6,500 for the item. Rick later sold the item to the same expert for $30K. The expert had a buyer lined up who was willing to pay even more.

 

was it polish or russian? Never confuse the two!

 

It was both. Part of Poland was ruled by Russia after Poland was partitioned in 1795. Therefore, the two can easily be confused.
"Technically, it is Russian."

 

It depends on your point of view; if you think professional wrestling is "fake" because all the matches are planned out beforehand, then yes, Pawn Stars is "fake." If on the other hand you recognize that even if a professional wrestling match is not spontaneous, it still take a lot of physical effort and skill to do what they do, then no Pawn Stars isn't really "fake."

What Pawn Stars isn't is spontaneous. But be fair and realistic; they're not going to have a camera crew hanging out in the shop all day and hope somebody brings something interesting enough to put on the show while the camera is rolling live. So yes, they recruit sellers with interesting items, have them audition, see if the item is interesting enough to make the show, then film them talking about the item and discussing the deal. The items are real, the expert is usually the person selling the item (though they do have perennial outside experts who come on the show for sake of the publicity), the story is real (about the item at least, though they'll sometimes enhance the story of how it was found to make it sound more interesting), the offers are real (though they're settled in advance, not live on camera). The pawn shop owners are well versed in many different items but they're nowhere near as expert as they look on the show; they do their research ahead of time and rehearse the facts before the cameras get turned on.

But well if you can use your suspension of disbelief a little, they're not lying about the history and details of the actual items, and what they're worth. That part is real enough, and interesting enough to make it an interesting show. It's just not spontaneous. But if it was, it would be a pretty boring show: how often, even in an upscale pawn shop, do you think someone randomly coming in off the street brings in an item interesting enough to make a show out of?

Is the show staged? Yes. But that doesn't mean what they say about the the details about the items and their value is false. That part is real, and that's the most interesting part of the show anyway.

(BTW all "reality television" is staged. "Staged" and "fake" do not mean the same thing. Just because it isn't unscripted doesn't make it "fake.")

 

It was staged the first season too. I was watching TV a while back, I found a rerun of one of the first episodes and turned it on for a few minutes. Someone brought in an old Coke or Pepsi vending machine and wanted to sell it. Said they didn't know anything about it. The person that brought it in...it was Ron Dale, the brother of Rick Dale of Rick's Restorations.

 

I would be interested in knowing if the Caligula shown here actually was bought by family and passed to the seller with no indication of how special it was. It was sold identified correctly when his family got it unless they did not get it from CNG (perhaps a thief?). I also wonder if the coin actually was bought by the shop for the $8500 or was it just rented for the purpose of the show? We will be interested to see when it next turns up on the market.

 

I really enjoy Pawn Stars. I don't care about any of the conversations between Rick and the others I just like seeing the cool items in a less boring tone of voice than Antiques Roadshow.