Ruined Anicents by Fake Toning

Good stuff, been seeing all these ancients...you guys are a living history of information! Nice job

 

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I think only the image has been smoothed, in photoshop or similar software. I very much doubt that this twerp has actual physical possession even of a fake of the NAC coin.

 

Are you convinced that the lister actually has the coin to sell? Do you see the possibility that the new photo is not only the same coin but the same photo just retouched and upped in contrast/saturation?

 

Especially as they seem more than happy to make up fake provenances for their other coins. I'm not sure what's more sickening, that, or the hideous toning jobs and all the misleading info you find in their listings.

I'd be surprised if the JC aureus listing is for real.

 

This person has been on CT, and has previously sold many higher-grade, authentic coins on eBay. My guess is that she has the coin, at least on consignment.

 

$130,000 would be a huge bargain for a genuine example of this type in this grade.

 

I like toning as much as the next guy, but there is a difference between tasteful old age toning and the seizure inducing fake painted/chemical induced stuff that guy is selling:

Nothing beats old cabinet toning. In real life this coin has a hint of blue, but it's nothing compared to that garbage on Ebay



Or my favorite, natural dark toning from centuries of no cleaning...yeah, that's a silver denarius!



Not that I mind the shinny stuff...shinny can be beautiful too!

 

Another point: Is this seller associated with what we knew as ACM-L?

 

If I could believe that I'd find the money to buy the c̶o̶n̶ coin. It absolutely could be flipped for an easy profit. I don't believe it though. The NAC sale was real; I was there. It's possible this coin would realize somewhat less today, although I doubt it, but there's no chance at all it would hammer at less than say 200,000 CHF. Even that would be a real bargain.

 

Yup, my favorite are those jet black silvers.

Agreed!

 

Hate to see the ancient market having this toning issue happen. Just browse through eBay and see how it has hit US issues.

 

I have sent her a message - let's see what happens.

 

That toning could be stripped with lemon juice?

 

If it's not painted then it's possible it could come off with lemon juice.

 

That sort of fake toning comes off very easily - in fact, you can rub it off with your fingers, so if you happen to like it, be careful how you handle the coins.

 

Some of them look heat toned.

 

Colorful natural toning is certainly possible with ancients but it looks different and takes time. In this case, the coin's been out of the ground for over a century(Ex. Frederick Rindge collection, d. 1905) and was in one of RBW's envelopes for at least 3 decades before I got it:


Edit: got a PM about the differences in color between obv/rev and thought I'd answer here. I think it's likely Rindge kept his coins in trays, probably in a cabinet. This often happens with open-air trays.

 

Reminds me of coins I have held to a fire

 

My L. Julius L. f. Caesar cupid biga denarius is also an ex-RBW (supposedly... not in the main catalogs) and it too has colorful toning. When I acquire coins with any colorful toning, when photographing them I light and tilt them until I capture the most dramatic reflections and colors. Unless viewed at a similar angle and similar light, the color is much less pronounced.

I suspect the seller made a huge and incorrect assumption about who put together the "Eucharius Collection". Perhaps it was named after Dr. Rosslin, but in searching I've found no reason to link the coins to him.

Roma began selling coins from the Eucharius Collection in their Auction XI. The print catalog can be viewed online. That auction featured many coins from Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Dr. Murray Gell-Mann. There was a full page writeup of Gell-Mann at the front of the catalog. If the Eucharius Collection was put together by Dr. Rosslin in the fifteenth century, you can bet that it too would have had at least a full page flaunting that pedigree.

 

I see none of that eBay seller's "Eucharius Collection" coins in the three Roma sales which have closed. It doesn't mean they can't be from that collection, but they weren't in the Roma sales. The eBay coins are fairly low grade, so maybe they weren't good enough for a Roma sale.

While looking for prior sales of those eBay coins, I noticed that one of them is incorrectly attributed, and the incorrect attribution in part led to the over-hyped sales pitch.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Killer-...705173?hash=item51e5ad84d5:g:mlsAAOSwUfNXSob7

It is not a denarius Cn Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus. It is from Cn. Lentulus Clodianus.