The development of a patina: a provenanced coin

I have actually never sold any of my coins; except for one that was not even in my hands and got traded while still at the auctioneer. I am saying this as some people here were implying that I am a dealer or a scalper.

Technically the coin is indeed slightly off center. Is it worthy of a collection? Depends on who collects it and why. My priority was to have a very well struck lion head. I failed 4 or 5 times to get one until I won this one for a relatively modest price - 2200euro hammer. The ones I really liked more and would be an upgrade hammered 5000. Lets calculate a bit what would have happened if I followed the advice I was given:

Assuming that my coin would hammer the same price 2200 and I could get one I liked for a hammer of 5000. Consignment fee 15% and buyers fee 20%

I would have lost 770 euros from the consignment
The first auctioneer would have won 770 euros.
The second auctioneer would have won 1750 euros.
I would have paid in total 6000+770 loss=6770euros.

If I kick the bucket and my inheritors consign and the hammer is the same 5000, they would get back 4250.
So total loss from the original coin and the upgrade = 2520 euros. So my options really are keep the original coin and eventually lose 770 or upgrade and lose 2520 euros.

The system is made in a way that the auctioneers win and the collectors lose. Mistakes corrected by later upgrades are very costly. There must be a disruptive way to enable collectors trade coins outside the system. More coins would then change hands easily and more collectors would be happier.

 

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I LOVE this idea. An ancients trading club! What a blast to pass around ancient coins that no longer fit your collecting needs to someone else whom's needs would be filled while getting yours met as well. Kinda like when we were kids and traded baseball cards with buddies whom had players on teams that we wanted for ones we had but didn't care for (heck yeah I'll trade you my A's Jose Canseco for that Dodger's Orel Hershiser!).

 

There already are many ways to pass coins around but they are not all that popular. Coin Talk has a buy/sell section most noted for the warning from management that you may be cheated if you use it. Are you suggesting something like our Secret Saturnalia but in the Summer? Few of us really want sight unseen surprises. There are hundreds of small dealers with reasonable coins (here on CT we have John Anthony, Valentinian, Severus Alexander and PeteB that come to mind) but all the talk here is about the high end sales. Several of us have consigned coins for sale to smaller dealers and can fail to recover what we paid a decade or two ago after subtracting minimum handling charges. That means we only offer up coins we are willing to give away. It seems most here are anxious to buy from big dealers even when some of them offer smoothed, tooled or questionable coins. I understand this when you get to a point that you only seek certain specialized things. For example, I would love to have many coins belonging to maridvnvm since we collect the same thing in general but what each of us would sell is not what each of us would want. Perhaps those with only a few coins would have an easier time finding interest in each other's cast offs? Any trade system has to be based on finding things we want in the possession of someone who no longer wants that item. That seems to be a problem these days. People don't spend long as beginners buying beginner coins before moving on to EF or better only.

Some of us have many/all our coins posted online. At least one offers to trade from those posted. I wonder how many trades that has led to.

 

Oh yeah, that makes total sense. I'd call your example very nice and worthy of almost any collection. I'd sure be glad to have an example like that. I try only to buy pieces I don't plan to upgrade because I don't want the hassle of trying to sell them later. If you ever do upgrade, I'd be happy to save you going the auction route. I was just joking, but I would seriously be happy and willing to buy this piece. It's beautiful.

 

There's a group of core members on CT ancients with high levels of mutual trust... I wondered whether it would be feasible for that group to jointly get a store on VCoins. We'd each have the relevant passwords, do our own coin listings, and pay the VCoins fees proportionally to our sales (with a minimum to discourage super-low-volume sellers). I'm not sure how payments would be handled, though... I doubt VCoins has a setup whereby sales could be directed to different accounts from within the same seller's store. Also VCoins' approval for the store might be an issue.

Any ideas on how this could be made feasible?

 

A few years in a paper envelope inside a pvc holder: