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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Blake Davis, post: 4804283, member: 91820&quot;]These are certainly ten gorgeous sestertii, but I think I could find dozens nicer than many of these that sold for a fraction of the price. All it takes is two determined bidders with deep deep pockets to take the price of a coin into record territory. But yes to repeat, these are beautiful but a sharp eyed collector of substantial means can find sestertii as nice for much less - and in fact a really really sharp eyed collector with the time to scour the listings who has access to a good conservator can once in a while find a diamond in the rough. This used to be far more possible to do when we had the influx from Eastern Europe. Some of the finest sestertii in my collection started out looking quite different when purchased - NOT tooled but expertly cleaned and smoothed - there is a big difference. I think it is very hard to find sestertii that are suitable for this now and unfortunately all but one of three conservators I used to know no longer work on coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>And of course adding patina to sestertii is another means of conserving a coin - but this is an extremely sensitive, almost taboo subject.</p><p><br /></p><p>In fact I have a story about that -&nbsp; a friend who was a dealer advised me early in my collecting career that a great way to add patina to a coin is to put the coin in potting soil to which dried soil from a river bottom is added and then leave it alone for a few years. I figured great - a natural way to patinate a coin!</p><p><br /></p><p>So I put the coin with some river soil in one of my wife’s many potted plants. Fast forward a year or so by which time the plants were shuffled around and I forgot which pot it was in. Then some of the plants were mistakenly thrown out. Needless to say a diligent search of the rest did not result in finding the coin.&nbsp; Fortunately it wasn’t too much of a loss -one time I did FAR worse which I’m still not ready to talk about!</p><p><br /></p><p>Actually that’s a good question - has anyone on the list ever lost or permanently misplaced an ancient coin?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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