KenDorney

I have many things, but no time to dig too deeply.  While I sold my antiquities collection a few years back I did retain a few things, including my Pre-Colombian Bart Simpson:

Interesting to be sure, but I like to take that 'wait and see' approach.  A lot of the bigger dealers sit on very large inventories of hoard material, like the mentioned tetradrachms.  Heritage has been selling the same stuff weekly for many years.  Every week, the exact same material.  Roma isnt any different, but its possible they need to raise come cash prior to maybe his sentencing and potential fines with the US govenment.

As for bank accounts, I was going to create an individual post on this topic today.  Its not just Roma changing banks and accounts.  Seems like almost all of the auction houses are doing the very same thing for a few years now.  One big house, well known and above reproach, has changed their accounts many times in the last couple years and I had to email them today to get something which would work.  My suspicion is that our hobby is under a lot of scrutiny right now.  Often I try to make a bank transfer and it wont go through.  I'm given some reason to the effect of 'we cant send money to this account right now.  It might be they are trying to keep the money flowing without delay.

Members leaving:  There are new auction houses popping up seems like every few months.  The hobby has gotten very big, there are lots of coins out there and everyone seems to want to throw their hat in the ring to hopefully become the next new big one.  Lots of people are moving from one house to another, or becoming the new 'US' or 'UK', or 'European' representative.

I havent had much issue with shipping lately, but I have noticed that sometimes packages come Fedex and some DHL, I never know which.  My issue is more with Fedex, who constantly holds packages for customs.  This time I bought a few sestertii for my collection from Roma and for some odd reason one lot was listed by them as originating from Iran, which is prohibited.  So...I have to figure out that mess.  I suspect they will have to be sent back and re-shipped.  Fedex really sucks!

1 hour ago, ominus1 said:

not unheard of

 

It just dawned on me I know precisely where your avatar comes from!  I wondered why he looked familiar!  One of my favorites.

1 hour ago, Deinomenid said:

 Are you sure that's a Becker? It doesn't look like it from my admittedly rather beat-up old  copy of the Hill book. There are quite a few differences between your coin and this. I'm aware of the irony of suggesting this is a fake of a fake! 🙂

It’s definitely from the same dies. My first thought before I could get home to my books was indeed that it was a fake of a fake (like many Paduans) as its lead allow. I knew Becker struck all his in correct metals but read that his family did the restrikes in lead alloy. 

Over the weekend I had a coin show in which I picked up an interesting 'coin'.  I knew instantly of course it was fake, as it was overly heavy (I figured lead) and the flan had a casting seam around the edge.  But it was such a lovely thing I knew I had to have it.  With no access to my books I wasnt able to look up if it was a known type, but posting a pic on Facebook resulted in it being a Becker forgery.  

Carl Wilhelm Becker was a forger operating in Germany in the 19th century, and rather than taking time here to sum up who he was and what he did you can get a free book read of the standard book and catalog of his works here:

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book//lookupid?key=olbp98216

On to the coin:

Its a Siculo-Punic type Tetradrachm, expertly and attractively rendered.  Becker died in 1830, and his family continued on to produce a few more of his fakes (which by then were well known as being false but highly collectible), striking them in lead/tin alloy, not quite and nicely as Becker had done but with his dies.  They were made up to 1911 when his dies were transferred to the Saalburg Museum.  According to George Hill, the author of the book, only 331 coins in total of all types were produced after his death, though it could be more.  These were sold for 40 Florins each at the time.

This is only my second Becker, the first being a hybrid tetradrachm of Gela and Messana:

 While I do not have an extensive collection of fakes and forgeries, these two are certainly my favorites.

I would be very interested to see what others have!

Did a couple car shows this weekend.  We have this big event called Cool April Night, loads of cars and shows.  My 66 Type I is the one with the logo in the pic.  I was excited to do the cruise until I realized I have a coin show this weekend.  Ah well.  Maybe next year.

Someone posted these on facebook and I thought they would make a really cool silver bullion round.  Kinda pricey to have made though.

13 hours ago, CassiusMarcus said:

I uploaded two listings but I’m not sure if the feature is down or not encouraged to be used. Sorry if that’s the case! 😓

I can see them, so perhaps the feature is working.

Working on a collection of Roman ladies and their hairstyles, just picked up some of the easiest for far (trying to get decent EF if possible).  

Look to be Chalkoi of Ptolemy III minted in Cyrene, but its hard to say, the pics are not good enough for me to tell.  They look to be severely over-cleaned, so that will reduce the value by at least 50% or more.

Well, this thread went a bit sideways, and many of the responses are confusing to say the least.  It is very important to remember that slabbed coins are not guaranteed in any way, shape or form.  If you ask NGC for example, they will waffle around a bit and say that they wont slab a coin unless it is genuine, but they dont guarantee them.  So in the case of the Lydian coin above, there would be a chain of possession to follow.  First the buyer would have to convince Heritage the coin is false.  If they did accept a return, they would have to take it up with their consignor, who would have to take it up with CNG, and finally their consigner as well.  All of these steps are dependent on each person accepting the coin in return.  Any one of them refusing or disagreeing on the authenticity stops the process.  The slab will have no bearing on any of this at all.  It is simple plastic and represents nothing but an opinion in the end.

I wont get into the merits of slabbing (I'm not a fan).  But as to how the coins are photographed and presented on VCoins, we have a new requirement and that is that if a coin is graded the slab must be shown.  I'm guessing its to ensure the slab is correct and genuine and buyers can look the serial number up to confirm.  In the past I've just listed the number in the lot description but going forward I will do my usual side by side obverse and reverse with the pic of the slab as an additional photo.

I picked this up at todays Roma sale for the simple reason it looks like the King of Pop to me!

19 hours ago, rNumis said:

I haven't tried re-listing yet, but it seems a little strange...it says I have an incoming shipment ( I certainly do not) and additionally that I should leave feedback, both with strange codes, and no further interaction available on those action items. I suspect it's not feeling 100% yet, but we'll see.

I show the same thing.

Is there nothing there because it doesnt work or nobody has posted yet?

10 hours ago, CPK said:

Thanks! Not in RPC?

Not at the time I added it to the collection.  Havent looked recently.

It entirely depends on the type of coin, where they were found and age.  You might be surprised to find that they are often nearly as made.  A couple years ago I bought part of a hoard of Tabaristan hemidrachms that looked pretty darned nice, just a small amount of light soil adhering.  Attached are a couple pics, before and after cleaning.

21 hours ago, CPK said:

Thanks! I had my eye on one in an auction a while ago, but passed because the reverse was too off-center. Glad I waited!

Thanks!

Wow! I've never seen that type before. That is a terrific coin! What time period was it struck?

Thrace, Byzantion, Time of Severus Alexander, 222 – 235 AD
Æ20, 4.81 grams
Obverse:  Head of youthful Dionysos right wreathed in ivy.

Reverse:  Ostrich running left being hunted by a dog.

References:
BMC 59  //  Imhoof-Blumer pl. 5, 52  //  Bernhard pl. 4, 9  //  Pick 21 b, p. 48  //  Schönert-Geiss, 2126.2, p. 150, pl. 131
 

Here is my Hadrian As.  Currently my favorite coin and I always love to show it off!

Here is my Pseudo-Autonomous example from Byzantion:

Also, as a dealer I have this kind of thing going on.  Loads of stuff in bags, boxes, envelopes, etc.  Some of it has been sitting for years.  I just cant get to it all right away, I just grabbed a few for the pic.

Seems many of us are in a similar situation.  As others have pointed out, there is only so much time in the day, so I only work on my collection when I have time (which is not often these days).  I have trays of coins sitting on the bookshelves atop the books, stashed waiting to be processed.  In this pic you can see I have one tray worked up and another not, none of it photographed at all.  It can often take months to get it done.

Not cast. Perfectly genuine. 

This was offered to me recently by a well known dealer.  He did not agree with me that it was tooled.  You will likely see it in an auction soon. 

Thats a pretty insane price.  Some of these have hammered for a couple hundred last year, but to be fair others sold for similar prices.  I wonder where the market is going for ancients these days.