znmto

8 hours ago, Mucius Scaevola said:

I usually don't buy slabbed coins, as people tend to pay more for the slabs and I want to touch my coins. Here was an absolute exception I made, because I know the seller from another forum and the price (1200,-) was really good for that shape. It was mounted, but that's no problem for me as they did not cut the edge. 

It will probably stay alone, without any slabbed friend.

I would say the slab adds no value in this case so break it out.

I have a couple slabs I would like to get rid of, but one is a star and another is Ch MS, so I'm considering selling them to capture the premium that those distinctions bring and buying back similar quality coins unslabbed.

Here is mine. REV overstruck on brockage.

21 hours ago, Octavius said:

 Hail emperor Vespasian, Felicem Diem Natalem!...

       

I think you're just missing the banknote now:

2 hours ago, JeandAcre said:

@znmto, I like how the two portaits compement each other, across centuries and media. 

The half franc is terrifc, plug or not.  As an issue this late, from France's Far East (<--sorry), I can't doubt that it's a scarce issue.  The legends are as pristine as you could want.  Not least in comparison to  a lot of the contemporaneous, late Tudor examples I've seen, online and off.

Here's one from the same town.  I like it a lot; it was my avatar in the old forum. 

Duchy of Burgundy.  Hughes IV, Duc de Bourgogne 1218-1272.

Obv.  +VGO BVRGVNDIE.  In field, 'DVX.''

Rev.  Cross, with arrows in two angles (imitating deniers of Provins in Champagne --Burgundy's primary trading partner, by way of the famous Champagne Fairs).

+DIVIONENSIS.

Dumas 8-1-1 (as cited in the Alde /OGN catalogue, 16 and 17 June 2011), var.

Thanks! I actually don't know too much about it, so I appreciate the context.

Apparently there are no examples of 1603 over 1 found online. I got the coin from Old Pete.

France. Henry IV 1589-1610. Dijon. Half franc. 1603 over 1. AR (28mm, 6.79g, 5h). OBV: Laureate and cuirassed right with small flat collar. REV: "Blossoming Cross" with H at center turned 90 deg. Ref: C.1534 L.1061 Dy.1212 Sb4766. Holed and plugged.

6 hours ago, Ocatarinetabellatchitchix said:

Very nice new acquisition Jens: we share the same passion for big Bronzes. About another hobby, I really miss your Lego creations. Have you built something new lately @Julius Germanicus?

tagnetially to the thread but related to what you said, I would've loved for Lego to release something like this https://ideas.lego.com/projects/fad015d0-688e-4cad-be3b-8f23ed7b90c3

12 hours ago, John Conduitt said:

They're strange mistakes, and the other guy didn't even question them. He does say he isn't sure about Diocletian, but if he knew he was going to talk for quite some time about Milvian Bridge, surely he'd note down a few facts, or even look them up at all. Although in an hour-long live podcast about the current market that won't be listened to much in the future, I'm not surprised they didn't bother correcting it. It's hard to talk that long and be entertaining.

But after listening for an hour, I don't know if I learned anything, and that isn't from a position of great knowledge. The history was very basic - explaining at length what a Chi-Rho is etc. The comments about the coins were rather empty. 'This coin shows the greatness of Constantine the Great'. Taking a full 12 minutes to tell us not to put coins in jewelery, when surely everyone watching is a coin collector who wouldn't do that. It's hard to know who it is aimed at. It reminds me of the computer game streams my young son listens to, and he isn't going to listen to this. He certainly doesn't have $2,000 for a coin with Jesus on it.

To be fair the "other guy" is their Modern American coin expert and one of the podcast's theme is him learning more about ancients with Aaron.

8 hours ago, TheTrachyEnjoyer said:

New Ancient Coins: We showcase our latest Greek, Roman, and Byzantine purchases
https://youtu.be/tf8GQ9qSyJQ

 

subscribed, thanks!

I'd like to see others step up and make quality Ancient Coin podcasts instead of nitpicking a couple of mistakes from a live episode. 

This kind of content brings new collectors to the hobby which is desperately in need of young blood.

14 hours ago, Phil Davis said:

What's actually "dismaying" is the fact that you've used most of your handful of comments here to harshly critique the functioning of a forum in which you've barely participated. Contrast that with the contributions of Severus Alexander-- the target of your current pontificating-- one of the best-liked and best-informed Numis Forums members. I have no idea what your agenda really is.

 

Is my opinion worth less because I don't contribute? The majority of any forum's members are lurkers. 

Your personal attack is wholly unwarranted.

4 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

True. 😄 Thankfully an occasional tangent is OK here on Numisforums... though it would also be perfectly reasonable to take this topic to pm's, as Simon has done.  Welcome to the forum!

For everyone else: this a tangent to the thread, feel free to ignore. 🙂 (But it's interesting, though! 😜) 

Thanks for the response, @Tejas!  I agree with much of what you say, I don't think we're nearly as far apart as you think we are.  I'm certainly not trying to defend a political position, much less socialism, nor am I criticizing the free market.  I also agree with you that auctions are in general an excellent way of allocating scarce resources.  Most of what you say is aiming to defend that view, which I'm not contesting.  I'm not talking about the free market price-fixing mechanism as it normally operates.  I'm talking about an abnormal situation, where an individual's behaviour departs from the rational and from the normal, but most importantly where it departs from moral behaviour.

In other words I'm making a much smaller point about the ethical behaviour of individuals in the context of a free market.

First, it's pretty clear that individuals can act unethically within that context, right?  Insider trading, for example.  Which happens to be illegal as well; it's illegal because it's unethical.  But not all unethical behaviours are illegal, though.  Lying, for example.  (In the context of the free market, some kinds of lies are illegal, but not all. And outside that context, plenty of lies aren't illegal, although they're still unethical.)

I'm just saying that in some cases, wealthier bidders "throwing their money around" for no adequate reason qualifies as unethical.  That's when: 1) there's an established market price for the coin (with vague boundaries), 2) the wealthier bidder goes well beyond those vague boundaries for no good reason, and 3) the wealthier bidder has very good reason to think there are other bidders who want the coin for much better reasons, but who can't afford to throw their money around in the same way.  (Probably I should add 4: there's no reason to think a particularly needy seller is on the other end of the transaction.)  In this situation, the wealthier bidder is very likely to be causing harm to those less fortunate than them, for no good reason.  Not nice!  (Though a pretty minor ethical infraction, as these things go, to be sure. 🙂)

One way to argue against me would be to say that one or more of 1-4 are never satisfied.  I think that case is hard to make.  Maybe not often satisfied, but never??

The argument is actually analogous to one that Peter Singer makes in a much more important context.  Suppose that, wearing some new shoes and a suit, you witness a child drowning in a pond.  Morally speaking, should you jump in to save the child and ruin your new clothes (thus sacrificing them), or instead walk on and let the child drown?  It's obvious that you should jump in.  Your need for the suit and shoes pales in comparison to the child's need for her life, there's no contest!  But we all face this same situation every day, says Singer (at least those of us living in areas of relative affluence).  Children die of poverty/hunger/malaria etc. every day, and a simple donation (to the value of the suit and shoes, or even less) would save a life.  Instead of buying that suit, or going out for dinner or whatever, we ought to donate the money.

Of course that leaves the question of where to stop, since there are always more lives to save.  He discusses this issue and comes to a compromise position in The Life You Can Save (a brilliant book, available for free here.)  But the general point is, I think, unassailable.  Hopefully it's obvious how my Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case is analogous, although of much less importance because the harm to Poorie Poor in not getting a nice coin is far, far less than in the Singer argument about affluent people buying nice suits.

And, just to post an appropriate coin, here's one issued by a philosopher: Aristion of Athens, just before Sulla's sack of the city in 88 BCE:

I am dismayed that you acknowledge your post as off-topic and still double down and persist in preaching your ideology.

It is a very slippery slope into politics, which has been the death-knell of many online communities.

It would be a shame to count this one among them, especially given how young it is.

4 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

@SimonW and @Tejas, thanks for engaging with my thinking on this ethical issue. 🙂 I'll be interested to hear what you think when I elaborate a bit more, if you care to respond further. (Sorry for the essay. Feel free to say tl;dr! 😆)

To recap, I suggested it was morally incumbent on a buyer to consider the means of those below them in buying power when bidding on a coin (or anything else) that has a relatively established market value and that can be expected to come up again without too much waiting around... especially when the coin isn't even something the wealthier bidder wants that much.  Basically, a rich collector paying far beyond market price just because they can and don't feel like waiting around (or worse: on a whim) is behaving unethically due to the harm it brings to the collector with less means, but who can pay around market value... especially if this is repeated behaviour on the part of the rich collector.

It might be easier to understand my point in the following scenario: a rich collector (Richie Rich) knows there's only one other bidder (Poorie Poor), knows Poorie has very little money, knows Poorie won't get a chance at that price again, and the coin is sitting at well below market value. Richie also knows Poorie really wants the coin. (It's still a coin that comes up often, though; Richie will just have to wait a bit if he doesn't bid.)  In that case it seems obvious to me that Richie Rich ought to leave the coin for Poorie Poor at below market value.  If Richie nonetheless outbids Poorie, he's being a jerk!  Richie is knowingly sacrificing a substantial bit of Poorie's joy for a trivial need of Richie's own: a bit of a wait, or worse a mere whim.  Do you agree?

The same point would apply in a similar situation except where it's not Richie Rich and Poorie Poor, but instead Average Joe and Poorie Poor being the only two bidders.

It's less obvious in the original case because a bidder doesn't know a lot of these details, but I still think the point holds and for the same reasons.  It's reasonable for the wealthy bidder who hardly notices paying 5, 10, or even 20 times market value to assume there are some underbidders who really want the coin and who are in Average Joe and/or Poorie Poor's situation.  In fact this is pretty much guaranteed.  So the wealthy bidder does know that they'll be doing some harm in exchange for a trivial need of theirs (waiting a bit, or a whim).  It's OK for the wealthy bidder to bid the coin up above market value somewhat, but not ridiculously so.

Of course there's a fuzzy line between these sorts of cases and the ordinary sort of case where it's perfectly ethical behaviour determining a fair market value, but just because there's some vagueness here doesn't mean there aren't clear cases where things become morally questionable.  I suspect you both might disagree, but I don't see how you can deny the conclusion in the Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case.  Then it's just a matter of outlining the relevant vaguenesses.  For example, when Average Joe is after a coin, they can count on other Average Joes bidding too, and not just Poorie Poor's.  So it's not incumbent upon them to defer to a Poorie Poor, since they'll just lose the coin to another Average Joe then, and their sacrifice won't do any good at all.

You'll observe that this is following something like a basic utilitarian/consequentialist ethical principle, that one ought to maximize benefits and minimize harms to all concerned.

Some responses to some good points you both make:

@SimonW says "A free market economy doesn't work this way."  How it works and how it should work (in the sense of how people should behave, morally speaking) are different things.  My point is a point about "ought", not "is".  (I've heard people defend the most atrocious behaviour on the grounds of "free market."  But obviously it's not true that anything goes.)

Also: "But more importantly: who is to decide who (the well-heeled or the less well-heeled buyer) "deserves" a coin and who should or should not be bidding?" Here's where the reason for buying comes into play.  When Richie Rich buys something he doesn't even particularly want, or just to avoid waiting a bit, or on a whim, these are trivial reasons that can't compete with Poorie Poor's great desire for the coin, or even Average Joe's.

@Tejas says "There is not only the interest of the buyers (collectors), but also the interest of the sellers. An auction caters to the interest of both groups. Compared to all alternatives, it is the most efficient and the "fairest" way to "allocate" coins from sellers to buyers."  Yes, I worried about this a bit when I made my original comment.  Also, it means the Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case maybe needs another bit of information: that Richie knows the seller is reasonably wealthy.  The obligations may change somewhat if the seller is known to be an Average Joe, and certainly if the seller is known to be a Poorie Poor.

I wonder what the probabilities are concerning the seller's wealth status in the ordinary case?  Probably it can be safely assumed the seller isn't a Poorie Poor, at least that's a low probability scenario. The wealthy collector should base their actions on the probability of there being someone with much less means than them who really wants the coin, and that the seller doesn't really need a lot more than market value (as Poorie Poor would).  These probabilities mean the general point still holds, in the sense that there's an ethical line beyond which we've departed from fair market value, as I explained above.

Anyway, surely the world is full of rich people behaving badly!  Often without realizing it.  No? 😄 

I think this is a bit off-topic.

12 hours ago, sand said:

the NGC number serves as sort of a certificate of authenticity (COA)

it does not.