Richard Beale

I always attend the NYINC show so will be there as usual, but RNL will be taking a table for the first time this year as we will be launching an important new development to directly benefit both bidders and consignors that has been a long time in the works. I'll be very happy to meet anyone wishing to stop by and say hello!

According to the notes, RIC 57 is "regarded as a continuation of issues (nos. 44-5) of [AD] 64-5, and principally because there is sharing of an aureus die with the vesta issue (no. 61), for which there does not seem to be room in [AD] 64-5)." So, it's because the authors believe the type was struck across two successive years, and gave it an RIC reference for each year (AD 64/5 and AD 65/6).

Put yourself in the shoes of your older self. You’re at the point of selling your collection that you have spent countless hours (and not an insubstantial sum of money) assembling. What will you do now - let the auction house sell your coins like they’re common potatoes, or do you think you may want some token recognition of your collection for posterity, vanity, or perhaps for some small measure of immortality? Some may not care beyond the point they have decided to sell. Others want their collection sold as a named collection, not unlike giving a book a title, however plain or opaque it might be. In the case of the Anders Collection, this was the precise formula requested by the consignor, whose own name this reflects. The second thing to understand, which is perhaps obvious after a little introspection, is that many collectors have no desire to have their full name made public (e.g. BCD, to name but one prominent example), nor their life history, nor what they had for breakfast. This can be for any number of reasons, but the most common thought process is that it’s rarely a good idea to announce to the world that you’ve suddenly come into a lot of money. 🙂

It’s not a bug. Results have to be checked. Then the site gets updated. Invoices sent next working day.

Could you please share an example (or examples) of false provenances?

For the admirers of Republic coins…

Indeed… It’s a special issue in my view. It has a newly-recognised denominational mark on the reverse and is part of a series issued along with drachms (also with denominational mark) and a unique pentadrachm (also displaying an explicit denomination).

Exactly.

Sorry, it's not my intention to "put you in your place"! 🙂 I feel folks are entitled to a little explanation, and don't want them to think of all auction houses as motivated by greed. I'd classify low value as £0-250, mid range at £250-2,500 and high value as £2,500+ but that's not set in stone anywhere, it's just my opinion.

That's just my data set. It will vary from auction house to auction house, particularly depending on the type of coins they are selling. NAC for example, who do not handle 'low value' coins, will have seen the greatest % increase. Low value coins, which make up the bulk of the market, have seen little to no rise in prices, the mid range has seen a moderate rise, and the top 1% or less of high value coins account for the greatest rise in prices.

Coins are not bread or milk which when hit by increased production costs end up being marked up on shelves accordingly. Bidders don't increase their bids by 13.8% in line with inflation - I certainly don't when bidding, do you? 🙂 Sure, coin prices have generally risen by about 20% on average since late 2019 across the 27,000 or so coins we sell each year according to my data, but over 3 years a 20% rise is not considerable. Now, I can't speak for other auction houses, but in our case although staffing costs have increased by over 15% per capita over the past year, and courier costs have risen considerably (which we haven't passed on), inflation was not the motivation for us. Rather, if competitors increase their BP they have more ammunition, specifically in the form of greater flexibility with terms, to win consignments.

Hi Aidan, this is one of my ongoing headaches. I sympathise fully; couriers & postal services have not been very good at applying the correct VAT rates and are making life quite difficult for all concerned. We won’t be opening an office in Belgium as the country offers no other potential business value to us at this time. We are actively considering some form of arrangement in Germany or the Netherlands.

To be fair, this is indeed a straight up clone! The planchet shape, centring etc are all the same. But now we're into Hunnic tribes. We'll contact that buyer.

Be that as it may, in the absence of further information there isn't a concrete reason they should be modern. The surface of your coin may simply be corroded, but it's hard to say from a photo. Ours had no indications of being cast - quite the contrary. I don't intend to prolong this discussion since I actually still have a lot of work to do and have ambitions of at some point being able to go home to my family, but I took exception to your post and pressed you to back up your statement because off the cuff comments like these which have no repercussions to the anonymous poster making them have real world consequences for (in this case over a dozen) other people's livelihoods. We shield the market from a great many fakes every year so this sort of post is quite vexing. If you'd like me to point you in the direction of an auction with truly "a lot" of fakes in it, I'd be happy to oblige for the sake of what you might find to be an amusing (or horrifying) 20 minutes.