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!

On 12/11/2022 at 10:31 PM, Roman Collector said:

Congratulations on your new addition to your collection! Nero denarii are in high demand and they don't come cheaply. Moreover, although I COULD acquire a Nero denarius, I get distracted. You know how it is.

 

I wish I knew the difference between the two RIC numbers; the best I can tell, their descriptions are identical. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about Nero coins could explain. @KenDorney@Richard Beale@curtislclay

 

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…

6 hours ago, AncientJoe said:

That flan is something you don't see every day!

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.

4 minutes ago, Egry said:

Ya I’ve realized my place in this conversation. This is your business literally. 
 

just for my own info what price ranges do you classify low, mid, high? 

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. 

1 hour ago, Egry said:

My thoughts exactly. Inflation will raise the sale price and therefor the BP. Increasing the   % BP with the excuse of inflation is straight up BS. Please excuse the acronyms. 

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. 

34 minutes ago, akeady said:

Actually, @Richard Beale, on a related note, has Roma any plans to follow Naville's lead and import coins to the EU through Belgium, a country with low import taxes (6%)?

I'd bid more often again, if you did as since Brexit, I'm being hit with 23% charges on things from outside the EU, including the UK.   Naville are sending things through NAC's Brussels office, which softens the blow a lot.   This likely applies to other EU collectors too (apart from Belgians!) - I don't know if there's any EU country with a lower import tax rate.

The only downside to the Naville approach is that shipping is very slow.

(I have complained to Irish Customs that I should be paying a 13.5% antiquities rate rather than 23%, but no joy so far)

ATB,

Aidan.

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. 

3 minutes ago, Severus Alexander said:

@velarfricative, please be a bit more circumspect about your claims unless you have very good evidence.  There are lots of examples of Hunnic coins struck with rusty dies, so the match you point to here is far from definitive.

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.

8 minutes ago, velarfricative said:

https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=4679&lot=421  All I'll say is, I do feel quite bad for whoever bought this one!

8 minutes ago, velarfricative said:

On the topic of die matches, there is also these: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=imitating+Eagle+series&category=1-2&company=93&lot=&thesaurus=1&images=1&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=gbp&order=1 . Attached is a very close example for the Zeus/Eagle one, which to me seems certainly cast. As for the other Athena/Eagle drachms, the style to me seems quite off, and completely unlike any other imitations that I have seen though I would be happy to see a counter-example.

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.  

15 minutes ago, jfp7375 said:

Didn't get anything at Roma unfortunately. I had my eye on roman republican silver and the ones I liked got pretty pricey (some very much so) unfortunately 😞

Been struggling to find something to buy myself for my birthday - seems a bit dry out there right now. I guess I'll just save up for Artemide in september, but kind of a bummer. 

PM me your name. We'll send you something for your birthday to keep you going. 😉

4 minutes ago, velarfricative said:

Well, I'm not accusing you of deliberately flooding the market with fakes, of course; you handle a huge volume of coins, and on a frequent basis, and it's not exactly possible to look over everything with a fine-tooth comb. I mean "a lot" in a relative sense, the vast majority of your Baktrian coins are certainly authentic, but I have noticed a tendency to attribute coins as imitations when it seems more likely that they are inauthentic. https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=5591&lot=482 in recent memory; forgeries of this style from Pantaleon show up often on ebay (https://www.ebay.com/itm/133984804705?hash=item1f321ddf61 appears to be die-identical ).

Assuming for a moment that the 5 Yuezhi coins are fake, which is certainly possible I admit, but not yet demonstrated, I don't think anyone could consider 0.3% of Baktrian coins sold "a lot". On the matter of the Pantaleon we'll have to disagree - the appearance, fabric, corrosion patterns and break were such that it did not raise the warning flags that an unbroken, uncorroded example might, so an ancient imitation seemed more likely. It turned out to indeed be a modern concoction of course and the coin was not sold.

4 minutes ago, NewStyleKing said:

I'm with Rich Beale here!  Thanks for selling my Antigonus Tetradrachm!

 

NSK=John

Our pleasure - glad you were pleased with the result!

7 minutes ago, velarfricative said:

Ah, I see it got withdrawn; https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=5902&lot=632  is a very common fake. I would like to hear your thoughts on this type, however: https://www.sixbid-coin-archive.com/#/en/search?text=yuezhi dynasts

I have never had reason to doubt the type - handling 5 isolated coins spread out over the space of 3 years is not something that naturally arouses one's suspicions, though I agree it is concerning that they all seem to share the same dies. I also don't like the fabric or appearance of the earlier 2 in particular.

That said, I'd still like to see more evidence to back up your assertion that "Roma certainly sells a lot of fake Baktrian coins". These are 5 lots out of 1590.

1 hour ago, TheTrachyEnjoyer said:

American inflation must be hitting the UK hard Richard Beale 👀

Inflation doesn't only affect America. Truflation's newly launched UK index shows CPIH running at 13.8% in the 12 months to 24 July. Inflation in the US is running at 9.1%. 

In any case, since GBP is at record lows against the USD your money goes a great deal further than it did this time last year. 

It's worth noting that most generalist auction houses worldwide operate on 25% BP or more. The numismatic industry has stuck to comparatively low premiums for much longer, ourselves included. 

21 minutes ago, velarfricative said:

Roma certainly sells a lot of fake Baktrian coins, but I don't really see any issues with #600; what were people's suspicions?

Except that we don't. Perhaps you'd like to point out some of the "lot of fake Baktrian coins" that we "certainly sell"?