Kaleun96

It depends on your bank, or which ever payment service you use, e.g. PayPal: you can either let PayPal do the conversion (terrible rates) or let your bank do the conversion (probably better but need to ask your bank) Direct card payment: your bank is likely doing the conversion unless it converts the invoice total to your own currency during checkout, in which case the payment service is likely doing the conversion at their own rates Wise: the best option, they charge a fee but much less than banks or payment services and they tell you exactly how much it will cost upfront

The main US auction houses are now all pretty expensive for shipping to the EU. CNG is up to $40 even for small invoices, Stacks is about $50, and Heritage has always been $80+. Like others I avoid N&N due to their shipping costs. Solidus is fine for the EU it seems, or at least it was only 12 euro last year for me. Spanish and French auction houses can be expensive though, so I tend to check their shipping terms before bidding so I know what to expect. Unless the shipping cost is exorbitant though, I don't ask for a cheaper option as it's not always convenient for the auctioneer, e.g. if they've automated their shipping process to use a particular provider. For the US, I just have them ship it to a shipping forwarder and then sort out my own shipping.

💯 it was so nice to see this massive step-up in quality when YOTHR/@Prieure de Sion turned up on Vcoins, they really set a high standard for listings. So I do completely understand what you're saying @Prieure de Sion but I also think you're one of the better and fairer dealers on Vcoins, among others like Dorney, Aegean, Vossen, etc. I think there's a big gap between dealers like yourself and those who buy a coin, list it 2x or above what they paid, put in almost no effort (you're lucky if they list the weight and take a new photo) and proceed to sit on the coin in their webshop for 2 years. There are some well-known dealers like this that I don't need to name and it is these dealers that I have in mind in my previous post. If their only value to the collecting community is to price their coins for the 1% of the market that is stupid enough to pay that much, they should find something else to do. No one is forcing them to buy coins from auctions, if they can't make enough money without charging so much and relying on uninformed collectors who don't know any better then I do question what is the value that they're providing. Sure, you don't have to buy coins from them but it's frustrating when you see a coin that you were the underbidder on sit in a webshop for months at a time at a price far above what it is worth. I guess you can only hope that these types of dealers go out of business. Part of the reason for this is other dealers buying up coins from dealers who priced them fairly. This happened a lot in 2020/21 when the retail market was lagging behind the price increases in the auction market. There were more coins on my want list from retail dealers than I could afford to buy in a short amount of time, it didn't take long for them to get snapped up and then re-appear under a different dealer for X% more. What value is this type of dealer providing in that instance? The coin is already accessible online under the original dealer's Vcoins/Ma-Shops page, now it's just transferred to a different dealer on the same site with a big price hike.

There are dealers on Vcoins and MA-Shops who are just as bad, or worse, as these eBay resellers. Just recently, I saw a coin on a lesser-known French dealer's website get sold for €1200 (or possibly €1000, as it had been discounted previously), and then wind up on a different French dealer's MA-Shops for €1,800 a short time later. A month after that, it had been sold and was listed for €2,800 on a third French dealer's Vcoins store. This isn't a case of the coin being under-priced, it sat on the first dealer's website for over a year, and it survived at least the initial few days on MA-Shops where it would've been appearing in everyone's "new" feed. There's lots of examples like this too and what annoys me is that when you message them to ask for a fair discount (e.g. 40-50% above what they paid, including fees and shipping), they often reject the offer and have no problem sitting on the coin for months or years at a time, waiting for someone to pay 100-200% over what they paid. I do understand that some dealers, good dealers, provide a useful service and add value to the coins they buy by digging up unknown provenances, better attributing the coin, taking a risk on a bad auction photo, cleaning a coin up, etc and in these cases I think it's fair to mark-up the coin a reasonable amount (based on what it hammered for and what it generally should hammer for at auctions). But there's just as many, if not more, dealers on MA-Shops or Vcoins who just buy a coin at auction and relist it at a price that no knowledgeable collector would ever pay, often with a copied photo and/or description (if not a worse photo and/or description). Those dealers would do us collectors a favour if they just went bankrupt and found another line of business. As a side note, it strikes me that many FPL's are heading in this direction too (HJB, CNG, Leu, Nomos, etc). It must be close to 2 years since I last bought from an FPL and now most of what you see are coins that auctioned off a few months ago listed at some price only someone with too much money would pay.

Such a lovely Athena portrait!

First proper "New Style" owl for me, have had my eye on them for awhile but wanted to wait for a nice one that wasn't too expensive. This one fit the bill, really pleased with it! 136 BC - 135 BC Obverse: Head of Athena Parthenos right, wearing necklace, pendent earring, and triple-crested Attic helmet decorated with the protomes of four horses above the visor, a Pegasos in flight rightward above the raised earpiece, and a curvilinear ornament on the shell Reverse: Owl standing right, head facing, on amphora; A-ӨE above HPA/API-ΣTOΦ/APIΣT/OK (Hera(kles), Aristoph-, and Aristok-, magistrates) in five lines across field; to left, club facing downward, draped in lion skin and set over bow in case; M on amphora, HP below; all within wreath Reference: Thompson 339i

Nice, thanks for sharing your results! The beamsplitters can definitely be a bit sensitive to minor adjustments and are a pain to hold in place. The first axial setup I tried several years ago involved making a holder from foamcore (see photo below), which should be available cheaply from hobby stores. It's easy to cut and glue, and black foamcore does a decent job at preventing additional reflections. So I can recommend something like that if you need a cheap solution. Two things worth checking in your setup, if you haven't already, are: having some material on the opposite side of the glass to the light source that absorbs the light and prevents back-reflections, and taking a photo with the setup exactly how you would use it but minus the beamsplitter. That's a quick test you can do to see how much non-axial light you're letting into the image. You probably want some but you can also check if the non-axial light is somewhat evenly distributed across the coin or you're getting a "leak" from the main light source that just hits a particular part of the coin. Here's my old foamcore setup for reference, back when I was using an 8x10 picture frame glass or something like that.

I know you won't reply since you're a troll but does this mean every numismatist who talks about die rust is wrong? If so, I'd like to see your peer-reviewed published articles on the matter. What's more likely: that every numismatist is wrong or that Filat is right? Hmm... that's a tough one!

These are not air bubbles. Not every coin is cast. These are likely products of silver corrosion, such as horn silver. Possibly some of them are where the surface layer of silver has been corroded away, leaving a discoloured pitted surface. You aren't familiar with die rust, you're not familiar with corrosion, you're not familiar with dust on coins, you're not familiar with how lighting interacts with a coin's surface producing different shadows or specular highlights, so what are you familiar with? Some coins you "analyse" may indeed be fake but not for the reasons you state. Until you actually know what you are doing, please refrain from posting fakes because you are condemning some perfectly good coins for no reason.

Love seeing the Herakles portrait in that style on pre-Alexander coinage but doubly cool to see the eagle with turned head standing on a thunderbolt like we see on some early Alexander drachms from Macedonia as well. I don't think I was aware of this type specifically before but seems to be where the inspiration came from for those early Alexander drachms.

🤣 I guess every numismatist is wrong then and museums should throw away their collections of coins exhibiting even the slightest amount of die rust. That must be thousands of coins, many are likely historically important and have been studied by various numismatists for decades! It's amazing how they must all be wrong and you're the only one who knows the truth. Well at least I know there's no point discussing this any further. Only question is what we do when Filat decides to post most "fake" coins and potentially mislead people.

So all of these coins are fake too? If not, you need to show how the "drop-shaped impressions" on the coin you think is fake is different to the similar impressions on the coins below. https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-hadrian-ad-117-138-av-aureus-20mm-712-gm-6h-ngc-choice-au-5-5-5-5-fine-style/a/3056-30012.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-hadrian-ad-117-138-av-aureus-20mm-700-gm-6h-ngc-au-5-5-5-5-fine-style/a/3056-30013.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-hadrian-ad-117-138-av-aureus-20mm-712-gm-6h-ngc-xf-5-5-4-5/a/3056-30015.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-hadrian-ad-117-138-av-aureus-19mm-727-gm-6h-ngc-choice-xf-5-5-4-5-marks/a/3056-30018.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-antoninus-pius-ad-138-161-av-aureus-19mm-695-gm-6h-ngc-ms-5-5-4-5/a/3056-30024.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-antoninus-pius-ad-138-161-av-aureus-20mm-702-gm-7h-ngc-ms-5-5-4-5-fine-style/a/3056-30023.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-aelius-caesar-ad-136-138-av-aureus-19mm-698-gm-6h-ngc-au-5-5-5-5-fine-style/a/3056-30022.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-antoninus-pius-ad-138-161-av-aureus-20mm-720-gm-5h-ngc-ms-5-5-5-5andnbsp-/a/3056-30025.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-antoninus-pius-ad-138-161-av-aureus-20mm-698-gm-5h-ngc-choice-au-5-5-4-5-fine-style/a/3056-30027.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-antoninus-pius-ad-138-161-av-aureus-19mm-707-gm-6h-ngc-choice-au-5-5-4-5/a/3056-30028.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-antoninus-pius-ad-138-161-av-aureus-20mm-711-gm-6h-ngc-choice-au-5-5-5-5/a/3056-30030.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-antoninus-pius-ad-138-161-av-aureus-19mm-706-gm-6h-ngc-au-5-5-4-5/a/3056-30031.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-diva-faustina-senior-wife-of-antoninus-pius-died-ad-140-1-av-aureus-19mm-701-gm-6h-ngc-choice-au-5-5-4-5/a/3056-30035.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-diva-faustina-senior-wife-of-antoninus-pius-died-ad-140-1-av-aureus-20mm-714-gm-5h-ngc-choice-xf-5-5-5-5/a/3056-30036.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-lucius-verus-ad-161-169-av-aureus-19mm-729-gm-12h-ngc-ms-5-5-5-5andnbsp-/a/3056-30040.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515

Exactly, I've asked this twice and so far he's ignored my request both times.

Die rust. It's not rust of the gold itself, it's where the iron die that struck the coins has rusted and caused the surface of the die to become pitted. It is very common to see in ancient coins but also modern coins too: https://www.indianvarieties.com/what-is-a-die-variety/rst-die-rust/ Similarly, flow lines on coins are also due to stress marks in the die that are then imprinted on the coins those dies strike. You have to take these things into account before declaring a coin is fake.

I have asked you several times how you are able to determine that some things you have circled are bubbles from casting and not dust, deposits, debris, or similar. On some of the coins you have posted in the other threads, there does appear to be some "cold shot" or other casting defect, but they are quite different in appearance to the things you've circled in this thread. Either the things you have circled cannot be identified by anyone because it's a blur of pixels, or you've circled something that is likely die rust and you've made zero attempt to explain why you think it is a defect of casting and not die rust. You can't just circle things and expect us to believe you, you need to make an argument. So why can these things you've circled not be die rust? If you can't explain that, don't expect anyone to believe you. Not to mention some other things you have circled which are very likely shadows, dust, deposits/toning, or just specular highlights from the lighting used for the photography.

In general, I was in two-minds about making that "cleaning" page. One reason is that I didn't want to encourage people to clean coins willy-nilly without being fully aware of the considerations I took into account before cleaning those coins or the coins I didn't clean, as well as the precautions I took. Second, because photos can be very misleading. Maybe the surface appears brighter, or rougher, or more scratched, without anything having been done to the coin simply because I angled the light or coin differently. I also find a lot of scratches or porous surfaces can be hidden beneath deposits. I've had one person claim that ammonium thiosulfate has eaten away at some of my coins because they thought horn silver was something that just sits on top of a coin, not something that is produced from a corrosive reaction of the coin itself. I always use a loupe and also take these high resolution photos not only to document the change but also so I can study what has worked and what hasn't, or what potentially might be damaging the coin. But since there's virtually no one else doing comparisons at this level of photographic detail, I'm willing to take some flak from those who might disagree on some of them or, in the case of the thiosulfate-eating-my-coin person, deal with some of the trolls 😄 Whether someone likes the end result or not, I think the comparisons are useful for everyone as it's so rare to be able to study some of the minute differences, or the appearance of some deposits at high resolution. I'm honestly sceptical of a lot of before/after cleaning examples out there that use metal instruments (scalpels, diamond-tipped tools, dremel wire brushes, etc) because there's no way to tell from these photos whether the tools have done some "microscopic" damage to the surface that isn't easily visible in a regular photo. So I think these comparisons on my site show that a picture taken with your phone is not really sufficient to properly assess a before/after cleaning job, any minute scratches or roughness that appear after cleaning are going to be way too small to see without a good loupe or high resolution macro image. So before cleaning, and in particular using an ultrasonic cleaner, make sure you have a good way of assessing the progress of the cleaning. If you're not able to tell whether you've scratched the surfaces by rubbing loosened deposits into the surface with a toothpick, or by using something that is more abrasive than you thought (toothpaste, baking soda), then I wouldn't recommend cleaning your coins as you may be damaging them without realising it.

I wonder what you thought I had done to the Lysimachos originally 😆 The Thasos is a bit of a weird one for me. I like how it turned out, though I have the benefit of having seen it in-hand originally and again now that it has toned nicely, but it was a frustrating one to clean. Learnt a lot from it at least and I think for some people they would prefer it as it is now than before, or it might just be me! edit: here's the Thasos now. Not a big fan of the dull-ish gold toning personally but I'll take it over having no toning. The Alexander tet I learned a lot from too. It's really the only coin I've seen where horn silver has destabilised the structure of the surface significantly. It's visible particularly on the edges where it was so porous that some surface has probably flaked off with the horn silver. I never did see any tiny specks of silver in the ultrasonic bath though, just the "dirt cloud" that you can see in the video. So still a bit of a mystery what was going on there but now I'm more careful with coins with porous surfaces, not only because they can be structurally weaker but also because shaking everything loose out of the pores can make the surface appear rougher than it did before.

Nice! Based on my experiences with the beamsplitter so far, I think you'll at least gain a lot more light from its better overall transmission (% of light that makes it from the light-->coin-->camera) than you might've lost to changing light sources. I'm just using a Godox AD100 and it has more than enough power. I think I did the tests above at 1/128 on the flash and f5.6 ISO 50 1/250s on the camera. With the UV filters I had been testing previously, I was probably at 1/32 on the flash and f5.6 ISO 200 1/120s on the camera.

I guess mine might be the starting price of a coin in a mid-level auction house, I have this one 😁

In my experience, it won't remove any hardened deposits or toning but it will shake loose any dirt that's hiding in cracks, crevices, and pores that would be missed by cleaning the coin with a toothbrush under running water. I would also advise using it against any coins with porous/corroded/rough surfaces (as visible through a 8-10x loupe) as I'm unsure whether ultrasonic cleaning may actually make the surface slightly worse. I'm unsure because it's difficult to sometimes tell whether the dirt that was removed by the ultrasonic cleaner out of the pores has just made it appear as if the pores were larger, or if the pores were slightly enlarged by surface material flaking off. For those reasons I'd also avoid crystallised or plated coins. There is one coin where I used the ultrasonic cleaner predominantly to clean the coin. You can see the results of that here. Unfortunately the photo I took of it pre-cleaning wasn't as high resolution as my normal photos so it's difficult to compare some of the minor differences. I think the large majority of "pores" that seemingly appeared were actually just previously covered by deposits, but in a few places I suspect some weakened surfaces were removed at a microscopic level. For that treatment, I did all sorts of testing but only did "spot" checks after, i.e. taking a photo of a specific part of the coin. So it's now hard to compare what exactly did what. In terms of length, generally if you don't see anything happening within the first 15 seconds, I doubt much will happen at all. I did do some 10 minute sessions but after seeing little benefit to those, I now keep most to under 60 seconds. I rarely use it these days though since most deposits I'm able to clean using other methods. In terms of liquids/solutions, I think you do see a slight improvement when using "ultrasonic cleaner". This has proved safe enough for silver coins I've tried it with. You can also just try warm water and dish soap as that works nearly as well. Within the ultrasonic cleaner, or at least on mine, there seem to be "hot spots" where perhaps some vibrational waves meet and form an area where you can actually feel the vibration in the water. I generally try placing the objects in these spots but I don't know if it makes a difference. Lastly, to finish things off with a video, here's a coin that I had just cleaned with thiosulphate to remove some horn silver but as some deposits remained, I decided to throw it in the ultrasonic cleaner. What I think happened is that the thiosulphate softened/dissolved some of the horn silver hiding in the porous parts of the surface that wouldn't come out from normal cleaning. The downside is that it revealed just how porous some parts of the edge were but it did also reveal some extra detail on the portrait. Headphones warning: the sound of the cleaner can be quite irritating so you may want to mute the video / your speakers. oohw7c__1__AdobeExpress.mp4

How do you know this speck is not dust or some other foreign object? It does not look to be part of the coin. Honestly, I give up. There's no use in discussing this further as you keep just sending more images with even more circles than before. I just hope others reading this thread aren't misled by them.

In the yellow circles we see dirt, maybe some silver corrosion product (e.g. oxide or sulfide), surface abrasions, specular highlights, regular features of the surface... This must be a joke, right? How can you believe all of these things in the circles are caverns from air bubbles? I'm not sure how you are able to find any coin to be genuine with such methods. Can you perhaps link to a PCGS-slabbed coin of the same type listed on Heritage Auctions that you believe to be genuine?

Great! When you get it, to find the side that should face the light place the end of a toothpick, or something else that won't damage the coating, on the glass and see if the reflection is directly beneath the toothpick or offset by the thickness of the glass. The side where the reflection is immediately below the toothpick is the side to face the light as it has the reflection coating. The side with the offset reflection faces the camera.

Many of the aureii in that auction have similar surfaces to this coin, are all of them fake as well? I'm just trying to understand how what you have circled is different to die rust and markings from worn dies (for the non-burst bubbles) or how you can conclusively say the "burst bubbles" aren't just deposits, shadows, dust, or similar when the pictures are so pixelated at that level of zoom. For example: https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-hadrian-ad-117-138-av-aureus-20mm-700-gm-6h-ngc-au-5-5-5-5-fine-style/a/3056-30013.s https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-antoninus-pius-ad-138-161-av-aureus-19mm-707-gm-6h-ngc-choice-au-5-5-4-5/a/3056-30028.s https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-imperial/ancient-coins/ancients-lucius-verus-ad-161-169-av-aureus-19mm-727-gm-6h-ngc-gem-ms-5-5-5-5/a/3056-30118.s

Sorry I'm not convinced. What you've circled could be anything, there's not nearly enough detail to conclusively say whether what you have circled are actually bubbles or just shadows, deposits, scrapes, specular highlights etc. I'm open to other evidence if you have it but the blue circles, for me, don't point to anything conclusive. The yellow circles may just be highlighting die rust or similar features from the die like flow lines.