velarfricative

12 hours ago, El Cazador said:

At the end of the day- bidding was as robust as always- no bargains and Auction House will certainly recover…

That is absolutely not the case. These were the worst hammers I have ever seen at Roma across every Bactrian coin they sold, to the point where it was closer to what I would expect from some no-name house specializing in modern coins. It was surprising to see, especially from an auction house that used to be able to list 40 Eukratides tets in a row and get 2k+ hammers for every single one.

1 hour ago, IanG said:

Should we as collectors investigate provenance further when buying?

Do people not do this already? I pretty much always look for provenance, it's a good way to check if you overpaid/got a good deal on a coin if it sold recently, and if it's an older provenance you might be lucky enough to have your coin published somewhere.

3 hours ago, AmazedAncient said:

Thirdly, collectors should do not view these statements as suggesting some kind of assurance a coin complies with U.S. import restriction rules.

Perhaps pedigrees don't, but Roma has always been rather clear about their coins complying with import restrictions:

"Our commitment to ethical and responsible provenance: the consignor affirms that this auction lot is their lawful property to sell, and where cultural property restrictions may exist, that it meets the requirements to be legally imported into the United States and Germany unless specifically stated otherwise."

13 minutes ago, sand said:

 

I haven't noticed any text, which says that Mr. Beale knew that the provenance was fraudulent. Perhaps I've missed it. The only text, that I've seen, says that Mr. Beale paid for provenance. I see that Informant #2 said to Mr. Beale, that the provenance was false. However, perhaps Mr. Beale did not believe Informant #2. Perhaps Mr. Beale believed that the provenance was correct.

Ultimately, it hardly matters; because he admitted to faking provenances in a separate instance, anyway. It literally says "According to the defendant, this provenance is false." in regards to the Gaza hoard coins. It doesn't matter what mental gymnastics you do, he's pretty openly admitted to lying about provenance here.

https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=sale&sid=6613

New Roma E-Live!!!!! 6 sales in the span of like 2 weeks, very interesting strategy on Roma's part.

1 hour ago, Heliodromus said:

Why did Roma apparently go though with the sale even knowing that they'd been called out on the false provenance (and having had their "payment" rejected)?

If you read closely, this is not true. It clearly says that "The defendant himself admitted that he paid for the provenance"; he did not merely attempt to pay, he succeeded in paying someone for it. Mr. Beale even went on to admit that this was "the first and only time that [he] had ever paid for provenance". So it's not simply an accusation, Beale himself admitted to the full thing, and that he paid someone for the provenance in the final sale.

Just now, KenDorney said:

True, but he could also simply say he was creating some mystique in order to boost hammer prices.  Not much better of course, but I'm sure he can come up with a defense to that charge.

100,000 CHF is a lot of money, it's hard to imagine that embellishing a provenance would be worth that. In any case, he admitted to knowingly possessing and selling coins from the Gaza hoard, which are definitely looted.

25 minutes ago, Harry G said:

That's a shame - I've bought and sold a lot with Roma in the past, and they've always been excellent.

I'm curious - where does the burden of proof lie in cases like this? Would the individual have to prove that the coins were from a legitimate source, or is it the authorities job to show otherwise?

Well, in the case of the Eid Mar or the Gaza coins or the Naxos, Beale has told them the source; there's not really any recourse there.

"The defendant admitted to me that he paid for the provenance". Well, that doesn't sound very good at all.

On 2/25/2023 at 8:45 AM, NewStyleKing said:

C'mon somebody..add to the mix!

There's not really anything at all for me in this sale, one of the smallest Bactrian sections I've ever seen in a Roma feature.

39 minutes ago, Filat said:

см. дополнительную картинку ниже (see additional picture below):
 

You've circled pretty much the entire image. Could you maybe circle just a few of the most obvious cases that you think are casting bubbles?

10 hours ago, Cordoba said:

That's a shame, been wanting to get pedigree issues of Agathokles, but I'll definitely exercise much more caution. I think I can detect bad fakes, but not super confident in detecting all of them. is the best way to get better to look at more coins and check out forgerynetwork?

Forgerynetwork is good, but looking at more coins is better. I'd recommend getting the die study and more reference works, and inspecting coins carefully before buying. If something differs wildly from the published specimens, it's probably safest to just stay away, especially when it's your money on the line. These coins made up a substantial part of Agathokles' monetary system so they do show up fairly frequently, but expect to have to shell out quite a bit of money for one. You probably will have difficulty finding any true budget examples for these in contrast to most other rulers.

Mine is that the most interesting coins are the ones we know the least about, which is definitely controversial; the more I know about the history behind a ruler, the less I want to collect it.

3 hours ago, Cordoba said:

 I can't say I'm an expert on detecting fakes, but the coin looks off to me.

About the pedigree types in general, I would recommend extreme caution when buying. Forgerynetwork lists IBSCC-condemned forgeries for many of the pedigree issue of Agathokles, and the recent die study condemns even more. They are one of the most sought-after types in the entire Bactrian series, and I think it's almost certain that there are very good forgeries out there that haven't been caught yet simply due to how expensive they are.

On 1/23/2023 at 11:52 AM, Finn235 said:

4. 

Late Arab-Sasanian, "Eastern Sistan" BI drachm

Anonymous, ca early 8th century AD

Very nice Eastern Sistan drachm, looks like it could be Rida or Imad based on the letter in ObQ2. Too much of the legend is missing to be certain, sadly.

5 hours ago, zadie said:

You're right of course, it's unfortunate that you can't filter out single results with the image search. I'd like to highlight that all other hits from this search are obverse die matches to OP's coin. I've actually been pleasantly surprised by the capabilties of the image search function, having used it throughly during the last year due to the five free searches you get every day with premium.

I wish they would give use free users some of those searches... would certainly be a nice tool to have.

12 hours ago, Cordoba said:

just curious, where did u find that study? would like to read more about it

Outside of the die study, if you don't have them already I would recommend HGC 12, published by CNG, and Michael Mitchiner's "Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian coinage" as references.

3 hours ago, zadie said:

I'm not very familiar myself with the Greco-Bactrians or how large Antimachos emissions were, however judging by the amount of obverse die matches found on acsearch I would venture to say that this die is quite prevalent in the series as a whole.

They're not all die matches there; the Hess Divo coin is a drachm. I wouldn't put too much stock in acsearch's premium search, I've seen very poor results from it especially from Baktria. In the recent die study, there were 354 tetradrachms for Antimachos I, so this is just a small proportion of his output.

I snagged a group lot of 95 eastern coins (only 10 photographed). I'm sure it'll be fun to sort through, though for certain I won't keep all of it.

Very nice Vima Takto bronze! That type is pretty hard to find generally. One interesting point; there is some other extremely rare silver coinage from the Kushans, though the Heraios coins are pretty much the only ones that can actually be bought on the market. The one that I've seen discussed least is this very late silver drachm from Vima Kadphises; it was found in the 1830s before it ended up in the British Museum, making its authenticity extremely likely. I've seen speculation that it was likely a test strike; no other examples are known, so it's hard to say.

I got my invoice a few days ago, no shipping yet though. They were nice enough to email me right after receiving payment, too.

On 12/17/2022 at 8:08 PM, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

I'm a bit rusty at the later Indo-Greeks but I'm guessing that it's a 'posthumous' (or provincial mint, depending upon the theory) drachm of Hermaios.  Was he the same ruler that made the jugate busts with Calliope?

Yep, imitating the ruler who issued the jugate bust type. Definitely not a provincial mint, it's very thoroughly posthumous.

Yes, it's Kipunadha. The name is in vertical Brahmi to the right of the king's scepter. See here:

11 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

B - Sassanian AE pashiz are typically pretty ugly like this one of Bahram IV.  But this one is special (like the previous lot in the auction, though not noted for my new coin): if you blow up the photo and look at the left hand margin on the obverse you can see that it's an overstrike on a Roman coin, in particular a FEL TEMP REPARATIO! Hammer: 75 CHF.

 

Very nice pashiz, at Leu especially eastern bronzes regardless of rarity tend to sell for extremely low hammers

2 hours ago, Cordoba said:

congrats! i was eyeing this coin too, but did not bid because i had won two coins already. great deal though, i haven't seen a demetrios ii tetradrachm hammer for that cheaply in that condition. i also don't mind edge chips, especially if the details on the coin are still great

Yeah, it's basically impossible to find them in this price range, so I couldn't resist. Not really much chance of me being able to buy another one unless I want to pay thousands for a lower grade.

My own win, Demetrios II. I'm perfectly happy to accept a missing chunk if it means spending less than 3k on this.