idesofmarch01

I'd also be curious about how the delineation between the arches and the roof(?) on the reverse suddenly became so much better: Ultimately the coin needs to be inspected in-hand by an expert but personally I see no reasonable interpretation under which this coin wasn't "worked."

At first when I saw your coin, based on its gold color, I thought it was this aureus: That would have been quite an achievement for your first auction win! I'm assuming your denarius probably appears a little more silver in hand! My personal experience in finding provenances is that once you've researched the online resources of previous auctions (e.g., ACSEARCH), your next step will be accessing online archives of old catalogs that have black & white plates, with pictures of those plates. This can be very time-consuming so be prepared for the amount of effort it will require.

My only coin with Diana has the "action figure" reverse with her drawing an arrow from a quiver: AUGUSTUS AV Aureus (7.90 g.) Lugdunum circa 11 - 10 B.C. RIC 196 AVGVSTVS - DIVI-f Laureate head right. Rev. IMP - XII Diana, wearing polos and long drapery, advancing r., holding bow and taking arrow from quiver. In exergue, SICIL From the Biaggi collection, ex Gilhofer & Ranschburg and Hess 22 May 1935

Of these four fees, the last three apply equally to dealers and auctioneers, and can be reasonably well-calculated or estimated by contacting the dealer or auction house. It seems fairly straightforward to calculate these additional costs whether buying from a dealer or bidding in an auction.

This is the key difference between a dealer who maintains inventory and an auction house -- the cost of carrying inventory. Sometimes this is funded by loans, sometimes by the dealer's cash reserves, and mostly by a combination of both. This reduces the dealer's per-coin profit hence justifying a larger markup on each coin. But otherwise, both the dealer and auctioneer have similar categories of costs and expenses (except maybe the high-quality auction catalogs) and I would think that the main advantage for the auction house is the reduction in risk of carrying inventory for too long, which explains their lower markup. It's also my understanding that for high-quality collections, auction houses will provide both an advance and guarantee to the seller, which increases their risk measurably. Note, though, that some auction houses such as CNG also maintain and sell a retail inventory so there's likely a reasonable profit to be made in this aspect of the business too.

When I think about buyer's fees in auctions, I always compare them to possibly purchasing the same coin from a retail dealer. The transparency of buying a coin in an auction almost always compares favorably to buying a similar coin from a dealer. Here's more explanation. Let's say you win a coin at a hammer price of $100. With a 20% buyer's fee, you'll pay $120 for the coin (not including shipping and insurance, which is common to both types of transactions). Assuming the seller paid a 10% seller's fee on this coin, the auction house has a 33% markup on this coin (a profit of $30 on their cost of $90). On more expensive coins -- say, a hammer price of $10,000 -- the markup is even lower. Most likely the seller of a $10K coin didn't pay any seller's fee so the auction house makes a markup of 20% -- the buyer's fee -- in this case. This makes for a fairly transparent purchase. Plus, my opinion is that a 20% - 33% markup would be more than reasonable if I were to buy a coin from a dealer's inventory. On the other hand, retail dealers are very unlikely to be selling a $120 coin for only a 33% markup. More likely, it's a 50% - 100% markup, but there's almost no way of knowing what their actual markup is. So the $120 auction hammer price may be a bargain for comparable coins that are held in dealers' inventories. Personally, I have seen a number of high-priced coins hammer at auctions for, say, $50K ($60K including buyer's fee) only to be immediately listed on the dealer's website for $120K or more -- a markup of 100% or more. Of course, with a little research you can discover this and negotiate with that dealer, but you're never going to get an auction coin for a price remotely close to how much you would have paid if you had won the coin at auction. I agree that the psychological hurdle of a 20% buyer's fee can seem excessive if you regard the auction house as simply a pass-through of the coin from seller to buyer, but even in this case, I can make a fairly compelling argument (left as an exercise for the reader) that when you analyze the entire business model of an auction house, even 20% - 30% gross profit can be a very thin margin except for the half-dozen or so highest profile auctioneers (NAC, CNG, Heritage, et al.).

In my area we have an extraordinarily wide range of animals, and not infrequently I capture some of the more reclusive ones on my outdoor cameras. The most amusing might be this one from a couple years ago -- a mother bobcat (lynx) and her three cubs: Bobcats garage (trimmed).mp4 Recently we also caught this lone explorer around our pool: Bobcat pool short 04-26-2022.mp4

Interestingly, I recently won a coin in CNG's latest Feature Auction mainly because I was offered an opportunity to view the coin in hand after inquiring about it directly with CNG. Below are CNG's online photo and an enhanced version of that photo that looks a lot more like the coin in-hand but even then doesn't do justice to the coin's luster: Plus the scratch below Hadrian's ear is much less obtrusive than it appears, and really only visible when the light is coming from a specific angle. Personally, I wonder if the darker original image was meant to emphasize the coin's very slight toning at the expense of its luster. Which do you prefer? I find the (bottom) more natural-appearing version much more appealing and after viewing the coin in-hand, reset my budget accordingly higher. Even then, I thought the hammer price was an incredible bargain. Still searching for an older provenance on this coin, though.

While it isn't my intention to justify or rationalize CNG's commission structure, I will point out another factor in this issue. Even in their Electronic Auctions (in which the coins may be consigned and aren't necessarily from CNG's inventory), CNG guarantees authenticity. If the coin is later determined to be a forgery, CNG is on the hook for refunding the hammer price plus buyer's fee, and while they have legal recourse against the consignor, collecting the hammer price from the consignor is anything other than certain. Thus the apparently high commissions also cover CNG's own (internal) insurance premiums for those coins that might later be returned as forgeries.

It's a virtual tray -- a collage of separate images combined using software like Photoshop Elements. It's fun but time-consuming to do. My own collage is in the Gallery area of this site -- just click the Gallery link at the top of the page:

Wow! Quite the visual feast! Two thumbs up!

#1 -- the public toilets at Ostia #2 -- I believe is also Ostia, the public forum area #3 -- the Pantheon #4 -- appears to be one of the statues inside the Pantheon, but I'm not sure #5 -- Hadrian's villa #6 -- ? #7 -- Can't remember which arch this is... #8 -- something to do with Augustus? #9 -- Colosseum #10 -- lower level inside Colosseum #11 -- part of the Forum near the Colosseum, not exactly sure which ruin this is #12 -- Marcus Aurelius bronze (reproduction of original in Capitoline museum?)

Part of my 12 Caesars collection is a "mint set" (my designation) of Claudius's coins. For those who haven't seen these too many times already on the previous website:

Claudius is one of my favorite emperors despite his somewhat checkered reputation (partially due to that ancient gossip Suetonius). I agree your coin is in pretty nice shape overall and I wouldn't be too concerned about the pitting as long as the coin isn't exhibiting porosity. In addition, the obverse is my personally preferred Claudius portrait, regardless of the fact that occasionally other portraits are considered slightly more artistic; my aureus and denarius both have this style of obverse portrait.

I had posted this coin and the story behind its acquisition on a previous ancient coin website, but the coin is worth a re-posting here especially since I just changed my avatar to be the obverse! I bought this coin solely for its artistry -- abstract modern art that was created 2000 years ago. Still awe-inspiring and breathtaking!

Whenever I click a topic in the TOPICS list -- e.g., "Post your latest Ancient" -- the replies are ordered from the oldest to the newest. I'd prefer to order them from the newest to the oldest but I can't find a setting for this anywhere on this site. While the TOPICS list itself has a "SORT BY" option, the actual postings in that topic always are sorted oldest-to-newest. This will get very cumbersome as topics grow to hundreds of postings. Can someone help me out here?