Tetradogma

Looking over comments in another FB ancients group and it seems people are very unbothered by the implications of this case, at least in terms of whether to bid or not in the auction from 2 days ago. Difficult to gauge but seems prices were robust but not crazy, like previous e-sales, this wasn't one of Romas' top tier auctions though, just their monthly one, a few high end coins but mostly mid and lower range. Wonder whether if and how the case develops will affect whether people bid, at this stage, it appears not.

Sorry, who's Brent Easter??

Amazing, thank you

Sadly behind a paywall, if anyone has a Times subscription would be great if you could copy the article in the comments below. Looks like Mr B is in the dock today though https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-sandhurst-graduate-one-of-the-worlds-rarest-coins-and-a-3m-fraud-2sj76kw22

Absolutely true - sorry, was just because this thread was about Roma. That seems to correlate with the reporting in those Greek newspapers about a syndicate of dealers and looters working together that have established a multi national network of illegal extraction, falsifying provenance and market manipulation. I feel like this is a huge story but we are only seeing the tip of the icebergs, whispered asides at coin fairs, its from a Swiss Collection wink, wink etc. All very difficult to prove but given we are in a boom period of over inflated prices this story is really pertinent as it underpins how those mega prices we've been seeing have (and sorry to use this Reganite term) trickled down across all fields of the market. ie have we all been massively over paying for coins for the last ten years?! Ok, I'll take my tin foil hat off now, but still, this all has a very bad whiff coming of it

In regards to Roma selling coins of dubious origin and extraction, I've been thinking quite a bit about the 2018 hoard of 30,000 Owl Tets, from Turkey (we think). Given that pretty much every E-Sale Roma did would usually have about 60 of these coins in, is it fair to say its probably quite likely this constant volume of Tets are from that hoard? Feels like an open secret they were doing this stuff for a while, no? ...

Hi - I have quote posted this of an FB Ancient Coins group and credited you and your summary - Please let me know if thats not ok. I think its a really good summary, most people won't bother to translate/read the article but I think its important people see this.

I'm also perplexed by this - no mention of the situation on any of their Facebook or Instagram accounts, and no ones mentioned anything in the comments of those accounts (although admittedly comments can be deleted by account owner if deemed inappropriate.) Irrespective, from a PR point of view it's a really bad strategy to just not address this, this story has already gone all around the numismatic community, you can't just stick your head in the sand.