Antiquities banned from vcoins?

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

While searching for Hadrian I clicked on a Zurquieh offering and a banner (his) read that antiquities will be banned from Vcoins.

I don't buy antiquities, save for seals, mainly because I have nowhere proper to store them and they're expensive, but still...  Is this true?

George Carlin would have had a field day with the 'all your coins/antiquities are belong to us' (a riff on the 90's meme) crowd, but that's another matter.

[CPK]

I hope not! That would really impact some sellers. And, while I don't blindly trust even every VCoins dealer when it comes to antiquities, it did seem to be a safer place to buy than most.

[Prieure de Sion]

30 minutes ago, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

Is this true?

Yes it is.

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

I suspect it might be a butt-covering move on management's part, making them less liable.  Antiquities probably only make up a small part of vcoins' business.

Do lead seals count as antiquities?  I had been getting into them, a little bit.

[Prieure de Sion]

I get as a dealer the information that there are not longer Antiquities at VCoins. 
 

There are two things I'd like to consider from my point of view.

Antiques are sometimes a delicate subject. Coins are a dime a dozen. Almost all coins are likely to come from legal sources. Antiques, however, are often critical. Were they recovered legally? Are they even exhibits of looted art? You can also get into a lot of trouble with antiques. 

As a website operator, I therefore have to trust my dealers. But as an operator, can I simply put my hand in the fire for all of them?

The second thing is - I could imagine - VCoins is as the name suggests a platform for everything around antique and modern coins. If you put too much stuff on the platform - you will quickly become a junk dealer. And you lose the reference and exclusivity as far as coins are concerned.

And then i also have to say that some antique dealers have really taken every old stone in the store. 

And I admit - even me as a dealer has disturbed from time to time! 

I have published five new coins in one day. On the same day a dealer has published 5 whole pages with some small antiques for small money. Where had my 5 coins gone - that I had newly presented to my customers? Sometime between all the antique small stuff I found them - if you search for them extra. Many people interested in coins have surely overlooked them.

I think that may have bothered one or the other coin dealer - that their own (new) coins were always lost in the hundreds of small antiques. And one or the other dealer sometimes posted pages and pages of stuff every 1, 2, 3 days.

My 2 cents ...

 

[DonnaML]

What will Zurqieh do, I wonder.

[expat]

The VCoins dealer I often look at has no restrictions or messages on his antiquities page, (yet)

[Prieure de Sion]

12 minutes ago, expat said:

The VCoins dealer I often look at has no restrictions or messages on his antiquities page, (yet)

Trust me - it will… 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Prieure de Sion

[kirispupis]

IMHO this is for the best.

The obvious and I'm sure source of the change is due to looted artifacts.

However, in the long run I believe this will benefit the integrity of all VCoins sellers.

I rarely pay much attention to the antiquities as I scroll through them to get to the coins, but some time ago, one caught my attention. It wasn't overly expensive and was something I thought my father-in-law might really like. It was listed by a dealer whose coins have been vouched for on this site, but this wasn't a coin.

Before I blindly purchased it, I did some research. The item claimed to be from Roman times, so I thought a little history should accompany it. What I found after some searching was:

• There is no evidence these artifacts were used during Roman times (none has ever been dug up or referenced in literature)
• The item itself was mass-produced in the late 1800's

Of course, I didn't buy it, but I also black-listed that seller. If they couldn't do the proper research I did in thirty minutes, then I couldn't trust any item listed by them, including coins. I had purchased from this seller once before, but haven't touched them since - nor do I plan to. I do believe the one item I purchased from them is real, though when I received the coin, it had a recent tag from an auction house I don't trust. The coin looks genuine, and didn't cost much so I would hope there wouldn't be much value in a counterfeit.

And that's where I believe VCoins sellers will benefit - because so many of these artifacts were of either dubious attribution or of dubious sources. For most sellers, I don't believe they were being malicious, but simply didn't have much expertise in these artifacts they were selling.

FWIW, I just verified that the artifact in question about is still listed.

[Numisnewbie]

1 hour ago, kirispupis said:

...so many of these artifacts were of either dubious attribution or of dubious sources. For most sellers, I don't believe they were being malicious, but simply didn't have much expertise in these artifacts they were selling.

And that's exactly why I wouldn't buy an artifact from VCoins. I'm sure there are some sellers who are genuinely knowledgable about their ancient artifacts (Ken Dorsey comes to mind), but when I used to browse VCoins for artifacts a long time ago, I saw so many that were almost comical - far more of them than any that appeared at least worth a closer look. Almost as bad as Catawiki and their notoriously bad artifacts.

[Factor]

20 hours ago, DonnaML said:

What will Zurqieh do, I wonder.

He says he will continue listing them on Ebay. 

[NewStyleKing]

MA shops sells antiquities still?

[Prieure de Sion]

39 minutes ago, NewStyleKing said:

MA shops sells antiquities still?

Yes. But you can’t open a account easy and fast like ebay. 

[DonnaML]

On 12/3/2022 at 1:39 PM, Numisnewbie said:

And that's exactly why I wouldn't buy an artifact from VCoins. I'm sure there are some sellers who are genuinely knowledgable about their ancient artifacts (Ken Dorsey comes to mind), but when I used to browse VCoins for artifacts a long time ago, I saw so many that were almost comical - far more of them than any that appeared at least worth a closer look. Almost as bad as Catawiki and their notoriously bad artifacts.

Unfortunately, unless one is really familiar with the dealer, Ebay is the worst of all for antiquities. In particular, I would guess that the vast majority of the Egyptian "antiquities" for sale are fake. I wouldn't run to buy a Greek vase, either. If Zurqieh ends up on Ebay as his exclusive outlet, he'll probably be one of the most reliable antiquities dealers there! His artifacts, such as Egyptian scarabs, are almost always genuine, even if they're sometimes misidentified. I trust him more for antiquities than I do for ancient coins.

Edited December 4, 2022 by DonnaML

[Factor]

I used to trust him for coins until recently when he listed a 'hoard' of procurators and Jewish war prutot that looked a bit off. I looked at the dies and found way too many die connections within the group to be a genuine hoard. I later confirmed my suspicions with a very reputable expert in the field who also said it is not the first case, by far. The prutot are in great condition and priced very high for the types. Many are sadly already sold....

[KenDorney]

It's true, they will no longer be allowed as of January 2nd.  I dont want to cut and paste an internal message, but reasons cited:

A disproportionate number of inquiries and complaints vs. coins.

No in house expertise to monitor listings.

And of course, the cultural heritage debate.

It's a shame, as traditionally antiquities were very often collected as an extension to ancient coins and I have always had a fondness for them.  But, in the end things simply change.  

[arnoldoe]

On 12/3/2022 at 10:10 AM, Prieure de Sion said:

Almost all coins are likely to come from legal sources. 

 

 

lol..