Interesting thread on reddit about Roma Numismatics and the apparent arrest of Richard Beale

[El Cazador]

2 hours ago, velarfricative said:

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.

Not on the coins i placed bids, bids were extremely strong - def higher than Leu; all Tetradrachms i placed bids on were extremely strong

Edited March 23, 2023 by El Cazador

[DonnaML]

Back to the Eid Mar aureus: Barry Murphy mentioned on Facebook this morning that he's heard reports that photographs exist of the Eid Mar aureus in the ground where it was dug up in Greece, sometime in the last decade. Which would explain why it's already been repatriated to Greece. (I assume that the buyer, whoever it may have been, is not contesting the right to possession.)

 

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by DonnaML

[Heliodromus]

2 hours ago, DonnaML said:

Back to the Eid Mar aureus: Barry Murphy mentioned on Facebook this morning that he's heard reports that photographs exist of the Eid Mar aureus in the ground where it was dug up in Greece, sometime in the last decade. Which would explain why it's already been repatriated to Greece.

Interesting, but does that really explain it from a legal POV ? Doesn't that photo evidence still need to be seen in court, or is there some other way to explain the repatriation without Beale having already agreed to it ?

[kirispupis]

1 minute ago, Heliodromus said:

Interesting, but does that really explain it from a legal POV ? Doesn't that photo evidence still need to be seen in court, or is there some other way to explain the repatriation without Beale having already agreed to it ?

There are a lot of assumptions here, but IF a photo exists of the coin in the dirt THEN I would assume it was not taken by the looters (or they'd be the dumbest looters of all time) but was instead taken by archeologists who had unearthed the coin. IF these were archeologists then they would have meticulously documented the coin itself and the conditions and location under which it was found.

So, if the above is true, then I imagine it would be pretty easy to convince a court to repatriate it. I'm not a lawyer, so you'd have to ask one to know why that documentation wasn't disclosed already. Maybe there were other coins in the find that authorities are still after, so they didn't want to disclose them in the hopes that someone would be foolish enough to list one for sale.

[Hesiod]

2 minutes ago, kirispupis said:

THEN I would assume it was not taken by the looters (or they'd be the dumbest looters of all time

It's not uncommon for authenticity reasons. https://egyptindependent.com/fugitive-suspects-create-fake-ancient-cemetery-to-defraud-antiquities-dealers/ happened for example

[DonnaML]

9 hours ago, kirispupis said:

There are a lot of assumptions here, but IF a photo exists of the coin in the dirt THEN I would assume it was not taken by the looters (or they'd be the dumbest looters of all time) but was instead taken by archeologists who had unearthed the coin. IF these were archeologists then they would have meticulously documented the coin itself and the conditions and location under which it was found.

So, if the above is true, then I imagine it would be pretty easy to convince a court to repatriate it. I'm not a lawyer, so you'd have to ask one to know why that documentation wasn't disclosed already. Maybe there were other coins in the find that authorities are still after, so they didn't want to disclose them in the hopes that someone would be foolish enough to list one for sale.

People who dig up antiquities, legally or illegally, photograph the discoveries all the time. Many artifacts with supposedly long-standing provenances have ended up confiscated because photographs of them turn up showing them covered with dirt from the excavation. I assume that the purpose is to support claims of authenticity, although of course it's easy enough to cover a fake with dirt!

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by DonnaML

[Heliodromus]

10 minutes ago, kirispupis said:

So, if the above is true, then I imagine it would be pretty easy to convince a court to repatriate it.

Yes, no doubt, may well be rock solid evidence, but might a court make a decision like this before the case as a whole has been brought to conclusion ?

[kirispupis]

50 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

People who dig up antiquities, legally or illegally, photograph the discoveries all the time. Many artifacts with supposedly long-standing provenances have ended up confiscated because photographs of them turn up showing them covered with dirt from the excacvation. I assume that the purpose is to support claims of authenticity, although of course it's easy enough to cover a fake with dirt!

Yeah, that does seem like a very weak form of validation.

I would also think, if I were digging up something where only a few well-documented examples are known, that I wouldn't photograph it coming out of the ground. Granted, I've never done any professional looting, so what would I know, but it certainly would seem to generate some uncomfortable questions...

[DLTcoins]

Key points from yesterday's NYT article touching on questions raised. It seems safe to say that much of what is known has not been made public.

"Experts said they believe the coin was likely discovered more than a decade ago in an area of current-day Greece where Brutus and his civil war ally, Gaius Cassius Longinus, were encamped with their army."

"According to investigators, the coin is first thought to have come to market between 2013 and 2014." 

"The coin ... was given up earlier this year by an unidentified American billionaire who, investigators said, had bought it in good faith in 2020."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/arts/design/rare-coin-returned-greece-eid-mar.html

Edited March 23, 2023 by DLTcoins

[Deinomenid]

Yes!, the billionaire  bit might explain why it was repatriated with so little fight.

Even if  he/she is "only" worth 1bn that  coin is just 0.5% of wealth. Not worth worrying about, especially NY legal risk, however slim it might be. 

I'd take a 0.5% shakedown to avoid getting  involved in this mess!

 

 

[DonnaML]

30 minutes ago, kirispupis said:

Granted, I've never done any professional looting

So you're only an amateur?

[DonnaML]

11 minutes ago, Deinomenid said:

Yes!, the billionaire  bit might explain why it was repatriated with so little fight.

Even if  he/she is "only" worth 1bn that  coin is just 0.5% of wealth. Not worth worrying about, especially NY legal risk, however slim it might be. 

I'd take a 0.5% shakedown to avoid getting  involved in this mess!

 

 

Plus I assume that this billionaire will be pursuing a claim against Roma for a refund of his or her money, based on (1) breach of contract, (2) breach of warranty, and/or (3) against Beale as an individual and probably Roma as well for fraudulent inducement of the purchase. Nos. 1 and 2 would be easier to prove than 3 in the ordinary case because there's no need to prove the defendant's knowledge of falsity and intent to defraud, but in this case it seems that Beale has admitted those elements, and his knowledge and intent would arguably be imputable to Roma.

[Phil Davis]

1 hour ago, Heliodromus said:

Yes, no doubt, may well be rock solid evidence, but might a court make a decision like this before the case as a whole has been brought to conclusion ?

A court wouldn't need to be involved, IF the buyer acquiesced to repatriation with minimal or no formal protest. From the sketchy scenario as we have it now, that seems to be the case. If the buyer fought hard to retain it, I would think the coin would be retained in New York until the legal process played out.

[kirispupis]

22 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

So you're only an amateur?

Yup. The most I've been able to achieve is going to Petra and buying a bunch of fakes from vendors.

I tried applying for a few jobs to raid some tombs but I think my lack of experience is hurting me.

[Sol_Invictus]

On 3/22/2023 at 6:19 PM, JimBranson said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/arts/design/rare-coin-returned-greece-eid-mar.html
 

 

I was amused to see that the last time the nytimes covered an EID MAR coin appears to have been in 1920 to report that a denarius had been sold at auction for $140

https://www.nytimes.com/1920/05/28/archives/roman-coin-sold-for-140-eid-mar-denarius-brings-top-price-at-hc.html?searchResultPosition=1

Thats $4200 in today’s dollars. Pretty decent real appreciation over 103 years.

[Kaleun96]

Some new information can be found in these two Greek articles. I'll summarise some bits from a translation I'm reading but otherwise you'll need to use Google Translate (unless you know Greek) to read the whole article:

https://www.kathimerini.gr/society/562335169/archaiokapilia-to-thriler-me-to-chryso-nomisma-toy-vroytoy/

https://www.kathimerini.gr/society/562294195/oi-archaiokapiloi-poy-den-vrethikan-sto-edolio/

• Roma was potentially a subject of a 2016 Greek investigation into an antiquities looting ring in Patras, where 47 defendants were referred for prosecution two years later but none from international auction houses
• "The relevant documents analyze the route of ancient objects (mainly coins) from their illegal excavation to their sale, the suspicious role of foreign auction houses in laundering antiquities, as well as techniques for manipulating electronic auctions with virtual 'hits'." [my note: perhaps 'hits' here is a bad translation of 'bids'?]
• A Corinth stater sold by Roma in 2016 was part of this investigation and supposedly a phone call was recorded of one of the defendants discussing this coin specifically.
• The Corinth stater appears to be this one. The 1920s provenance is argued to be false.
• An additional 27 coins likely minted in Greece were sold by Roma between September-October of 2016 with the same "G.J.P. Collection" provenance that the Corinth stater had. No other coins have been sold by Roma with this provenance since then.
• The trial has been postponed for some time, set to resume again in June of this year
• As part of the investigation, 2,024 coins have been confiscated, either including or in addition to 600 that had been exported to Munich and repatriated.
• A coin from Delphi sold by Nomos in May 2016 for 15,000 CHF was allegedly looted from Karpenisi just 3 months earlier.
• A recorded conversation of one of the defendants claimed that about half of the auction house's 20% fee is used for obtaining false CoAs.
• The investigation also alleges that auction houses encourage their Greek contacts to bid on their own coins to drive up the prices
• If the shill bidder wins, the auction house "awards" them the lot anyway, at no cost, and the shill bidder then can simply re-offer the coin later at another auction house with a more legitimate-looking "collection history"
• Such a practice would completely invalidate the purpose of the requirement some auction houses have of never auctioning off coins that don't have a previous auction or collection history [e.g. Nomos was quoted as saying this in the BBC documentary on the dekadrachms].
• As many as 8 persons that are either owners, managers, or contacts of international auction houses have been named in the investigation but no charges will be brought against them due to insufficient evidence. 

Edited March 24, 2023 by Kaleun96
added a link

[IanG]

Part of Kaleun96's very interesting post above refers to the manipulation of electronic auctions. In this respect I encountered something suspicious at a London Ancient Coins auction a few weeks ago. I bid and lost on 2 lots. In fairness my bid on the first, a Sicilian bronze from Himera as Thermai Himerensis, was a lowball marker that I decided not to pursue in favour of other targets. The price realised for that coin was £28. On the second lot, a bronze from Perrhaiboi in Thessaly, I bid £44 and lost out to a bid for £46. What is odd is that both of those coins are now available on the London Ancient Coins VCoins site for prices that are very substantially higher than the auction hammer prices - the Sicilian coin is on for £300, the Thessalian for £140. Which strongly suggests that LAC or someone acting as a proxy for them bid on LAC's own auction to prevent the coins going for what LAC considered too low a price. I'm not sure that it would be completely accurate to describe that as shill bidding because in neither case did the winning 'Bidder 1', presumably LAC or their proxy, intervene in the auction to drive up the price; their one and only bid was the final one to prevent the coin being won by a third party. But it does leave a bad taste. I have no problems with an auction house setting a transparent reserve and indeed many houses do just that by having a robust starting price. But here there was a low starting price and I would have won the Perrhaiboi coin fair and square had - as appears to be the case - LAC not intervened in their own auction to enforce a secret reserve. I wonder how much of this stuff goes on elsewhere.

[Deinomenid]

@IanGAn expert dealer I happen to know refuses to bid electronically (and especially ahead of time) because of this sort of thing. Not a vague suspicion he has. He won’t for a reason. 

As for coins constantly reappearing in interesting circumstances, that’s so common I hardly notice it. Awful to write that…

 

@Kaleun96 thank you so much for this Greek information. Sadly it is increasingly clear (even to the recent new posters who present the sunniest of interpretations of all this?) that any Roma coins we have are going to worth less than we thought they might be. 
 

 

 

 

 

[SimonW]

@IanG that's not exactly shill bidding. Many auction houses maintain a stock and have a shop or a fixed price list for which they buy not only from other auctions, but also from their own auctions where coins are consigned to by third-parties.

As a buyer, I don't think this is particularly fair since the auction house has an information advantage and it has the potential for conflict of interest and even abuse (e.g. use to hide shill bidding). However, as far as I know, it's not against the law in the countries where it's practiced (as long as it's not misused for shill bidding) and most auction houses are transparent about it (e.g. in their auction terms).

As a consignor, I appreciate every bid that raises the hammer, be it from a collector, a dealer or the auction house itself where I consigned my coins to.

Edited March 24, 2023 by SimonW

[John Conduitt]

42 minutes ago, IanG said:

Part of Kaleun96's very interesting post above refers to the manipulation of electronic auctions. In this respect I encountered something suspicious at a London Ancient Coins auction a few weeks ago. I bid and lost on 2 lots. In fairness my bid on the first, a Sicilian bronze from Himera as Thermai Himerensis, was a lowball marker that I decided not to pursue in favour of other targets. The price realised for that coin was £28. On the second lot, a bronze from Perrhaiboi in Thessaly, I bid £44 and lost out to a bid for £46. What is odd is that both of those coins are now available on the London Ancient Coins VCoins site for prices that are very substantially higher than the auction hammer prices - the Sicilian coin is on for £300, the Thessalian for £140. Which strongly suggests that LAC or someone acting as a proxy for them bid on LAC's own auction to prevent the coins going for what LAC considered too low a price. I'm not sure that it would be completely accurate to describe that as shill bidding because in neither case did the winning 'Bidder 1', presumably LAC or their proxy, intervene in the auction to drive up the price; their one and only bid was the final one to prevent the coin being won by a third party. But it does leave a bad taste. I have no problems with an auction house setting a transparent reserve and indeed many houses do just that by having a robust starting price. But here there was a low starting price and I would have won the Perrhaiboi coin fair and square had - as appears to be the case - LAC not intervened in their own auction to enforce a secret reserve. I wonder how much of this stuff goes on elsewhere.

I believe that most/all auction houses (not just LAC) mention in their T&Cs that they might bid on their own lots. Apparently, this statement means they are not breaking any shill bidding law. Obviously, they are preventing themselves making a real sale, but it is a way for them to choose to sell a coin retail if it fails to perform at auction. (Conversely, when selling retail, it's common to fluff the price up so that you can give people a 'deal', even though they've paid the price you wanted in the first place).

The dilemma for auction houses is that people do not bid if the reserve is too high, but will bid over the reserve once they've started. I've noticed Spink get around this by dropping the starting price, but this can only work at a floor auction and you still might have the problem of telling someone you can't sell them the coin at the final bid price.

I recently had such a situation when I placed the starting bid in an auction at the minimum bid. I then found I wouldn't be able to stay to watch the auction, so I placed a higher bid. To my surprise, the lot went up just one increment and I won. I asked why it had gone up, and they said it was because there was a reserve. (Why they listed one increment below the reserve is a different question!)

Edited March 24, 2023 by John Conduitt

[Heliodromus]

15 minutes ago, Deinomenid said:

As for coins constantly reappearing in interesting circumstances, that’s so common I hardly notice it.

It seems sometimes the motive is driving the price up by shill bidding as described in that article, or just buying in, other times the motive is to erase any original "old swiss" / "private english" collection provenance.

[Deinomenid]

2 minutes ago, Heliodromus said:

It seems sometimes the motive is driving the price up by shill bidding as described in that article, or just buying in, other times the motive is to erase any original "old swiss" / "private english" collection provenance.

Or in  my  unhappy case,  often seeing it bought away from me only to appear 2 weeks later 50% higher at Shanna Schmidt Numismatics!

[Heliodromus]

33 minutes ago, Deinomenid said:

only to appear 2 weeks later 50% higher at Shanna Schmidt Numismatics

She must have made a mistake and forgotten to add an extra "0".

[Heliodromus]

17 hours ago, Phil Davis said:

A court wouldn't need to be involved, IF the buyer acquiesced to repatriation with minimal or no formal protest. From the sketchy scenario as we have it now, that seems to be the case. If the buyer fought hard to retain it, I would think the coin would be retained in New York until the legal process played out.

Maybe, but if the buyer was expecting to be refunded by Roma then it's not really their coin to release - better just to surrender it to NYPD pending resolution of the case. So, I'd have to guess that either Beale also agreed to the repatriation (and to refund the customer), or I suppose there's some remote chance the customer (billionaire) decided to eat the $4M cost for whatever reason.

Edited March 24, 2023 by Heliodromus

[Deinomenid]

3 hours ago, Kaleun96 said:

https://www.kathimerini.gr/society/562335169/archaiokapilia-to-thriler-me-to-chryso-nomisma-toy-vroytoy/

https://www.kathimerini.gr/society/562294195/oi-archaiokapiloi-poy-den-vrethikan-sto-edolio/

Here are translated versions of the 2 articles. 

They are fairly accurate, I think, though "Bill and Vekki" are Beale and Vecchi. I will try hard to refrain from  using their  new names in future  posts!

 

Archaeocapilia: The Brutus Gold Coin Thriller | THE DAILY (www-kathimerini-gr.translate.goog)

The antiquarians who were not found in the dock | THE DAILY (www-kathimerini-gr.translate.goog)