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

[DonnaML]

5 minutes ago, Dwarf said:

It is not a dealer under the name of Zeno Pop - but Zeno Pop himself
You could usually find him at most coin shows in Germany and around until a few years ago

I take it that that's not his real name? Do you know who he is?

[Phil Davis]

5 minutes ago, Dwarf said:

It is not a dealer under the name of Zeno Pop - but Zeno Pop himself
You could usually find him at most coin shows in Germany and around until a few years ago

He may not be a full-time dealer, but he does have a store on Ma Shops: https://www.ma-shops.com/pop/

[Dwarf]

8 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

I take it that that's not his real name? Do you know who he is?

Yes : Zeno Pop!
I know him for some decades. And he is a very knowledgeable full-part dealer

[DonnaML]

23 minutes ago, Phil Davis said:

He may not be a full-time dealer, but he does have a store on Ma Shops: https://www.ma-shops.com/pop/

I guess that is his real name. It doesn't sound Austrian!

https://www.firmenabc.at/zeno-pop_PWfb

The following information is provided by Creditreform, Europe's largest credit agency.

Zeno Pop

Unterbayrdorfstraße 204/door 4
5581 St. Margarethen im Lungau

Austria

Legal form start date:
2016-01-01

Job description:
Other retail trade in salesrooms (excluding antiques and second-hand goods)

Acting persons:

Owner
Mr. Pop Zeno
Private person

See also

https://www.yumpu.com/de/document/read/3858818/2012-berufsverband-des-deutschen-munzenfachhandels-ev

Pop, Zeno, A & KN

Zeno Pop

A-5581 St. Margarethen

Unterbayrdorfstraße, 204/4

Austria

3 +43/6476/23 31 6

So I think my response to the statement that our coins from Roma are necessarily worth less than we thought is "it depends." Certainly I'd be concerned if I had ever purchased any truly valuable ancient coins with provenances that can't be confirmed.

Edited March 24, 2023 by DonnaML

[kirispupis]

7 hours ago, Kaleun96 said:

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. 

Thanks for researching and posting this. IMHO some of the material here is more damning than the episode over the Eid Mar. It shows that most of these practices aren't limited to Roma. It's sad, but Beale's biggest mistake may have been selling such a well-known and valuable coin in a manner too public. It was bound to receive attention, and it did.

I've often suspected trickery going on at the various auction houses, but I've never been able to pinpoint it. Sure, I've had max bids where up to the last second I was winning at 25% of my max bid, then I wound up winning it at my max. However, I've also had cases where I lost the coin or when I still won at 50% of my max. At other times I've found that people here bid on the same coin, so those obviously weren't shill bids.

There was one case that now sticks out. I was highly interested in a coin at an auction (not Roma) but by the time it came up, the coin was too high and I'd already bought too much. I later regretted the move and the hammer wasn't ridiculous, so when I found the exact same coin available at VCoins for just one increment more, I bought it.

I'm now thinking that the VCoins seller was the seller who had placed the coin at auction, and he bid up his own coin. He was probably hoping someone like me would bid it up further, so when he 'won' the coin he just placed it on his shop with a price that paid for his auction fees and got it.

I can say that it's become nearly impossible to win things at Roma. I did purchase a primary target at their last auction, but I had to pay dearly for it. I lost another target where I simply couldn't go that high. My success rate there is now by far the worst at any major auction, so I only go after high priority targets.

That being said, I think the thing that angers me most is the realization that these coins shouldn't cost as much. If they were truly set out in the open market and prices were determined by how many people wanted them and how much they were willing to pay, then they'd sell for far less. However, through practices like those mentioned above, they seem to be artificially inflated.

[Dwarf]

21 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

I guess that is his real name. It doesn't sound Austrian!

Why do you not trust me? Do you think I lied to you?
And living in Austria surely doesn't mean that you have to bear an "Austrian name", whatver this should be. Can you please define this.
Are only people with an American name allowed to live in the USA?

Confusing

 

[DonnaML]

 

12 minutes ago, Dwarf said:

Why do you not trust me? Do you think I lied to you?
And living in Austria surely doesn't mean that you have to bear an "Austrian name", whatver this should be. Can you please define this.
Are only people with an American name allowed to live in the USA?

Confusing

 

First of all, I researched Zeno Pop and wrote that post in response to Phil Davis before I saw your response.  Had I seen it, I probably wouldn't have bothered. Second, I thought it was obvious that I was joking about his name; hence the exclamation point.  A poor joke, it seems, but a joke nonetheless. "Pop" happens to be a name I've never heard before in connection with any country (except as the beginning of several Greek names).  If you knew anything about me, you'd realize that I, of all people, would never seriously suggest that only "ethnic" Austrians live (or should live) in Austria. My own family lived in Germany for hundreds of years -- until certain events in the 20th century -- with names that weren't exactly ethnically German. Next time, please try to give me the benefit of the doubt.

Edited March 24, 2023 by DonnaML

[DonnaML]

I must say that despite everything, Roma isn't stinting on public relations: I received a very fancy advertising booklet in the mail the other day, promoting their next few auctions. I was intrigued by the photo of all their personnel in the back:

Other than interacting occasionally with Richard Beale here and on Coin Talk, the only people there with whom I've dealt personally are Alice Prince and Omar Ali, and I have very positive impressions of both of them. But what strikes me about the photo is how incredibly young all the personnel on the numismatic side (including Beale) look to me, except for Periklis Mastrangelis and Italo Vecchi -- who looks almost old enough to have been the original owner of the Eid Mar aureus. I wonder if it's typical of major auction houses for the majority of numismatists on staff to be so relatively young.

Edited March 24, 2023 by DonnaML

[Hesiod]

23 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

I wonder if it's typical of major auction houses for the majority of numismatists on staff to be so relatively young.

Other firms with photos of their staff

Leu: https://leunumismatik.com/en/aboutleu

CNG: https://cngcoins.com/About+CNG.aspx

Nomos: https://nomosag.com/about-us

 

[Kaleun96]

4 hours ago, Tetradogma said:

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.

Thanks, no problem at all!

[DonnaML]

10 minutes ago, Hesiod said:

Other firms with photos of their staff

Leu: https://leunumismatik.com/en/aboutleu

CNG: https://cngcoins.com/About+CNG.aspx

Nomos: https://nomosag.com/about-us

 

I think Roma's personnel, on average, appear quite a bit younger than these. Especially compared to Nomos.

[Ryro]

2 hours ago, Hesiod said:

do you know if they can see proxy bids? Time to never prebid on biddr again

They sure can. 

[Hesiod]

Just now, Ryro said:

They sure can. 

Guess it's live bid or bust on everyone except the few explicitly trustworthy firms

[Kaleun96]

1 hour ago, DonnaML said:

The one "new" fact I saw that's directly relevant to the current case, if I am reading the articles correctly, is that the import documents for the Eid Mar aureus apparently stated that it was originally exported from Turkey. 

That's actually mentioned in the Brent Easter affidavit but easy to miss! On page 3 it mentions it was imported originally with "Turkey", presumably for the NGC slabbing, and then later imported with "Italy" after it was sold. 

I would say the new articles contain a fair amount of contextual (though unsubstantiated) information about Roma, especially the 2016 Corinth stater that was mentioned. It gets to closer to the heart of the looter --> auction house relationship than the affidavit does but hard to do much with the info without the case documents it's supposedly based on.

Edited March 24, 2023 by Kaleun96

[zadie]

9 minutes ago, Ryro said:

They sure can. 

Are you sure that without a shadow of a doubt your friend can see proxy-bids on biddr? Not just pre-bids, but proxy bids as well?

[Väinämöinen]

25 minutes ago, Ryro said:

They sure can. 

No, they can't. When you proxy bid it's Biddr as a platform bidding on your behalf and the proxy bids are not revealed to the auction houses.

Why is this even a topic we're discussing in this thread? It seems more relevant to me that based on info posted on page 18 Roma seems to have skipped some pre-bids in favour of other bids, whether accidentally or intentionally.

Edited March 24, 2023 by Väinämöinen

[Ryro]

45 minutes ago, zadie said:

Are you sure that without a shadow of a doubt your friend can see proxy-bids on biddr? Not just pre-bids, but proxy bids as well?

I will reach out to him and double check, but I recall him being asked this on the old site and am pretty sure he stated both pre and proxy bids are viewable on biddr. But will follow up...

[Phil Davis]

1 hour ago, Ryro said:

They sure can. 

I honestly don't know, but based on what others have consistently said, that isn't the case. Pre bids are essentially equivalent to a written bid book, which by definition is known to the auction house; proxy bids are essentially the bidding software bidding on your behalf.

[Ryro]

1 minute ago, Phil Davis said:

I honestly don't know, but based on what others have consistently said, that isn't the case. Pre bids are essentially equivalent to a written bid book, which by definition is known to the auction house; proxy bids are essentially the bidding software bidding on your behalf.

Well, shit. I certainly trust your understanding of the process, Phil. Sorry if my memory is off and I was too quick to respond. I've reached out and will follow up.

Now back to dragging old Dickie B and the nuances of ancient numismatics floating around this cooky modern world of ours where every politician has one hand out and the in our back pocket. 

[Phil Davis]

23 minutes ago, Ryro said:

Well, shit. I certainly trust your understanding of the process, Phil. Sorry if my memory is off and I was too quick to respond. I've reached out and will follow up.

Now back to dragging old Dickie B and the nuances of ancient numismatics floating around this cooky modern world of ours where every politician has one hand out and the in our back pocket. 

One more point, again based on "hearsay" I consider reliable: The one advantage to a pre bid is that it will take priority over an identical proxy bid. And again, that's exactly the way a written bid book behaves.

[John Conduitt]

5 minutes ago, Phil Davis said:

One more point, again based on "hearsay" I consider reliable: The one advantage to a pre bid is that it will take priority over an identical proxy bid. And again, that's exactly the way a written bid book behaves.

That's simply the rule that the first bid takes priority. And of course, a pre-bid can't be beaten to first.

[Ryro]

23 minutes ago, Phil Davis said:

One more point, again based on "hearsay" I consider reliable: The one advantage to a pre bid is that it will take priority over an identical proxy bid. And again, that's exactly the way a written bid book behaves.

Sorry folks, I spoke to soon. His response, "pre and proxy, auctioneers only see pre-bids. That’s why I always advise proxy bidding."

Proxy is the way to go if you can't bid live. 

[Tetradogma]

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?

...

[velarfricative]

1 hour ago, Tetradogma said:

Given that pretty much every E-Sale Roma did would usually have about 60 of these coins in,

I mean, not just Roma E-Sales, those owls hit every major auction house for years (and continue to do so, I presume)

Edited March 25, 2023 by velarfricative

[Tetradogma]

10 hours ago, velarfricative said:

I mean, not just Roma E-Sales, those owls hit every major auction house for years (and continue to do so, I presume)

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