125 Classical owls in Roma E-Sale 118

[robinjojo]

That's the most I've seen offered in a single auction by Roma, probably most if not all from the gargantuan hoard that surface in Turkey several years ago.  They will generally sell in the  £400 to  £550 range, I think, but there is the 22.5% buyer's fee, plus foreign exchange rates (the US dollar has dropped somewhat), and shipping which isn't exactly getting any cheaper.

There are a couple of New Style owls as well.

Edited March 18 by robinjojo

[KenDorney]

That's more offered at one time in quite a while.  It will be interesting to see, but I doubt there will be any real bargains.  The market seems to still be readily absorbing these without any loss of price.  In fact it seems that prices have steadily been increasing over the last couple years.

[robinjojo]

I agree.  The classical owls seem to have a "floor" price.  Decent examples do seem to hover around the £400 to  £550 hammer price range, while higher grade or coins with full or nearly full crest detail can go as high as £850 or so, plus the juice charged by the auction house.  Slabbed owls, as always, command more and their price ranges can be all over the map.  

As has been commented many times in the forum auctions have become just too expensive for many collectors.  The retail market is often the much better way to go when it comes to affordability.  

Edited March 18 by robinjojo

[NewStyleKing]

I saw it too, there is still around enough old styles of the mass classic variety to rebuild the Parthenon and the whole acropolis  several times over! How they are the prices that they command is a mystery to me! NewStyles by comparison are as scarce as rocking horse doo dahs. The last big Turkish find had over 70,000 tets and there was another shortly before that, well that's the info I've garnered, but, maybe you know more!!! Roma as already sold 100's, and others have too!  Where do they all go?

Roma's NewStyles don't get my juices going, sad to say, they are the forgotten bastard step-child of the old style! One of them is a previous offering, the Horse one is the "skinny horse" type sans bridle, claimed to be T163 -I have my doubts-, the one without the horse protomes!

You never see the old styles that came just before the NewStyle and no one except me seems to be interested or knows of their existence 

Generally Roma's auction e118 is below par to me!

[JAZ Numismatics]

My experience as a dealer is that owls are the one ancient coin many collectors of moderns like to own, so the demand for them is always larger than for other ancient coins.

[John Conduitt]

Yes I bought an owl. I'm not a moderns collector but have no interest in Greek coins otherwise. Ironically, the fact that they were mass produced is probably why they are in demand - they are a 'classic' coin.

[NewStyleKing]

Yes, John, but the prices!  So far a handful at £600 ( even 1 with a test cut!), ,1 at £900 with test cut! and 1 at £1700!!!!  Oh seriously!. I am familiar with old styles and I just don't geddit! Didn't CNG sell a lot at a good fixed price and they selected the coin!!  Size, weight and head crests I sort of get but some/ most of them.....meh!

[JAZ Numismatics]

1 hour ago, NewStyleKing said:

Yes, John, but the prices!  So far a handful at £600 ( even 1 with a test cut!), ,1 at £900 with test cut! and 1 at £1700!!!!  Oh seriously!. I am familiar with old styles and I just don't geddit! Didn't CNG sell a lot at a good fixed price and they selected the coin!!  Size, weight and head crests I sort of get but some/ most of them.....meh!

Did you see these two New Styles in Auction XXX? Gorgeous...

Lot 132

Lot 133

[kirispupis]

I've often wondered with these tets whether the majority are picked up by resellers or whether there's an unseen reserve and, if not met, the coin is just moved to a future auction.

Clearly, there's some minimum price, but whether that's the reserve or just the current market for resellers to make a profit I'm unsure. I would think with the continuous glut of these tets - nearly every auction has at least a bunch nowadays - the price would continue to fall - yet it hasn't.

[NewStyleKing]

53 minutes ago, JAZ Numismatics said:

Did you see these two New Styles in Auction XXX? Gorgeous...

Lot 132

Lot 133

The first one is very similar to one I sold via Roma a couple of years ago!  I stopped collecting Thompson middle catalogue coins and sold them excepting my favourites. I possibly have the only COMPLETE collection of Thompson early catalogue in the world! Mainly due to a purchase of a Thompson #5 2 Palms via Roma ! It is one of 4 known and my researches show all the others are in museums!  I do not collect for prettiness, so some coins are "horrible"!

I have collected all the Thompson late catalogue that I can which basically is the coins which form the Rome-Pontic times of the 1st Mithradatic where the Athens NewStyles are believed to show the rivalry between 2 deadly factions. Upto the Basileus Mithradates issue whose occurrence on the market is singular and was above my reach when it appeared 10 years or so ago! However still got the odd other one still missing..Hermes/No symbol....etc!

I also collect post-Sullan types and have some great rarities !

Where the fascination with the banal, quotidian old style is ( A. Meadows- I didn't know what Quotidian meant, I had to look it up,but then I'm not a fellow of All Souls or something at Oxford!) I too cannot fathom!!!! Each to their own!

Edited March 19 by NewStyleKing

[JAZ Numismatics]

11 minutes ago, NewStyleKing said:

Where the fascination with the banal, quotidian old style is...

They may be banal and quotidian to some of us that have seen a thousand of them, but their appeal in-hand to new (and non-ancient) collectors is huge. Whenever I do a show and people see I have ancients, they always ask to see an old style owl, and they're always impressed more by that coin than by any other.

[NewStyleKing]

And that Hoard of Tigranes ll tets  seems to be bigger than I thought, they've spread around a lot!

[robinjojo]

I think the drawing of collectors and others to the classical owls is their availability and historical significance, but also the design which reflects the archaic roots of these coins, however well or poorly executed.  Yes, the eye is not natural.  That came later with the intermediate pi-style owls, which unfortunately have not garnered the attention given to the classical owls.  I say unfortunately because these coins, crude and "dumpy" as they are warrant more attention by collectors.  But, they do post date Athens' "Golden Age" and as such do not have the cachet of the classical owls.  I love them, though, as well as the New Styles.  After all, they are of the same lineage, going back to the earliest Athenian archaic owls of the late 6th century BC..

I agree with NewStyleKing that the owls immediately proceeding the New Style owls are very rare, and that there a general lack of information about these elusive coins.  I would love to acquire a post Quadridigité style owl (circa 286 - 262 BC), but I have yet to see offered.  Of course my search is quite narrow, limited to a handful of auction houses, VCoins, MA Shops and eBay.  

Edited March 19 by robinjojo

[kirispupis]

Personally, I rather like the bronzes issued around this time. They're also quite rare and can be difficult to find/procure, but many have been dated to relatively short periods of time.

Attica, Athens
circa 307-300 BCE
Æ 15 mm, 3,91 g
Obv: Head of Athena r., wear Corinthian helmet with crests and, on visor, snake ornament
Rev: HO- Owl standing, facing; all in olive wreath.
Sv. 22.85-88; Kroll 50b

 

Attica, Athens
circa 340-322 BCE
Æ 14 mm, 2,19 g
Obv: Head of Athena r., wearing Attic helmet.
Rev: OE. Double-bodied owl stg. on Eleusis ring; in each upper corner, olive spray
Sv. 22.37; Kroll 43c

 

Athens Attica
ca. 270 – 261 BCE
Ae 13.5mm, 2.9gms
Obv: Helmeted head of Athena right
Rev: A – OE; Owl standing right with head facing, poppy in right field
Ref: Walker Period I, 58

[robinjojo]

41 minutes ago, kirispupis said:

Personally, I rather like the bronzes issued around this time. They're also quite rare and can be difficult to find/procure, but many have been dated to relatively short periods of time.

Attica, Athens
circa 307-300 BCE
Æ 15 mm, 3,91 g
Obv: Head of Athena r., wear Corinthian helmet with crests and, on visor, snake ornament
Rev: HO- Owl standing, facing; all in olive wreath.
Sv. 22.85-88; Kroll 50b

 

Attica, Athens
circa 340-322 BCE
Æ 14 mm, 2,19 g
Obv: Head of Athena r., wearing Attic helmet.
Rev: OE. Double-bodied owl stg. on Eleusis ring; in each upper corner, olive spray
Sv. 22.37; Kroll 43c

 

Athens Attica
ca. 270 – 261 BCE
Ae 13.5mm, 2.9gms
Obv: Helmeted head of Athena right
Rev: A – OE; Owl standing right with head facing, poppy in right field
Ref: Walker Period I, 58

Lovely examples!

The bronze coins of Athens are very interesting and, I think, generally not appreciated as much as their more glamorous silver cousins.  Those three examples are great coins.

This is my only Athenian bronze coin, minted later in the second to early first century BC.

Attica, Athens, AE 14, 130-90 BC.

  HGC 4, 1734; Kroll 1993, no. 100. cicada-owl on thunderbolt

4.19 grams 

Obverse: Cicada, viewed from top.

Reverse: Owl standing on thunderbolt, AΘE to left.

 

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

I guess I'll have to be happy with the contemporary eastern imitations.  Some look 'close enough.'  In fact, I've been tremendously enjoying the various countermarks and historic graffiti on the ones I've picked up.

It is certainly an iconic coin, but I can't justify the price.

[KenDorney]

On 3/19/2024 at 8:02 AM, kirispupis said:

I've often wondered with these tets whether the majority are picked up by resellers or whether there's an unseen reserve and, if not met, the coin is just moved to a future auction.

Clearly, there's some minimum price, but whether that's the reserve or just the current market for resellers to make a profit I'm unsure. I would think with the continuous glut of these tets - nearly every auction has at least a bunch nowadays - the price would continue to fall - yet it hasn't.

You might have noted with Roma that they now are listing if a lot has a reserve or not.  Seems a little odd, if it has a reserve of 100 GBP then the bidding should start there, but it doesnt, it starts at the usual low amount.

[John Conduitt]

1 hour ago, KenDorney said:

You might have noted with Roma that they now are listing if a lot has a reserve or not.  Seems a little odd, if it has a reserve of 100 GBP then the bidding should start there, but it doesnt, it starts at the usual low amount.

TimeLine have done this too. They now say 'reserve met' (or not). It's in line with other live auctions. Some of the starting prices for Roma are well below the reserve though, which seems a bit pointless, but it will be helpful as they don't have favourites so no way to track lots - in these cases you can bid without winning to mark a lot.

Edited March 20 by John Conduitt

[Heliodromus]

I assume the point of starting bids below reserve is just to encourage people to bid. It takes advantage of human psychology around commitment, ownership and competitiveness. Even if someone wouldn't want to bid the reserve amount, once they've started bidding below that level then these factors kick in and they may continue past the reserve, and of course more bidders will get other people's competitive juices flowing too. All good reasons not to bid other than via sniping.