Coin authentication?

[immat]

Does anyone know a good and trusted place to send a coin in for authentication?

[curtislclay]

David Sear has already been mentioned in response to your similar query on Ancients.info.

However, as I said there, the Caesar denarius you bought is unfortunately an exact duplicate of a declared replica in the Forvm Forgery Reports. 

It is therefore clearly false and cannot be authenticated by anyone, so sending it in for authentication is just throwing money away!

[immat]

David Sear has already been mentioned in response to your similar query on Ancients.info.

However, as I said there, the Caesar denarius you bought is unfortunately an exact duplicate of a declared replica in the Forvm Forgery Reports. 

It is therefore clearly false and cannot be authenticated by anyone, so sending it in for authentication is just throwing money away!

I just started in this hobby and I'd like to gather information that I'm interested in for my future use. Regarding David Sear, isn't there anybody else out there that can be trusted or that is good? All I'm asking is a personal experience opinion.

Regarding the post that I have on Ancients.info, it has nothing to do with this post! I maybe bought a fake coin - my life will go on. The lesson was learned.

Thanks for answering but this is a post about where is a good place to get ancient coins authenticated!

[curtislclay]

My personal advice: you don't need certificates of authenticity for the coins in your collection.

Rather, buy from established, reliable dealers at first, who guarantee authenticity and will give you your money back for a mistake even one year or five years later.

Try to develop your own expertise by carefully examining as many coins as you can, both genuine and fake, both "in the flesh" and in books or on the internet.  Try to learn the correct style for each series, and what physical characteristics, sharpness, patination, edge cracks and so on, speak for or against a coin.

You can usually get quite good opinions on authenticity, as reliable as if you sent your coin in to any single expert, by asking and posting a good picture of the coin on numismatic forums like this one.

[Will Hooton]

I believe that Forvm here offer a coin authentification service?

[Dominicus]

Buying from a reputable dealer beats sending stuff for authentication.  When I purchase a coin from Forvm, for example, I will print out the web receipt, and overprint the image file of the coin and that serves as my archival reference.
Same with other reputable sellers.

I discourage venturing into the eBay unknown Joe, no matter how much quality rating they have.  Some reputable sellers do also offer merchandise on eBay, and that would be fine too.

I purchased from random eBayers in early collecting period and ended up with fakes or altered coins.  I don't look forward to the anxiety of this.  Fortunately, on the one fake I purchased, and another I recall had some sort of nickel plating, both I got refunds.

One one of my early purchases on eBay, I had significant amount at stake and found out when I received the coin the vendor was international....   I sent it to David Sear and was successfully authenticated, but the process was painful.

Good luck!

Dominicus

[TomX]

Greetings,

As a newbie, I stick with reputable places like Forum. I read the Fakes
reports and unless they are very bad, I can't tell the difference yet.

I can see that a knowledgable person could probably make a killing
on scarfing up the real coins from the dubious offering on ebay.
Sorting the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

Tom