These legionarii denarii are imho fakes (I have even on of them), but some have been alterd and can look more convincing and the employees of Lanz are not the best if it comes to fakes
It surprises me that some can simply assume that Lanz has nothing to do with his Ebay listings. In my experience, including lengthy email correspondence, he is very aware of and involved with what gets listed for sale on Ebay, including returned fakes.
Who are these low quality, mystery employees who are listing his fakes? How does this assumption free Lanz from responsibility?
Lanz is responsible for
his buisness and there are sadly sometimes too many
fakes in
his store if it
comes to ancients (every offered fake is a fake too much) but they are not offering them intentionally like the criminals on nfs list and the amount of
fakes is actually low in relation to the authentic coins, which they are
selling.And
Lanz or
his employees are removing almost all of them if they are notified and I think that they honestly think that the very few
fakes which they do not withdraw are in fact genuine.
When I first wrote them about a fake in their
ebay auctions Lanz himslef answered and he often answered himself after this (it was not always clear who answered, because he sometimes used
his name to answer and sometimes not.)
But some time ago, when I worte to the support of their
ebay store, they did not anwer anymore and but they have wirthdrawn them.
If someone can not even write thank you, I will not
help anymore , so I stopped to write them some time ago, but I
still post
fakes in their listings to
German board to warn others.
I have been at
his store because, he
had many of these Sicilain
fakes in
his listing like many others and I wanted that the fake dies will be published and accessable to
auction houses and dealers, that these
fakes will not be offered and sold anymore.
I think that my idealism, to spend many thousands of Dollars to buy dies and to get pictures of others and to spend much time and effort to remove them must have impressed him.
He was really kind and treated me with respect, but when we spoke about
fakes I noticed the he sometimes became emotional (mimic and voice) and that he truly hates
fakes, I guess that they are bad for buisness and that they have caused him some
money loss and trouble too in the past. I think that someone who hates
fakes soooo much would never sell them intentionall and he and or
his employees have generally withdrawn almost all
fakes when they have been notified.
I have seen there a tray with sorted out
fakes too and he has withrawn coins from previous sale too, when I told him that they are
fakes.
I
had been in
his office (it is a roof apartment in
Munich) with my dies and have seen some of the rooms, if you come in is a desk and secretary in hallway, I have seen
his private room and one very huge room with many employees sitting there and doing coin description and adding them to
ebay.
There was literature in this room and this camera system they are using. I have not seen some smaller rooms.
When I was in
his office and we talked someone called, he answered the call and it was a customer and asked about a very coin modern coin in
his ebay listing I think it was about the condition of the coin and he took
his time to answer for I coin where he will make almost no profit with.
I do not know how much he charges as fees for consignors and maybe he is giving discount for power consignors but I assume something between 20-30% and in this the
ebay fees of 10% and costs for photograph,
attribution, authentication and adding them to
ebay and doing support of them is included and % for rent for expensive office in
Munich etc. If you then consider they are
selling mainly
cheap coins, where they do eran almost nothing for one coin, they make the
money only with mass (they sell so many that they make profit even if they earn very little with each).
To do a long and authentication is costing time and
money and is so not economical for
cheap coins where they do earn very little.
Dealers who ask for higher prices have a higher margin and can of course invest more time for authentication, but higher
price generally means it will take longer to sell them.
I do think that the buisiness model of
Lanz is the main problem (to sell many many coins and making only little profit with each).
But the authentication skills of
his employees of
ebay store are really not
good and must be improved why he did not do so far I do not know, maybe he tried to find some
good employees but did not find.
I am not sure how much he can offer as sallary (he has to calculate always that it pays off) but it could be less and the
work condition worse than in the other real
auction houses in
Munich, so I assume the really
good ones go to the
auction houses.
When I spoke with him I noticed that he is not completely satisfied with
his employees and their skills if it
comes to
fakes, I think he said that only 1-2 of
his employees were
numismatics who are really interested in coins I assume the other ones are then doing this to have a job and to earn
money but they possibly do not like their job then so much.
Lanz could have tried to do himself or to find trainings for
his employees to improve their authentication skills, (I do not know if such trainings are available in
Germany), if he can not find employees better in authentication.
I have a buisiness too but not related to coins and the secret of being succesful is imho to have
good employees but it is hard to find them.
And even
good employees are doing mistakes form time to time but some employees are costing more than they earn you, such employees have to be fired.
(I
had to fire one, she made very expensive mistakes and if I have to check everything she did later carefully, then I can do it in almost the same time by myself and right without paying for an employee).
Back to topic, there are many thing that we can critisize about
Lanz and which he should improve and imho should have already improved a long time ago, but he is not a criminal who is intentionally
selling fakes, he and
his employees are removing almost all
fakes if they are notified and I believe that they honestly think, that the very few
fakes, which they refuse to withdraw are actually genuine .
There speaks nothing against it to objective critisize
Lanz, he is
selling many many coins, (many customers are not giving feedbacks like me) and so the number of
his sold coins is much higher than
ebay evaluations are implying.
If you sell so much, much can go wrong but, so there is obviously a high number of not satisifed customers but their numer if we see them in realtion to very happy and satisfied customers is neglectably low.