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Author Topic: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?  (Read 999 times)

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daver1ino

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Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« on: November 08, 2009, 12:52:22 pm »
A seller on eBay from whom I have bought some genuine Romans is now offering some pricey Greek silver.  I am not knowledgeable on the subject at all but this coin and others look too good to be true. Your opinions please.

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2009, 02:42:37 pm »
The coin looks OK.  "Too good to be true" is rarely an effective forgery detection tool.  I dislike the use of that phrase to describe any suspected fake.  A fake coin is never "too good to be true."  A fake coin is not good at all. 
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Offline maik

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2009, 02:47:21 pm »
I don't know if the coin is fake or not but i am never buy a coin with this bad photo

daver1ino

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2009, 04:29:55 pm »
The coin looks OK.  "Too good to be true" is rarely an effective forgery detection tool.  I dislike the use of that phrase to describe any suspected fake.  A fake coin is never "too good to be true."  A fake coin is not good at all. 


I should have defined what I meant by the expression  "too good to be true'". I mean that that other staters in much less good condition are being offered with starting prices of $200-$300. If genuine the coin might be worth in excess of $500 given its apparent mint condition. This coin is being offered without warranty (or reserve) for a starting price of $20. Would a seller who believed his coin to be genuine offer it to a skeptical audience with the possibility that it might be "stolen" for less than a hundred dollars under these conditions? If the seller doubts it is genuine then the buyer should be all the more caitious I would think.

I was hoping that there was some way of confirming this line of thinking by expert observation. There are no exact matches in the Forvm Fakes section.

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2009, 10:29:01 pm »
Forum starts all its auctions at $0.99.  The starting price of an auction is not an indicator that a coin is fake
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Offline commodus

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #5 on: November 09, 2009, 01:21:29 am »
Low starting bids frequently attract more interest than high ones.
One shouldn't fool with online (or live) auctions unless and until one knows what one is doing. Not knowing how they work is both a good way to get burned and a good way to miss out on some excellent potential bargains.
Eric Brock (1966 - 2011)

Offline dougsmit

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #6 on: November 09, 2009, 08:27:58 am »
I don't know if the coin is fake or not but i am never buy a coin with this bad photo

I agree with maik on this point.  Certainly not all of us have practiced coin photography and can take really good coin photos but someone who is expecting us to send them several hundred dollars for a coin should be expected to provide a reasonable image.  If the item were a $5 bronze, I might be more accepting of a junky photo but when the seller wants top dollar, we should be given top services including a decent photo.  Not long ago there were many coins sold by mail with no photos and buyers like me came to trust certain dealers as people who only handled coins I would want in my collection.  That has changed today.  Good dealers sell coins of all degrees of eye appeal.  We rarely see disclaimers like 'worse looking than you might want in your collection".  Instead we get a clear photo that shows the faults accurately.  When I see a photo like the one here, I wonder if the seller is trying to hide something or if they are just so inexpert at presenting the merchandise that they don't realize how bad they are making their coin look.  Neither makes me want to patronize the seller unless the coin is a rarely seen item that fits into my specialty interest. 

A suggestion to sellers:  If you can't take decent photos, hire someone to do it for you.  If you are selling Corinthian staters, enough additional potential buyers will be attracted to make it worth your while. 

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #7 on: November 09, 2009, 11:25:31 am »
I agree with Doug absolutely.  Only I wish that everyone would quit using the term 'eye appeal'.  First, it suggests that we are thinking of something less than beauty, rather like saying snazzy instead of elegant, or we are ashamed of beauty.  I know Doug didn't mean that, but the cheapening sense of 'eye appeal' seems to be pervasive in the collecting community.  Second, and more important, is the neuroscientific illiteracy implicit in 'eye appeal'; the appeal is not merely retinal but mental.  It is as if we said 'pixel appeal' instead of 'image appeal'.  It is almost as bad as saying 'culture candy'.
Pat L.

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #8 on: November 09, 2009, 05:20:10 pm »
Well...I use the term "eye appeal."  In my mind beauty applies to the nicer end of the "eye appeal" spectrum.  You can compare two ugly coins and say the one with better "eye appeal" is worth a little more, though neither can be described as beautiful.  It may not be a perfect word, but the term helps new collectors understand how ancient coins should be priced (particularly in contrast to modern coins).   I do think describing a coin as beautiful is better than saying "great eye appeal" or "lots of eye appeal."  I don't think I have ever actually used "eye appeal" to describe a coin, just how coins should be appraised.   
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Offline mihali84

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #9 on: November 09, 2009, 05:41:52 pm »
I consider the term "eye appeal" to be a synonym for aesthetically pleasing.  For example, looking at Hellenistic Tetradrachms, I would consider a coin with a high quality portrait in only good condition, to be more aesthetically pleasing than a coin in EF condition with a lower quality portrait. That is my opinion as i am sure everyone has there own regarding what is aesthetically pleasing in a coin.

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2009, 09:02:46 pm »
Perhaps I should be more careful disagreeing with Pat but I subscribe firmly to the concept of 'eye appeal' when selecting coins for my collection.  I am not terribly interested in condition/grade terms like VF for ancient coins.  Almost all coins have some feature that makes them better or worse than their peers but grade addresses only the amount of detail present on the coin.  Many of the coins in my collection could have been described as 'nice for grade' because I tended to select a smooth surfaces VG or F over a granular or blotchy colored VF.  Many sellers during the period I was actively buying coins (recently you folks have driven prices over my head for the most part) would sell a pretty denarius with worn laurel wreath for much less than one with all the leaves even if the 'better coin' was part legend and ugly.  There came a time were 90% of the coins I saw advertised were VF grade or, perhaps, some variation on the theme like 'VF for these' or 'corroded VF'.  I liked the term 'eye appeal' as a way of describing coins that did not require apologies tacked on to their grades.  I don't usually think of the term being applied to die style since I expect coins to reflect their period and many coins I collect are short of Kimon quality cutting so I'd be forced to call refer to a coin as having 'eye appeal for these' and even I don't go that far off the deep end. 

I don't collect modern US coins but I am getting amusement out of the current fad of collecting toned coins.  People pay extra for 'rainbow' tones which usually strike me as strange looking.  Of course the fad attracted peole who make a living toning coins in the hope that the artificial color will pass for natural.  Every so often we see a silver dollar with nicely placed colors that really does look nicer than plain silver, gray or random blotchy tone so I'd say it has 'eye appeal'.

We may all differ on what gives 'appeal' to a coin.  Some of us like sand patinas worn through to provide contrasts between legend and fields; others don't.  I shall retain my 'neuroscientific illiteracy' and have gut feelings about ferreting out fakes and follow my heart in matters of rationality.  I may even slip into saying that I have heard something new when I meant that I read it.  I'm having a hard enough time keeping pace with the progress of idiomatic English to to abandon old friends.  Pluto will always be a planet to me.  I will eat hot 'dogs' made of beef and collect coins with 'eye appeal'.
 

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #11 on: November 09, 2009, 11:28:06 pm »
We oldsters would, then, say 'attractive' where you-all say 'has eye appeal'.  I agree with Doug in collecting for dies rather than for condition or strike (provided that the art of the engraver is not quite ruined).  A beautiful die is, for example, that of outstanding Corinth or Syracuse.  An attractive die is as good as most of the better Danubian bronzes are, though occasionally they surpass themselves.
The thing that seems important to me is that our appreciative response to what is beautiful or attractive resides in our honed visual responses, which are activities of our brains and (if you want to get that way about it) aspects of our souls.  It is not really our eyes that are appealed to.  Other old-fashioned terms abound: charming, memorable, impressive, delicate, subtle, and dozens more.  I mean, there are perfect coins with lots of work and detail to them that are not, in my opinion, very beautiful at all.  On the other hand, a big, old Valerian or Gallienus of Seleucia ad Calycadnum is memorable / distinctive / amusing / as you will.  The best AE 1 tetrarchs are impressive / powerful / remarkably refined / distinctive / as you see them.
Things that appeal strongly to our taste deserve to be accurately assessed.
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P.S.  And then there's the epithet 'pleasant', which means 'probably will appeal to many, but has issues'.

nikos k

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Re: Corinth Stater on fleabay - fake or real?
« Reply #12 on: November 10, 2009, 08:25:00 am »
"The thing that seems important to me is that our appreciative response to what is beautiful or attractive resides in our honed visual responses, which are activities of our brains and (if you want to get that way about it) aspects of our souls.  It is not really our eyes that are appealed to. "

Pat, thank you so much,thats EXACTLY how i feel it.

 

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