A Protocol Question

[Ken W2]

The rules about screening (and some related posts) seem to target the screening of coins suspected of being fakes, but unless I have missed something don't prohibit asking about a coin you are considering which you believe to be authentic, but suspect may be tooled.  Is it permissible to post photos of a coin you might buy and ask for members' opinions about whether it appears to have been tooled ?  I get that screening is screening, but in my mind there's a big difference in asking whether a coin represented as genuine really is and whether a coin accepted as genuine appears to have been physically altered.  If that is permissible, is this the correct board to use, or is there another board in which that kind of discussion would better fit ? Thanks in advance.

Ken   

[Joe Sermarini]

If you have a question about a coin you are considering, ask the seller. If you do not trust the seller's honesty or expertise, do not buy the coin. Know the coin or know the seller.

[Ken W2]

Thanks Joe.  It has only occured twice that I was considering a coin which I thought may have been tooled.  I asked the seller both times.  One replied that it may have been tooled at some point, which was enough to prevent me from buying.  The other time I received no answer, which certainly was enough to prevent me from buying.  But I confess that I was a little uneasy asking because asking if the coin is genuine or has it been tooled sort of implies you think the seller is dishonest.  As stated in Virgil's new post, us less experienced collectors would like to develop confidence in our abilities to spot a fake or tooling. With that confidence we would not be totally reliant on the seller and may be able to spot problem coins and just move on. The input from more experienced members obviously would help build that confidence.    I suppose it's permissible to post the coin after it sells or the auction ends, so that the inquiry and responses are educational only ?  Thanks again.

Ken 

[Joe Sermarini]

If you suspect a coin is tooled do not buy it. It really is that simple. There are plenty of other coins to buy.

Asking for advice, even here, and certainly anywhere else, may get you an incorrect answer. But even if you get only correct answers I won't be that much help. You won't learn a lot that way.

Learning to spot coins by examining tooled coins will get you a basic understanding. Do that with the fake coin reports and the Mr. Tooley thread. There are many many clearly identified tooled ancient coins on this website. Doing that will, however, only help with spotting poorly tooled coins.

The only way to learn to identify expertly tooled coins is to get an "eye" for what is genuine and original. Nobody can ever teach that to you. It comes in time from looking at thousands of ancient coins over at least a couple of years. There are still coins that I see and I suspect are tooled but without certainty. If someone has consigned the coin, I may just return it to them, or I may take the time to compare it to coin of the exact same type, hoping to find a die match, or at least a coin from dies from the same hand. Direct comparison may provide the answer.  

Buy from dealers with expertise and integrity. Anything else would be folly.

[Ken W2]

Joe:  Thanks for taking the time to provide further guidance. As noted by a more experienced collector in my earlier Legion V coin post, some of us less experienced collectors under-estimate the magnitude of the fake, and I presume tooled too, coin business.  Reading all the fake coin and tooling posts is both surprising and discouraging.  I'm surprised (but becoming less so) that such dishonesty (fake coins) and disregard for ancient artifacts (tooling) is so prevalent. Of course, I'm discouraged about the dishonesty in fakes, but in a way, to me tooling is worse than making fakes.  A fake is what it is and always will be.  However, a tooled coin was a genuine coin with genuine wear which had historical and monetary value.  That people damage or destroy that value, particularly the historical value of an ancient coin with ancient wear, is just discouraging.  On the coin cleaning side of the hobby, I suppose the purists might feel that way about those of us who strip coins of their patina.  I strip very few coins, and do so only in an effort to attribute an otherwise unattributable coin and never for the purpose of sale, but I suppose the purist could argue I have damaged what was genuine wear on (or the genuine condition of) an ancient artifact.  Thanks again.

Ken         

[Joe Sermarini]

If you buy from dealers with expertise and integrity, fakes and tooled coins are not a very big problem. The problem is mostly on eBay, tourist sites, inexperienced dealers, and to a lesser extent on some European auctions.

[Carausius]

Reading all the fake coin and tooling posts is both surprising and discouraging.  I'm surprised (but becoming less so) that such dishonesty (fake coins) and disregard for ancient artifacts (tooling) is so prevalent.  

Rest assured that the prevalence of fakes and undisclosed toolies in expert dealers' stock is not very prevalent.  You get a false sense of prevalence from reading Forum's fake board and toolie thread.  These boards/threads don't show the hundreds of genuine and untooled ancient coins sold by expert dealers each day.  Your statement is a bit like going to an art museum and concluding that most artists must be brilliantly talented. That conclusion would be false because you've focused on a very small subset of the whole.  The key, as Joe said, is to buy from trustworthy experts to minimize any risk, or to get very comfortable from handling lots of genuine, unmolested coins.  Coin shows are good opportunities for the latter - they'll return some day.

[Ken W2]

Joe and Michael:  Thanks for your responses and guidance.  I will be glad when shows return; I hope they are held at least within a few hundred miles of where I live.

I am migrating away from the Voldemort of auction sites to other sources-- last several purchaes of RSC have been from here on FORVM and one dealer on VCoins. And I would buy more but I'm getting down to issues like Julia Titi, Nerva, Tiberius and other issues of similar scarcity/price, and starting to look hard at the Legionary issues of Marc Antony. These are simply harder to find in the condition I like and can afford. I accept the "know the seller" part of the mantra, at least to an extent.  But, I'm a reasonably intelligent person and I want to become a "smart collector" referred to by Andrew in his post quoted below, and get better at the "know the coin" part.  My personality will not let me stop at "know the seller, don't worry, be happy." (I know you're not literally saying that). I will never achieve your expertise, but I can become a smarter collector, and would like to learn to make my own judgments about tooling, smoothing and fakes, at least most of the time. That's why I need to learn more and started this thread about the protocol of posting coins. Thanks for understanding my efforts in that regard.   

BTW, I gather Andrew's post quoted below is the origin of the mantra ? Thank you again.

Ken   

"Smart collectors have a choice to learn the tricks and effects of tooling, and then not buy the coins. I've been on an online anti-tooling campaign for several years (almost a.vendetta at times). During the same time period I have greatly increased the quality of the bronzes in my own collection, as part of a normal upgrade process. I haven't bought a coin which I knew or suspected to be tooled in many years, and I've avoided coins that I considered smoothed or even over cleaned. I've made my own choices.

All that said, if less knowledgeable collectors continue to overpay for damaged coins, then I expect the auction houses to continue to sell them. In most cases we are talking about genuine coins that have been deliberately mutilated. After all it's OK for a seller to sell coins with scratches, cleaning marks, holes, and graffito. This is a worse form of mutilation because it's insidious, but I don't ask for or expect sellers to refrain from offering mutilated coins. I expect coin collectors to learn what are good surfaces and what are bad surfaces and choose accordingly. If collectors don't acquire the expertise then they'll make consistently poor purchase decisions. Caveat Emptor.

So if you don't feel you've the expertise to distinguish, then choose your coin seller with great care. Either know the coin, or know the seller (I think we should adopt this as a motto for this board!)"

[Joe Sermarini]

So if you don't feel you've the expertise to distinguish, then choose your coin seller with great care. Either know the coin, or know the seller (I think we should adopt this as a motto for this board!)"

It already is the unofficial motto.

[Virgil H]

Ken W2,
I agree with you and I think i understand what you are trying to say. I agree that you need to trust your dealer(s). But, I want to also be able to identify fakes on my own and also attributions. I buy almost all my coins from the Forum Shop and that includes the member's auctions, so that expands the number of dealers I buy from. I consider my self lucky that I stumbled on Forum Shop from the beginning.

What I have found is that a number of coins are attributed incorrectly and that doesn't include the Forum Shop because I haven't really checked those purchases for myself yet and those few I have were correct. The ones I have checked to date are those that do not come with flips and the tags with the info I want in the flips. When I create these, I research the coin and the history of the coin. The only coin I have bought from a respectable dealer not associated with Forum in any way was pretty obviously attributed to the wrong city. A number from the member's auction have been off, including one that turned out to be a contemporary imitation (that dealer was defensive when I emailed him and suggested I may not know what I was talking about, but experts on the forum here had identified this coin when I posted after spending days trying to attribute that particular coin with no luck). I also find some that are identified more or less correctly, but I still feel are not 100% correct, in many cases they are put in a more general category when there could have been more specifics. Or the specific references are off a bit. And there have been some where I discarded the attribution because it was clearly, to me, not correct and changed it to something more general, such as a Sear number because I wasn't comfortable with the SNG Cop or whatever was used. This just seems to be how it works for me. Note that I also seek unattributed coin lots that are identifiable, but those in my price range are hard to come by. I love the challenge of identifying them, so that is part of it for me.

So, no matter how much I trust the dealer, before I tell someone what the coin is, I personally want to be able to be sure. Maybe this is a relatively new collector thing. LOL.Yet, I also cannot say how important it is to have a dealer I trust. If I had to rely on Voldemort auctions, I would never buy any coins.

For me, my motto is "Know the dealer AND know the coin."

Virgil

[Joe Sermarini]

Yes, of course you want know the dealer and the coin, but most people will never get there. I cannot authenticate most coins from photographs even after over two decades of looking at coins almost all day everyday.  So that may be your motto, but it isn't very useful to share it with other collectors.

[Ken W2]

Hey Virgil:  Thanks for your response.  Yes, we are all fortunate to have FORVM available to us.  It is an invaluable source of many resources and provides a place for ancient coin collectors to gather and share-- it's not like every town or even small city has an ancient coin collectors club.  FWIW I find your post useful.  We may be "spitting in the wind" in our efforts to become the "smart collector" Andrew refers to, but it is helpful for me to know that others are nevertheless making the same effort I am, as that fact is somewhat probative on the issue of whether we can achieve "smart collector" status.

Ken 

[esnible]

Ken, you need to look at a lot of coins.  It is also good to have mentors at your local ancient coin club who encourage your questions, and can show you where you went wrong with coin in hand.  Do you live in the USA?

My advice is to go to the New York International show in January.  Go to the auction previews, and look at every single coin.  I have done this!  It can be exhausting even though you are sitting.  I like to use a 10x loupe but people smarter than me use 15x.  Expensive loupes are less tiring on the eyes.

Write down your own estimates, and then after the auction look at the hammer prices to check your predictions.  Another fun thing to do at auction previews is to go through a box of ancient slabs from the back, and decide for yourself before looking what the grade, strike, and surface ratings are.

Expect to make a few mistakes while learning.  Sometimes you will be able to return your mistakes, often you won’t.  Probably a better way to learn is to apprentice to an ancient dealer.  I never had that chance.

Most dealers do not spend a lot of time on their lowest-value items.  If you are buying these items, and you think the dealer or his assistant might have missed something, write the dealer an email saying “Can you re-check lot <x> for tooling?  I am concerned about <…>”  If you have information, such as previous auction appearances of die matches, give a few clear sentences and web links.

I recently purchased a lot in a European live auction, from a respected house.  After I won it, but before I received the invoice, I did the diligence I should have done before.  The dealer re-checked the lot, agreed about the patina and tooling.  He let me off the hook and returned the coin to the consigner as dubious.

For me, looking for evidence of doctoring is part of the hobby.  I would probably get bored and quit collecting if I was only buying top-shelf A-list coins.

[Virgil H]

I would just add that I do think trusting the dealer is paramount, but why should I only do that? Now, my budget is low value coins and I buy quite a few from the Members Auction, which I associate with Forvm's high standards, yet have bought many that were incorrectly attributed. So, should I just not buy there and only buy expensive attributed coins? I have never returned a coin, including the contemporary imitation sold as genuine. I have no idea if the one I got is worth more or less than the one I thought I was buying. I did email the dealer on that one and it was implied I was uninformed and he had zillions of hours of experience, yada yada. Not being able to discuss prices is the one thing I don't like about Forvm. But it is obvious to me that dealers would prefer an ignorant buyer than one who might question them. Hence my desire to get as good as I can in conjunction with using trusted dealers.

Ensible, your response is full of great advice. Unfortunately, it is advice that people like me can never implement. I am at best a few hundred miles from anyone dealing in ancient coins. I could probably never go to the New York show you mention, partly because there would be nothing I could afford at a place like that and travel/hotel could be my yearly coin budget. Given that low value coins are given short shrift by dealers and auction houses certainly doesn't help collectors of these coins, especially if mistakes are considered OK because the values are too low to make accuracy a priority. But dealers probably don't want low budget clients, in any case.

It seems to me that the lower the value of the coin, the more difficult it is. Many of them don't even show up on acsearch or coinarchive. Anyway, this is a very interesting conversation and it is clear that collectors like me are not particularly valued to the degree the big buyers are. I understand that, but if you have low budget clients, treat them right or tell them to go away. And I don't get the resistance to buyers being informed. Maybe that is just a dealer thing.

Cheers,
Virgil, who loves his low value coins

[Ken W2]

Esnible:  I live in the SE USA and likely my best chance of getting to a show would be NOLA or Atlanta. Maybe Nashville or Charlotte or Houston. I’ve never been to an ancient coin show so I’m not sure what size cities typically host them. But, when shows return hopefully some will be close enough for me to attend. Would love that new experience and hopefully meet some FORVM members in person. 

Virgil: Whoa, dude. I’m on a budget too.  Almost all of my denarii have been purchased for between $50-100. I have only 3 I paid more than that for. I don’t agree that dealers give buyers like me less respect, service or care. Four of the last 6 denarii I’ve purchased have been here on FORVM, averaging around $60 each, and I got FIRST CLASS service. Nice mid-grade coins, absolutely as represented, quickly and discreetly shipped, with COAs I didn’t ask or pay for.
Ken

[PMah]

Hi Virgil, don't feel too left out just because of your budget!
         At any trade event, for any hobby, the big money is going to get the attention.   Once, at the same New York International show that esnible describes, I was sitting at a dealer's table, looking at coins in my budget range, and I made a rueful remark about an Eid Mar denarius that sold a few days earlier for the price of a house.   Turns out, the dealer was the buyer's auction agent and he handed me the coin to see "in hand".  And when a big time collector came along to ask about premium items, it was time for me to say "thanks", and come back later.   A 20% margin on a house sale is going to get more attention than 50% margin on a used lawnmower.
       Same show, different dealer, another well-known collector came along, recognized me from a social event, and suddenly we were looking at her price range coins together with the dealer's full attention.  Free seminar for me.
     So, even if you have to spend quite a bit of your budget traveling to acquire information, it will likely be worth it.  There are regional shows in towns with budget friendly hotels. It takes a bit of internet research to find them, and you want to check that they are not limited to modern or US only, but they exist.
    Also, if you like the effort of identifying coins but are disappointed when a dealer misdescribes one, think about group lots of coins and getting a book on identifying worn or hard-to-distinguish coins.  Forum usually has one or two such guides for Roman coins.  You can save quite a bit on that approach--  Buy the book before the coins.
   As esnible suggests, we probably spend just as much time with the coins we don't buy.  Happy hunting!

[Virgil H]

My entire response wasn't directed at you. I addressed your advice on going to the NY show or apprenticing to an ancient coin dealer. I also buy a lot from Forvm. That is it. Sorry if I hit a nerve, I didn't mean to, other than the advice was not practical unless you live in cities where these shows are held or where there are ancient coin dealers. I was also referring to the implication that it is OK for mistakes to be made with low value coins. And, I was responding to Joe disagreeing with my Know the Dealer AND the Coin comment when he said only knowing the dealer counts because most of us are too dumb to ever become experts. That is how I took it, even though he phrased it differently. And I just placed a rather large (for me) order last night after I had read his comment. LOL. I have a super thick skin, I don't care. I am retired Army, we know how those Navy guys are. I was just trying to make a point that I want to know the coins to the best of my ability over time as I learn. My experience with that one dealer told me all I needed to know, he did not like me questioning him regardless of my evidence that he was wrong. That pissed me off. And that was one of my larger purchases. I probably should have returned it.

PMah,
Thanks for your response, just saw it as I was writing the above. I totally agree, the big buyer always gets the attention and that is understandable. I do buy lots when I can find them, that is currently my favorite way to buy coins, especially unattributed coins. I am still working on a Greek bronze lot I bought from Joe a few months ago that has provided endless pleasure. But, I have found that many attributed coins I have bought are wrong. That irritates me to some degree, but the prices I paid, except maybe for that one I talk about above, were not going to be that different maybe. But I have no clue about what prices should be, so there is that, too. Is the Amisos coin that was attributed as Sinope worth less than the Sinope coin I paid for? I have no clue, but from what I have seen Amisos coins are far more plentiful, so... It was OK because Samsun is right down the road from Sinop, but I bought a "Sinope" coin. I was stationed in Sinop, but have been to Samsun, so its all good, I guess.

Cheers,
Virgil

[PMah]

   Great.  You will learn more about prices as you move between the books and the offerings.   Keep in mind that ancient coins are very different than modern coins in terms of pricing, especially US coins (which are essentially commodities until you get to whole-paycheck levels or ultra-focused).   You certainly won't find a reliable guide to pricing ancient coins other than current offerings and recent auction results.   Even if an auction or dealer listing is way outside your budget, you will learn much about the coins and potential pricing from those listings.   High end auction catalogs are quite educational and usually easily purchased.   Forum has a great selection.
      You won't find meaningful price lists that would tell you "city X coins are more valuable than city Y". The older references that had such pricing were obsolete before the ink was dry and the pricing in them are only a vague expression of the ease or difficulty of finding the coin on the market at the time the book was researched.  Rarity is just one factor in ancient coin pricing; many ancient coins are nearly unique but have no competing buyers because of their condition. Others can be found by the handful but only 1 out of 1000 are fully legible and so those sell at 100x, and so on. And if you are a collector that just needs that one mint mark that shows up twice a year to complete your series, maybe you run up the bidding. Every auction is won by a person willing to pay one increment more for that 1 specimen. 
  An idea from Ken's remark: rather than asking "Is $X the right price for this coin", perhaps first think of a type that you can readily identify and try to find a few examples from the same source, such as Ken experienced with Forum.  Compare those listings and see if there are cues to price differences.

[Joe Sermarini]

...I buy quite a few from the Members Auction, which I associate with Forvm's high standards...

Not being able to discuss prices is the one thing I don't like about Forvm. But it is obvious to me that dealers would prefer an ignorant buyer than one who might question them. Hence my desire to get as good as I can in conjunction with using trusted dealers.

And I don't get the resistance to buyers being informed. Maybe that is just a dealer thing.

1) The members' auction is a place where members of the this discussion forum can sell coins. These sellers are not Forum. The only standards are any sellers with suspected fraud or reported poor service are banned immediately and very few fakes will slip by because our members will report them and I will delete them. The standards of the FORVM ANCIENT COINS shop do not apply.

2) We don't allow price discussion because #1 this discussion is about the coins not the coin trade and #2 it always gets STUPID. I do a little advertising here and TOLERATE a little talk about buying and selling but this discussion is about the coins. That fact has kept the conversation here much more interesting (in my opinion) than other discussion forums. You can see this on Facebook and other coin discussions right now. Much of the conversation is dull, crass, and uninteresting. Every time someone asks about price, EVERY TIME, someone from eastern Europe posts the price they can pay without mentioning they live in Bulgaria, for example. People post prices from five years ago. People post prices of fakes on eBay. Beyond that, a coin with eye appeal can be 10X the price of the same type without eye appeal. Few collectors have the expertise to price well. It gets STUPID every time.

3) If I had resistance to buyer being informed, would I have spent the tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours it took to create this website? Would I spend $500 a month to support the bandwidth that it takes to handle the traffic here? Would I spend far more time than most dealers describing the coins I sell? Sure it helps the business but not enough.

I have spent more than two decades studying the coins, almost every day, all day, learning authentication, attribution, and pricing. Nobody is resisting informing you. We just cannot inform you of what we know as fast as you think we can, and we resist other people that pretend they can. Do you think you can ask someone how to authenticate and appraise renaissance paintings and expect them to tell you how in a discussion forum? You disrespect my profession.

[Kevin D]

Thanks to Joe for providing the single most educational online source for ancient coins that I am aware of.

When buying online, or bidding from a printed catalog, a single coin lot is usually attributed by the seller and there are good photos of obverse and reverse. If a buyer wants to be sure of the attribution, they should attribute the coin for themselves before buying it or bidding on it. This might be problematic when buying at a coin show.

A collector can spend more time with his or her coin than can an auction house, even the most experienced and reputable auction houses, with the coins they are cataloging for sale. They usually get it right, but certainly not always. Check the attribution for yourself before you buy, if this is important to you.

For me, the advice of 'knowing the dealer' speaks more to the honesty and integrity of a dealer than about their attribution skills or attribution track record. We are all human and make mistakes, this happens to even the most experienced numismatists. If you are dealing with someone who stands behind what they sell, the occasional mistake (regarding authenticity, not attribution) will be made right.

Different dealers have different policies. Depending on what you are buying, knowing the dealer's 'legalese' might be important. Some reputable dealers only guarantee authenticity, not coin condition. It appears to me that some large auction houses do not even guarantee authenticity.

The best coin doctors are quite good at what they do, and their work is often very difficult to detect, if not impossible, with even the best online photos. I've seen some tooled examples escape detection by the best auction houses, even when they had the coin in hand. In these cases, the only way I was able to tell the coin had been doctored, was when I found a photo of the coin before it had been doctored and could compare the two images side by side.

For 'in hand' coin inspection, most people include a high-magnification device in their 'tool kit'. This might be something as simple as a 40 power 'pocket microscope', or something more expensive like a good desk stereo microscope.

[esnible]

.... I am at best a few hundred miles from anyone dealing in ancient coins. I could probably never go to the New York show you mention, partly because there would be nothing I could afford at a place like that and travel/hotel could be my yearly coin budget. ....

It seems to me that the lower the value of the coin, the more difficult it is. Many of them don't even show up on acsearch or coinarchive..... I understand that, but if you have low budget clients, treat them right or tell them to go away. And I don't get the resistance to buyers being informed....

At the NY International there are dealers with bags of 1000 similar coins.  You are allowed to pour them upon a tray and pick as many as you want for $10 or $20 or $100 each.  I can't tell you how educational this is!  There is no faster way to learn what you like.

I understand that it can be expensive to travel to New York.  There aren't many coin shows with enough coins to make traveling worthwhile.  Ask around, maybe there is one in your region.  Also some of the coin clubs are going on line with Zoom, so you may be able to find a virtual club.

20 years ago it was difficult to afford all of the references works needed to precisely attribute coins.  It should be easier now, with Wildwinds, ACSearch, Zeno.ru, RPC Online, the ANS databases, and Numista.  What series are you trying to collect that you are having difficulty finding online?

I don't expect dealers to treat me with respect.  At the New York show, Heritage has hangout/chill room for their big customers.  Even though I have spent thousands of dollars with them over the years I don't yet qualify!  There are all kinds of inner circles and you can't be in them all.

[Virgil H]

Thanks for all the responses to my comment. All are well taken and all are valid. And, since I have a friend in Queens, I very well may try that NY show one day as part of a trip up there after Covid. I appreciate you all, especially Joe. I can talk some crap and I do express what I think at times. But, if it weren't for Forum Ancient Coins, the people here who have helped me, and this forum, I probably wouldn't be collecting ancient coins. I am not really hung up on price, I buy what I like at a price I can handle. I just wonder at times if a correctly attributed coin would have been more or less what I paid for it. And I take responsibility for not figuring out any misattributions beforehand. That is on me.

Cheers,
Virgil