S3R3NDIPITY

“The sellers listed below are notorious fake sellers. We do not list sellers that make an occasional error. The sellers on this list knowingly and intentionally sell fakes. The list is long but many are the multiple eBay IDs of the same people (a few of the aliases are identified as such below). When they are added to this list or their negative feedback builds these sellers abandon their current ID and get a new one. These sellers are criminals and frauds.” - Forum Ancient Coins

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=18502.0

On 12/23/2020 at 4:52 PM, Morpheus1967 said:

Probably more concerned with it not being authentic.  

That’s a valid question because Athenian Owls were forged even in ancient Greece by silver-plating bronze coins which is why most of them are found with disfiguring chop marks. Surprisingly, the same principles which apply to detecting modern counterfeits by NGC also generally apply to ancient 2,500-year-old coins.

Merry Christmas to you to all! It’s amazing how spot on Americans were with the MS-62 grade! It’s gonna take me years as a British collector of Morgans to reach the same level of numismatic competence. 

7 hours ago, mumu said:

is that slabbed?

No, it’s a raw tetradrachm, but I can straightaway sense you thinking that such a magnificent Athenian Owl should be slabbed! You can see in this fine example what it is about these high-relief silver tetradrachms that inspired President Teddy Roosevelt to redesign US coinage. The Athenian Owl and Saint-Gaudens double eagle are like two sides of the same coin.

On 12/1/2020 at 12:10 PM, Zebo said:

I like how the English does portraits of their monarchs. Especially Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II. (Of course that would not work here) Multiple portraits as they age. I also like the idea of having our founding fathers on coins. To a much lesser extent - I like the presidential dollar series as it is a good teaching tool for kids. I do not like the garbage (most) that the mint is producing these days. I do like the classic designs from the past.

Privy marks are fine when they represent something special (significant) - not national doughnut day or the like. 

More comments later 

One of my favorite designs is the flying eagle cent. I also like the Mercury dime, Buffalo nickel, all of the Indian head designs, and the capped bust coins to name a few.

what will the mint produce next??? Scary!

 

I’m British and like this very complimentary comment about English coins. I collect Morgans and world coins as well as British gold sovereigns and silver coins. Yes, what makes collecting English coins so fascinating are the changing portraits of the monarchs, especially Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II who are the longest reigning. Interestingly, that’s one reason why there aren’t many Morgan collectors in Britain. They complain how the Morgan portrait never changes which is a complete misunderstanding of American coinage.

On 12/16/2020 at 5:41 PM, Hoghead515 said:

Thats heart breaking to see. That is one of my most favorite coins ever minted. Just judging by the reverse that would have been a very nice one to. One of these days I'm going to try and get one. Got few others to add to the collection first. Gonna try get a higher grade one if I can afford it down the road. 

I loved your comment and felt inspired enough to order a beautiful Athenian Owl silver tetradrachm. I paid £750 British pounds for it which is the equivalent of $1,012.23 US dollars. It’s my very first ancient coin. It is said that President Teddy Roosevelt carried an Athenian Owl as a lucky piece and that it inspired him to redesign US coinage. I’m still waiting for my Athenian Owl to arrive in the mail. However, I can show you the website photos of the Athenian Owl I ordered. The tetradrachm incidentally is 23mm, 17.25g, and not as huge as it looks.

One of the common features of most counterfeit coins I’ve noticed is the lack of detail or poor strikes which is why I try to avoid as much as possible coins in Fine (F) or Very Fine (VF) condition. I remember once purchasing a coin from a dealer which I wasn’t happy with because of its poor strike. It turned out to be genuine because I sold it for its bullion value. It’s not the first coin I sold off and replaced.

Morgans can be collected either for their numismatic or melt value. The person or persons who scraped the Morgan to test its authenticity probably knew it was a common date and just worth its weight in silver. They were stacking it for its bullion value alone. Collectors who are alarmed at the disfiguring scrapes on this Morgan dollar should check out how this Athenian Owl was chopped almost in half! Testing silver coins to make sure they are not silver-plated base metals has been going on for thousands of years.

The major reason I think bubble wrap is the best way to send submissions to NGC is because that’s how my dealers send me their numismatic coins and I’m talking about coins which have cost me thousands of dollars. Coins do get knocked about a lot during their journey through the mail to NGC and bubble wrap should cushion against any damaging blows.

I do know a coin dealer in Britain who sells counterfeit coins alongside genuine ones. However, they are listed as forgeries and their intention is to educate, not defraud their customers. The coin dealers you are probably referring to are the counterfeit coin dealers who are offloading fake coins on their customers. I have nothing but contempt for the counterfeiters and those trading in counterfeit coins.

I’m British and love all these posts and comments about the Royal Mint by Americans. We also have a sense of humour and don’t mind Americans poking fun at us.

My most recent acquisition is this 1878-S Morgan silver dollar which is very different from my other blast white Morgans which are in BU condition. I’ve collected all of the five Morgan mint marks. I love coin combinations within collections and I realised what I lacked after completing my collection is the very first 1878 Morgan to complement my last 1921 Morgan. What grade would you assign to my 1878-S Morgan?

On 12/5/2020 at 5:30 PM, RWB said:

The coin was struck from clashed dies. This might have imparted a slightly different field texture to the part of the coin below the motto and also to right of the eagle (compare texture to left and right of the < shape line).

The vertical line below the word IN is part of Liberty's throat on the obverse. The < shaped line to right of the eagle's wing comes from the back of Liberty's head. The gentle curve at lower left is Liberty's profile. (See arrows on illustration.)

I’m blown away by the sheer professionalism of RWB’s observations which can’t be faulted in any way. We desperately need this level of American numismatic expertise in British numismatics. We have nothing like it this side of the pond.

I was instantly drawn to this post because I realise countless philosophical questions do arise from coin collecting. One of the most worrying for me is why more males than females collect coins. I’m also confused by the perceived differences between “conserved” and “cleaned” coins. Numismatists are not bothered in the least if they notice a slabbed coin has been preserved. However, it’s obvious the same valuable conserved coin would be regarded by them as a worthless cleaned coin if I cracked it out if its slab.

Yes, the Peace dollar looks like someone with red freckles which I’ve always found to be one of the most appealing features on a human face.

On 11/27/2020 at 3:54 PM, RWB said:

"Grading" by TPGs is an opinion. There are no clear, empirical standards, and no organization to support such standards. (ANA abrogated this responsibility 30 years ago.) The application of numbers does not mean "greater accuracy"  - only finer divisions of the same opinions.

My thoughts are that TPGs' greatest values are:

1. Authentication
2. Separation of uncirculated from circulated
3. Error recognition and classification
4. Variety attribution

 

Yes, I agree with you entirely which is why I favour slabbed Morgans over raw ones for peace of mind. I want to own real Wild West silver dollars, not replicas. The US and British Royal Mints are overhauling their Eagles and Britannias with new security features like the Canadian Maples because of the counterfeits. I’m not a big fan of modern security-laden holographic coins. The counterfeits are being churned out on an industrial scale like never before which is why I value the authenticity of coins slabbed by TPGs. The higher prices for authenticated slabbed coins are a small price to pay compared to putting the counterfeiters out of business.

I absolutely love Morgan dollars and successfully collected all five Morgan mint marks in MS-64 grade. It’s important to point out that I’m a Brit, not American, and getting Morgans shipped over here is not easy because of crippling customs charges. The 20% VAT (Value Added Tax) our government automatically slaps on silver purchases is another major obstacle which is why collecting Morgans is something of a niche market this side of the pond.

I’m totally flummoxed how all my five Morgans look completely different but were all graded MS-64. I’ve cracked all my Morgans out of their PCGS slabs, encapsulated and catalogued them as BU. I’m honestly at a loss to explain with any finesse why most of my MS-64 Morgans look indistinguishable from your second MS-63 Morgan even right down to the cheek scratches. Coin grading is one of the most complex areas of numismatics but unfortunately absolutely essential to a coin’s value.

On 7/11/2019 at 7:06 PM, Mohawk said:

I love it Emi and, yes, they are very interesting people.  In my opinion, you'd be hard pressed to find a Roman Imperial in this time period who isn't interesting, which is what makes collecting the Five Good Emperors and the people connected to them so much fun!  I'd say that the closest you come to an uninteresting Roman royal for this time is probable Faustina victim Lucius Verus.  He was kind of a flat tire, at least in my opinion, but the rest are absolutely fascinating!  I love the contrast between Marcus Aurelius, who was so stoic, peaceful and and philosophically spiritual and his wife Faustina who, well.......wasn't.  She was an educated, intelligent and cultured woman, to be sure, but she also had that brutal warrior side to her, much more so than her husband.  But they loved each other in spite of these differences and had what was arguably the most normal marriage in all of Roman Imperial history.  And, Faustina's vicious side allowed her to do some of the heavy lifting for Marcus Aurelius, so he didn't have to endure such activities, which would have been much more distasteful to him and taken a higher toll on him than they would have for Faustina.  In spite of whatever else she did (the poisonings, the alleged throwing of people to wild beasts for various reasons, the angering of many Senators with her outspoken and sometimes violent nature.   But not the infidelity to Marcus Aurelius.  That does not appear to be true.  Rather, these allegations were likely made by Senators and other powerful enemies she made to discredit her and, maybe, get her out of the way.) , Faustina clearly loved him deeply to the point where she was always by his side, wherever he was and whatever had to be done there.  And she gave him 13 children, so something was definitely good in that marriage .  But Commodus seems to have certainly inherited this brutal side from Faustina and unlike her, he was unable to check it at all.  Nor did he have a partner to help him check it, like Faustina had in Marcus Aurelius.  And poor Lucilla, who was married to Verus, who has always struck me as a total *spoon*, first was betrothed to him then 4 years later, loses her Augusta status when Verus either dies of the Antonine Plague or at the hands of Lucilla's mother!  I think she was fine with losing Verus but not her status.  And apparently Faustina didn't approve of Lucilla's second marriage to a Senator (I don't recall his name off the top of my head) either, but at least she didn't kill the guy. 

Sorry for the small book....Faustina is a passionate subject for me....she's so absolutely fascinating to me!  I'm so pleased to hear that you are going to add her and Lucilla to your collection Emi.  If I can help you with that in any way, don't be afraid to ask.  I always love talking ancients, clearly

~Tom

I’m very grateful for your small book and talk about the ancients! A Marcus Aurelius aureus is very much the coin on my numismatic horizon. Always preferred the stoical emperor to the dictatorial Julius Caesar. I’m in the habit of taking numismatic and/or bullion breaks whenever I complete a major coin collection and before embarking on another collection. I’ve collected the five key coins of Queen Victoria’s reign, the seven George V mint marks and five Morgan dollar mint marks along with other collections. I purchased the Victoria Gothic crown and some florins during my last break. The leap to an ancient aureus represents a much larger leap through time for me. Some modern practitioners of Stoicism during the present pandemic have taken inspiration from the philosophical response of Marcus Aurelius to the ancient Antonine Plague.

On 11/25/2020 at 11:30 PM, Kurisu said:

I've repeatedly signed up for an account and it tells me a moderator must now approve...

I get no system email or moderator email each time, so it seems to me whomever is in charge is just ignoring requests to signup.

It's funny because the sign up is nothing but an email, password, and b-day for recovery I assume.

I've tried simply signing up about 5 times now during the last couple months using my same email each time so obviously nothing is being approved there.

Not that I'm dying to be there, but now I'm curious to see what kind of discussions are happening there...

The same thing happened to me which is why, frustrated, I started a second account with my second email but got banned after a few posts. The problem with numismatics is that numismatists are not necessarily experts at sorting out computer glitches.

On 11/18/2020 at 1:09 PM, ldhair said:

There is more to this story. Did you have more than one user name? Did you get banned and join again under a new user name? What names did you use there? I person has to try really hard to get banned on CT. I can't agree with you without knowing all the facts. Please give us all the information.

With me and another baffled forum member who were similarly banned on CoinTalk I strongly suspect it’s nothing more sinister than the fact that we started a second account when we thought the registration wasn’t working. Our posts and comments are still on the forum.

I was also banned from CoinTalk and received exactly the same error message. It’s easy to get unnecessarily paranoiac about these things. However, I honestly think we were banned for starting up a second account when we mistakenly thought the registration wasn’t working properly. I’m certainly not going to cast aspersions on the integrity of CoinTalk because of a simple registration error.