Roman coins

[JKK]

I posted awhile back about ancient coins and got some good reading recommendations, which I've followed up on. What I read scared me pretty much out of buying any more, because evidently the counterfeit rate is very high (silver especially) and I don't have tremendous faith in the average dealer's ability to spot those.

 

Now I'm pretty concerned about the ones I own. I'd like to send them to a service, bronzes included, for evaluation and grading and even identification. While I think my identification is fairly accurate, and it doesn't hurt that my academic background was in Roman history with a professor who collected Roman coins and taught us a little about how to read them, I'd like to know the real story.

 

If you were in my toga, what would you do?

[Conder101]

If you would really like to send them somewhere to ease your mind I would probably recommend ACCS Ancient Coin Certification Service It is run by David R Sear, the man who literally wrote many of the standard references used today for ancient coins.

 

http://www.davidrsear.com/certification.html

 

I do not really trust any of the top 4 services with ancients (and for the most part they either don't or don't want to even touch them. ICG did them for awhile but from reports their attribution accuracy was questionable. ANACS did a few but I believe they quit. And with the scambling of those two firms, welllll. I don't think PCGS or NGC have ever done them at all.) I've seen some third tier services with ancients in their holders but they didn't specialize in them so I don't know how good a jod they would do. But ACCS does nothing but ancients and Sear knows his stuff.

[JKK]

Thanks, Conder. That's the only one I'd found on my own, and it helps to have someone saying good things about him.

 

It's pretty expensive relative to US coin grading/slabbing, but I can see why. Obviously this is very rare and specialized expertise, and it costs what it costs. Even so, at $40, that's pretty cheap for such expertise. If it took him half an hour to deal with a billon antoninianus (or whatever) at $80 per hour he'd be far cheaper than my CPA or just about any other degreed professional.

[the_Thing ®]

JKK, I've collected ancients for about 25 years. If you post your coins, I'm fairly positive I could give you a thumbs up or thumbs down on them. They really aren't as faked as often as people believe. The most faked are the higher end gold and silver coins. The fake bronzes and silver, that most collectors can afford, are rather easy to spot. I really doubt though that you have any counterfeits.

[JKK]

t_T, thanks. Actually, there's a decent chance of that because I have to do some pic-taking in order to send data to Hugh Wood for insurance.

 

The list is:

 

Silvers:

Antoninianus, Otacilia Severa, Rev. CONCORDIA AVGG, AU (my grading estimates)

Denarius, Caracalla, Rev. PMTRP XVII COS IIII PP, AU

Siliqua, Julian II, Rev. VOT X MVLT XX DCONST, AU

 

Bronzes:

AE3, Julian II, Rev. VOT X MVLT XX ASIRM, VF

AE3, Valens, Rev. SECVRITAS REIPVBLICAE, VF

AE2, Gallus, Rev. FEL TEMP REPARATIO, F

AE3, Gallus, Rev. FEL TEMP REPARATIO, F

Billon Antoninianus, Gallienus, Rev. DEO MARTI, G

 

The silvers and the better bronzes I think you'll like. The weaker bronzes, not so much. But each is truly (if authentic) a piece of history. I'm the most suspicious of the Caracalla coin, as it just looks a little wrong to me, as though it were cast.

[Conder101]

When he said post them I'm pretty sure he meant pictures. It can be very hard to identify counterfeits from from a listing of the inscriptions.

[JKK]

When he said post them I'm pretty sure he meant pictures. It can be very hard to identify counterfeits from from a listing of the inscriptions.

Obviously. I just thought I'd give him a preliminary idea of what it amounted to, in case there were any 'everyone's got counterfeits of those' pieces that jumped out at him. Or in case he was just interested.

[Conder101]

Note the smiley in my last post. I was just teasing.

[JKK]

Note the smiley in my last post. I was just teasing.

 

I see that now. Message board smilies have become so ubiquitous and numerous that I no longer examine them to see what the little face is doing, and on some boards I even block them, but I realize they do serve purposes. My bad.

[winthorpe-migration]

Ive sent mine to ICG for grading and their results arent too bad, their prices are half or what the initial posters wrote.

 

Pre-1700 Coins -- NON-GOLD

Ancient Roman Silver: AD69 - AD307

 

Pieces valued @ $300 & less 21-Days $20

 

http://www.icgcoin.com/FeesandServices/tabid/504/Default.aspx

 

 

[JKK]

I saw that as well, winthorpe. The drag there looked to be twofold: I have some ancient bronzes, and some post-307CE silver. Since ICG seemed to limit what it wanted to deal with, I tended to assume that they really didn't have tremendous expertise in ancients, and what you are hiring is expertise, so I wanted to see if there were a specialist that handled any ancient coin. Sounds like Mr. Sear is the man.