Yikes!!! Big happenings in the ancient realm

[the_Thing ®]

 

 

web page NEWS FROM THE NUMISMATIC WORLD !!!

 

It isn't exactly a prosperous time for the well-known coin and antique dealer Harlan J. Berk, from Chicago USA.

 

Recently Todor Ivanov was arrested in Münich, Germany. Todor was HJB's biggest supplier.

Well, [#@$%!!!] happens… ;-)

Anyway, because of the shortage of looted or fake stuff formerly supplied by Todor, HJB even started to sell tennis-courts:

 

http://outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com/3jygd

 

Nice tip for HJB: Todor owns a tennis-court in Münich, and considering the new circumstances, he might consider selling it…

 

But Harlan J. Berk also sells coins. Some say the nicest coins (Harlan himself), others say he sells mainly trash (me, myself and I).

On 24-11-2003 Michel van Rijn revealed a fake coin, sold by Harlan for a nice $32,500:

 

http://www.michelvanrijn.nl/artnews/archive/nov2003.htm

 

HJB added: "Our coin is apparently from a new die pair"

This is only partly true, as it is from a new FORGERS die pair…

 

On 30-11-2003, also on MvR.com, another specimen of this fake showed up, thanks to Anton Tkalec, a coin-dealer and expert:

 

http://www.michelvanrijn.nl/artnews/archive/nov2003.htm

 

Mr. Tkalec condemned this coin and ofcourse the exact copy, the HJB specimen, as well, as did H.D.Rauch, M.Stankov and Alan vanArsdale, the listowner of the CoinForgeryDiscussionList

 

I myself started an investigation to the source of these coins.

I will not give away the entire story for tactical reasons… ;-)

HJB declared that his specimen came from France, but that is simply a lie: it came through another country, and HJB is aware of this.

I phoned Harlan, and he declared that despite all the expert opinions about the authenticity of his coin, he would NOT take it back from the client he sold it to…

 

The original suppliers, as Mr. Tkalec revealed residing in Northern Spain, repeatedly stated that ONLY two coins had been found, both struck with the same 'unknown' die: " We found ONLY two coins, with a metal detector", they declared…

 

Yeah right, closer to the truth would have been:

"So far we struck ONLY two specimens with a FAKE die, testing the market"

 

If ONLY two coins had been found, how can it be that a THIRD specimen showed up???

Yes people, HJB has ANOTHER specimen for sale !!!

Well, as said, the forgery-suppliers were testing the market, and when they discovered that an "expert" as HJB would never ever admit that he was fooled, they knew that the 'sky was the limit'…

Its obvious that HJB defended his first coin, because he had to get rid of another !!!

 

Thanks Harlan !!!

 

Here are the two, pardon me, THREE specimens together:

The first one is the latest one that showed up.

[Hoot]

Sad. So much forgery, it makes a person glad for the TPGs. I only wish that NGC would step it up on ancients. ICG does a few, but nice pieces still appear to sell raw. I'd be afraid to buy much in the way of ancients given the potential of forgery.

 

Hoot

[truthteller]

Unfortunately, grading and authenticating ancients needs exceptional expertise and PCGS/NGC do not have the staff nor should be willing to hire staff to grade these coins when the US market for ancients is much too thin. In addition, the liability for authenitication is way too high. Furthermore, if on a few fake ancients get past the graders, NGC/PCGS reputation is shot. The knowledge required to grade these coins is not cost efficient.

 

TRUTH

[Hoot]

Unfortunately, grading and authenticating ancients needs exceptional expertise and PCGS/NGC do not have the staff nor should be willing to hire staff to grade these coins when the US market for ancients is much too thin. In addition, the liability for authenitication is way too high. Furthermore, if on a few fake ancients get past the graders, NGC/PCGS reputation is shot. The knowledge required to grade these coins is not cost efficient.

 

TRUTH

 

All good reasons that collecting them is onerous.

 

Hoot

[the_Thing ®]

Sad. So much forgery, it makes a person glad for the TPGs. I only wish that NGC would step it up on ancients. ICG does a few, but nice pieces still appear to sell raw. I'd be afraid to buy much in the way of ancients given the potential of forgery.

 

Hoot

 

 

99.8% of forgered ancients can be ID'd quite easily. And, the 99.8% that are forged are forgeries of high dollar coins, that maybe 10% of active collectors go after. I promise you that slabbed doctored coins are a bigger problem than forged ancients.

[gmarguli]

Furthermore, if on a few fake ancients get past the graders, NGC/PCGS reputation is shot. The knowledge required to grade these coins is not cost efficient.

 

As long as the grading services step up and buy these mistakes off the market (provided there aren't too many of them to destroy credibility) they should be OK. I believe that all the services have certified fake coins over the years and later bought them back.

 

NGC & ANACS has certified some ancients and I hope this trend will continue. I'd especially like to see NGC certify medieval and ancient coins. While the market is small right now, it is inevitable that slabbing will take over those markets as well. It's just a matter of who wants to be the first real player to jump in.

 

I've actually considered sending a few ancients and medieval to ICG just to see what kind of results I get and how they sell.