If you buy a Greek or Roman coin from a major auction house specializing in numismatic material your chances of acquiring a fake coin are relatively slight and for that assurance you usually pay a premium price. There are far more bargains to be had on eBay and far more fakes (masses of them in fact.)Some of these fakes are pretty obvious, others deceptively clever. The following advice is intended primarily for new or relatively inexperienced collectors but, having said that, I am continually surprised to see some experienced collectors and dealers throwing caution to the wind (I daresay they'd tell me their practiced eyes can distinguish the good stuff from the bad.) Here then are my tips for minimizing your chances of buying fake ancient coins on eBay:
1.Private listings.. Alarm bells should start to ring whenever you see that a seller of coins has opted forprivate listings..Never buy coinsfrom any seller using privatelistings no matter how tasty the coins looks.Nearly all purveyers who knowingly sell fake coins or who routinely mix bad with good, use privatelistings so that buyers cannot be alerted after the auction closes through their feedback.No doubt some honest coin sellers use private listings as well but let's face it, ancient coins are not blue movies and the occasional arguments coin sellers use to justify privatelistings are feeble and self-serving. Even if you see100% positivefeedback and strong bidding taking place do not be tempted. One of the most successful sellers ofdubious ancient coins and artefacts on eBay had 99.5% positive feedback from over4000 satisfied and, in many cases,deluded customers beforebeing banned recently by eBay for engaging in schill bidding.
How do you know if a listing is private? Until recently it was dead easy, "User ID kept private" appeared at the top of the listing. Then eBay in their wisdom decided to change the format of listings and this useful description disappeared. Nowadays you have to scroll down to the very bottom of the listing and in very small printbelow the viewing counter you'll see "this is a private listing"; alternatively you canclick onto bid history to ascertain if the listing is private, or you can click onto the seller's feedback to see if they routinely use private listings. Most bidders probably get involved in private auctions without realising it.
Having established that private listings are a no-go area, study the seller's feedback. Avoid sellers with just a handful of feedback ratings especially if they're forpenny purchases, or not for ancient coins at all, or are for low grade ancients and suddenly the guy has some mouth-watering stuff for sale.
A little homework on a seller's feedback can make you pause. One prolific purveyor of fake ancient coins appears to be based in Australia and his User ID even manages to sound a bit Aussie. But check his feedback and you find the guy is actually based in Belarus, or at any rate that's where his nasties are shipped from (see tip 5 below regarding exotic locations.) Another seller who caught my eye had a celtic-style tetradrachm of Philip III of Macedon and a tet of Leontini in Sicily, both in high grade. But when I checked his feedback I found he'd bought them recently from a seller in Germany who clearly lists his coins as repros. In re-selling the coins he omitted to mention that they were repros but he didn't say they were genuine either (thus preparing his fall-back position in the event of his buyers complaining.) He sold one coin for 51 and the other for 156, absurd sums for the genuine articles but not bad considering he'd paid the guy in Germany just 7.99 for each.
Of course eBay feedback can be something of a double-edged sword. You may eventually begin to wonder how come so many of the persistent offenders have such glowing feedback to suck in inexperiencedcollectors. Well , part of their modus operandi is to give you a no quibble refund when you eventually catch them in flagrante with their pants down. By then you've either left positive feedback or you proceed to do so out of gratitude for the seller compensating you for his "honest mistake". The seller meanwhile is smiling as he readies his next bunch of fakes for his next bunch of victims. More often than not he gets away with it.
2. The ancient coin that is most commonly and most convincingly faked nowadays is the Roman denarius. I estimate that at least 60-70% of the fake ancients offered on eBay are denarii. So be wary if the seller has nothing else on offer except denarii, especially if you see a sprinkling of scarce or rare emperors in the seller's auctions. One new seller caught my attention recently. He had only denarii for sale, including emperors Claudius, Galba, Otho and Pertinax whose coins normally sell for high figures. The denarii were attractive and looked totally convincing. But his feedback of 35 were all marked "private". Even so it was possible to discern from the comments that he'd built the feedback on selling cheap items of clothing, so was his use of private auctions intended to disguise the fact that he hadn't sold coins before? And whilst his listings stated that the coins had been tested for silver content he offered no guarantee of authenticity. I liked the look of the coins but the circumstances surrounding their sale persuaded me not to bid. Others piled in at the last moment and one of them gotthe attractive Claudius denarius for a mere 133. What a bargain!
3. Be especially wary of seller statements like "I know nothing about ancient coins but a knowledgable friend tells me this one is genuine" or "I'm selling this on behalf of a friend" or "found recently in granny's attic" or "not sure if authentic please judge for yourself" or "ancients are not my field". And likewise the words "unknown" "unidentified", "unresearched " and "possible restrike" should give you reason to pause. The coin may be agenuine puzzler, or the seller genuinely lazy, but more likely than not the coin itself will not be genuine.
Here's a classic of prevaricationfrom a generalist coin seller with a seemingly endless supply of identical Leontini tetradrachms in top grade:"Ancient coin specialists including 2 prominent dealers in London and Italy can find nothing wrong with it, I was immediately offered over 600 for it; identical specimens recently sold in European auctions for 1000 each; impossible that it can be other than it seems - a masterpiece of ancient art." But this noble soul hesitates because he has received one dissenting opinion (or so he tells us.)Well, the suckers and opportunists don't hesitate because they pile in every time.When he sold one about a year ago it was acquired by a fraudster who immediatelyput it back on sale for over 1000 with the spiel "from a recent Sicilian hoard."
Look out for signals in the listing. I recently spotted one Italian seller who had some mouth-watering Sicilian tetradrachms for sale of relatively high grade and they were frighteningly convincing. But when you looked at the small print the seller stated that although the coins were from a 70 year old collection and he believed them to be genuine he was unable to guarantee them and he would accept no returns. The look of the coins proved too much for some eBayers and the coins went for hundreds of pounds. But frankly I think this half-honest seller was giving out signals that he knew the coins weren't kosher.
Or what about the prolific UK seller of fake denarii who likes to mix their fake Othos, Pertinaxes and Diva Paulinas with genuine but common Roman provincials and low grade imperial issues? "This coin is genuine but cannot guarantee" they tell us. Well, if the coin is genuine why can't they guarantee? Despite the contradiction implied by this very clear signal people insist on bidding. Interestingly, when I pointed out to this seller that they had sold 3 die-matched Julius Caesar denarii and that they appeared in a blacklist of notorious fakes sellers they switched overnight to private listings and changed their user ID.
Beware also of dodgy stories alongside dodgy coins, especially spurious tales of inheritance.Like the case of theCalifornia student who was putting himself through university and was selling off some of grandpa's collection of Seleukid tets which the old boy amassed in Beirut many yearsago. When his buyers were alerted to the fact that all the coins were fakes, thisshameless lad bounced back immediately with "User ID kept private".
Beware also of sellers who play the false-innocent card by pretending they don't know what they've got. One listing featuring a cast fake of a Sicilian tet of king Agathokles gave me a chuckle a couple of years back when I read "I think this is an ancient coin, it was found by my son with a metal detector." Well, this seller was based in the UK and your chances of finding a genuine Agathokles tet in the UK are pretty remote, as are your chances of digging up a fake one. Wherever this coin came from it certainly wasn't the ground.
On the subject of metal detector finds, be cautious especially if the coin is exceptionally attractive or rare. One UK seller of coins and collectables, who likes to slip in a few fakes, tells us that he's found some of the coins himself and is very specific about locations. Odd, then, that with his recent listings ("found in Warwickshire") I was able to find identical die matches in an online fakes' gallery. This seller's latest wheeze is to claim that his ancient coins are "estate lots" or "estate sales" and most of the coins are fakes, so those are two more terms to add to your repertoire of dodgy terms that may denote dodgy coins. This seller clearly has a regular source of fake ancient coinsand keeps on thinking up ways of dressing up his listings to snare the unwary novice.
Another UK-based seller of fakes who uses privatelistings states that his coins are found in Lincolnshire, Devon and Eastern Europe. The only part of this that's accurate is Eastern Europe where the coins are freshly minted. This seller recently sold a fake Caligula/Agrippina Senior denarius for 368 to some collector who clearly hasn't stumbled across this guide yet. I must say it's quite galling to see attractive genuine coins selling sometimes for peanuts whilst fakes of rare coins often enjoyfrantic bidding.
Yes, some of these con artists are really quite brazen. Thebanned seller mentioned in tip 1 with the 99.5% positive feedback actually warned you in his listings about the abundance of fakes on eBay and urged you to take all coin purchases, including any from him, to your state museum for verification. Since he used privatelistings to hide the identity of his bidders he knew full well that none of his customers would ever receive a fake coin alert from the likes of me and it may take years before some of his customers find out they've been conned. And anywayhow can you possibly suspect a seller who's positivelybeseeching you tohammer on the doors of the British Museum or the Getty (and you're not going to bother are you?)
4.Don't be impressed bycertificates of authenticity issued by the seller himself. The banned sellerfrom tip 1with the 99.5% positive feedback (yes, him again) happily issued them backed by his"private museum".Unless the certificate is issued byan authority like David Sear or David Hendin they're worthless(except possibly as a means of getting your money back.)
5.Avoid buying from exotic locations even if the country is the sort of place where you might expect the coin to be dug up.In my vocabulary exotic locationsare anywherebetween and includingEastern Europeand China. In particular avoid BULGARIA, a prolific producer of some pretty convincing material. Middle eastern sellers (Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan,UAEand US based sellers who source out of Jerusalem)get only a minor exemption from me. Most of their stuff is authentic but not terribly pricey , butI notice that they always manage to slip in the occasional high grade fake tetradrachm or other big ticket item. So if you're thinking of spending $50-100 on a prutah, or denarius or ptolemaic bronze I don't think you have too much to worry about , or at any rate not too much to lose, but if you're resolved to splash out $300-400 on a Seleukid tet ( which if genuine would fetch twice as much at Spink or CNG) then get it independently checked out once you receive it.
6. Do not assume that because a coin is of a common type (e.g. 4th c. Roman bronze) or looks worn or ragged or cracked that it cannot be a fake. Fakes exist at all levels of the rarity spectrum and the fakers often make their coins look a tad unattractive to lull you into a false sense of security.
7.Be very wary of extremely rare coins in high quality especially gold. Ancient coins rarely achieve top dollar on eBaywhich is why quality tends to migrate to the major specialist auction houses and strange stuff migrates to eBay (I have noticed incidentally that increasingly the finest authentic coins on eBay are being offered at a fixed price.)The advantage of eBay is that you can sell fast and get paid fast. But why would anyone in their right mind short change themselves by selling an aureus of the emperor Pertinax for $500 when with a bit of patience a genuine one would achieve $5000 if auctioned by a major specialist house? Frankly I would avoid gold entirely on eBay as well as rare and super-rare emperors, their consorts and other family members (to name but a few: Caligula, Otho, Julia Titi, Marciana, Matidia, Didius Julianus and family, Pescennius Niger, Gordians I
No comments:
Post a Comment