Fake Coin, Advice Sought On How To Handle Major Auction House

Contact the Better Business Bureau. They helped me and I got satisfaction maybe 8 out of 10 times I used it.
It would help if you had some email, receipts, canceled check or credit card statements and images from the auction in 2015. It gets most companies attention that want to have a good reputation.

This is truly disturbing. Caesar77, you should certainly be refunded your money and offered an apology for your inconvenience. For gosh sakes, they were the ones who sold you the coin in the first place - no doubt assuring you of its authenticity at the time. Wow.

By comparison, I just put a coin in the mail today, a return to CNG. It was part of a group lot I won in April. It is a fake. Not just my opinion...I called in the troops: some big hitters who backed me up on the condemnation. CNG was wonderful: apologetic and promising a full refund for the hammer price and buyer's fee. A problem-free return that leaves me feeling good about the experience.

A few years back I had an even more impressive response from Stacks/Bowers, when some 2 1/2 years after winning a coin in an auction, I discovered it was a die match to a known fake. Although their terms of sale provided a limited window for returns based on challenges to authenticity - and they thus would have been within their rights to deny me a refund - they gave me no problems at all. They took the coin back, no questions asked, and refunded me. I was very impressed - and, given that particular coin's cost - very relieved.

Have you been in touch with the owner/boss? I would go to the top, stress that you purchased the coin based on his or her company's assurance that it was genuinely ancient as described.

Keep us updated, please. And best wishes.

That certainly is a maddening situation. I think a refund is due. It's not like another auction house pronounced it a fake.

In the end the auction house is making it right, offering me a full refund. I guess they have to go after the big client that sold it to them in the first place. I am glad they are doing that. I presume with the thousands of coins going through their house, that fake coins can slip through?

ceasar77, assuming you wanted to sell the coin in the first place, if the house was NOT buying out of their error, how would you have them list it for sale?

Of course, the other side of the coin, literally, is that they might recently have condemned a perfectly good coin which they understood better before. The only way for them to save face when that happens is to buy out of the mistake, one way or another.

There is no substitute for knowing the material yourself, recognizing that no one is perfect.

Whenever I mention that I collect ancients and their eyes don't glaze over or they don't switch the topic, the first or second question is usually "How do you know they aren't fake?"

Yep. It's not an easy situation in the hobby.

They handled the problem? Keep using them!

As a sidenote I scrutinized this coin, weight checked out, and it did not come off as fake. However, I am not an expert and the value was such that sending it to David Sear seemed overkill. The auction house sold it twice now and it comes from the collection of a premiere experienced collector originally. So when it was sold again, the new buyer questioned it and on closer look the auction house confirmed it was not genuine. In the end since I was selling it anyway, getting a full refund was fine by me.