Burned... A Disappointing Mixed Lot.

I'm surprised that Stack's would have any fakes in there sales. Guess they don't check what there selling.

Contact Stacks. If that isn't the copy they alluded to then you have a meaningful difference between what was offered and what was delivered. Especially if a piece was known to be fake and not disclosed!

What !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I am speechless ........ (I am without speech)

The description does seem to imply what you 'thinked'.
I did the same once with an auction and ended up with 4 "Sicilian AE" almost blank disks for $125 ......

Buying blind is a very risky proposition !

It looks modern to me. Post 1700...id guess a cast copy of an older one, perhaps made around the victorian period. I say that because it looks like the surface is acquiring a tone aside from the stuff put on in the manufacturing process.

Make sure to look out for Procopius, VIRTVS blah (with the big X) and Devicta (and the other rare western reverses)

Over the years I have learned that lots contain many items the seller can't or doesn't want to take the time to sell individually. It's the only way they can unload unwanted items. Now I only buy what I can see and what I like even though it costs more.

Look on the bright side TIF, there are 95 potential prizes. I vote TIF hosts the next 50 smackdowns

Sorry TIF, I really am sympathetic, I really am

....just mail all those junk to me so you don't have to think about them anymore.


seriously, I still think you'll have more fun than you think with that lot...maybe not as much fun as you paid for..but you may be surprised.

...could be time to open up TIF's Coin Shop? Us bottom feeders and bargain hunters need to buy coins also!

Well, this has cured me of buying blind for a while. Certainly never again from Stack's.

As for the "sold as is, no returns" and "should examine closely", I've seen that on every unphotographed mixed lot I've considered, including some real winners I've bought. So that in and of itself didn't raise a red flag.

Stack's grossly overestimated the value, unless there are some unexpected rarities amongst the Romans. My experience with other mixed lots has been that the estimated value is considerably lower than reality. I think they overestimated the average condition as well-- a double bummer when paired with the fact that they are mostly LRB.

Truthfully I don't mind having those two fakes-- they're rather fun and Stack's didn't include them in the coin tally, and I didn't count them in my head. I just hope that new style Athens tet is not a fake. I don't know the series well enough to make the call yet. It's in OK condition, not great, but I didn't expect it to be higher. Still, it probably represents the bulk of the value of the lot. I'm speaking prematurely though since obviously I haven't closely examined the whole lot.

I should have called beforehand to see if I could get a better idea of the mix, Greeks vs Romans.

Disgusted by all the blah condition LRBs. As chrmat said though, maybe they'll be fun on a rainy day in the future. And maybe there will be some interesting stuff in there when I take a closer look, whenever that may be. Probably not soon. When I do it will take a long time since while most have an old envelope with writing, the writing generally just says an emperor's name, nothing more. And that may not even be correct for some. It looks like this is mostly one person's collection, probably from the late 1950s to 1970s, (based on some dates on some of the envelopes).

Bottom line though: no one held a gun to my head and made me bid on this lot. I've had great luck and great fun with the other mixed lots I've bought. Not this time though. It was going to be my last big purchase for the year, had hoped to have a lot of Greeks to ID and play with. This time my gamble did not pay off.