Greetings. Recently a Claudius As has caught my eye on VCOINS ( Now that the site is back up ) . The seller wants $115 for it . In your honest opinion is it a good purchase ?
It's a nice coin with excellent details. This is one of the more common type of his coins. I think the price isn't too bad, but if you look around you might find this coin in the same grade for slightly under $100.
Its a very worthy coin and I think your are right where you should be for the coin. His bronzes are common and the Minerva is the most common, but dont worry that doesn't take away from the fact that the coin is excellent and Early Imperial. $ 100 bucks is good but figure the guy needs to make something on it.
It is an excellent coin ! Take my word you will never regret buying such a high quality piece for an extremely modest price ! When I began collecting over 35 years ago I would have willingly paid close to $100 for this coin. Surprisingly Claudius was much harder to find back in the 'dark' ages. Quality coins generally appreciate rather well in value. I doubt that in another 35 years the price will sound so very reasonable. Great coin Nice price !
BTW My motivating force way back then was having watched the BBC production of I Claudius. Of the Julio Claudian coins I purchased in my younger days I have regretted NONE ! In fact most of them I could not afford to acquire today without having to sell off something !
$115 is OK, but not a bargain for this coin; it is reasonable value for money against it's ilk under the VCOINS banner. If you REALLY want it, buy it, and under the circumstances, I would be happy with it, if I bought it.
I agree that $115 is not a 'steal' in any sense but buying from established dealers rarely is ! Unless buying in bulk or purchasing from some one with whom you do frequent business with the fellow usually does need to make a few deniers on the transaction. Once in my younger days I did have the fortune to be present when a dealer known to me was forced to liquidate inventory. Being young and relatively poor I counted out the 200 and change I had with me and walked with 3 fantastic coins ! That has happened but once in nearly 40 years. But let's go in the way back machine and speculate. Suppose I had found this same coin circa 1980's at one of the big Boston Shows. Driving into Boston and back would have required around 3 hours of my Saturday. At least another hour or two to find said coin. Not to mention the money spent on gas, tolls, admission fee and the cheapo lunch at the Gyro shoppe two blocks away. Oh and parking ! Boston is famous for outrageous parking fees ! I would have spent $30 just for the chance to find the coin. And nice Julio Claudians were hard to come by. I am quite serious when I say I would have pounced on it for $75 thirty years ago. With all my additional costs factored in ....... The actual price is about the same ! This coin has an excellent patination, a beautiful 'handsome' variety of Claudius portrait and is well centered with modest wear. I have no idea personally who is selling it. But I can't imagine that it will be there next week ! Go for it
And no I have not seen the series you mentioned. In fact I don't think I ever heard of it before ! I assume it has merits or you would not mention it. I will investigate !
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Posted 09/20/2014 8:05 pm
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