Everyone, good luck during this crazy week in NYC !

......several major auctions, lots of material, International show.

Any thoughts ?

I've attended the Heritage auction yesterday. Well...lower than impressive. I can not actually express my mixed feelings. Some fakes...slabbed ! Everything's sold but I believe below anticipated prices.

I was there too. Not everything sold. Some coins did not reach the reserve. I think you can pick those up directly from the auction house.

As to slabbed fakes -- the fakes are getting way too good. Apparently the second Gangut was pronounced a fake, but it still brought $36,000. All in all, I would agree that the prices were not too crazy. I would pretty much be able to afford everything besides the fakes -- as funny as it may sound, those brought the best hummer price But the quality of coins offered was also not too great. Hence, the prices... I, for instance, only bough 3 coins. And those I did not buy for myself, because I would want those in better condition for my collection.

Fakes....I'm not really sure all the "fake pronounced" coins were really fakes ! Some "smart" dealers try to limit competition by spreading the "word" Smart moves, sometimes it works.

BKB, any other "famous" fakes you have noticed? Thanks.

It is, of course, possible that dealers are limiting the playing field, but: compare 2 Ganguts - they are conveniently placed next to one another. See the difference? -- as far as I know there was only one original die.

What do you think of the 1762 5 ruble coin?

What about 1728 rouble? (by the way, I could never tell that this one is not OK. But, reputable people stopped me from bidding)

What about 1848 3 kop?

I should agree with Gangut #2 (proof), 5 rub 1762 and 3 kopeks 1848. As to the 1728 rouble...Well, I am not sure here. The coin looked ok to me but I'm kind of rusty here and can not definetely judge. I was told by one dealer from California that one of the 1859 (I guess) commemorative roubles was also ... "not good enough"
Anyway, 1728 rouble DID SELL after all !

But there was a regular and a proof obverse, as well as regular and proof reverse.

I didn't see this auction, but there could be differences between the regular and proof dies. Gospodin Kazakov has images of both in his catalogue, but they are really too small to compare for significant die varieties (and in a previous post several months ago, there was a link to a Russian coin forum where some people complained that four different jeton images had been created by "photoshopping" one single image -- so I cannot say how reliable those images are, at least for such rare coins).

Do you happen to have links to images of those coins from the auction on the internet?

Proof:
http://coins.heritageauctions.com/common/v...mp;Lot_No=52849
Another one:
http://coins.heritageauctions.com/common/v...mp;Lot_No=52848

It did sell, just like the other 3. 1762 brought $15,000. The problem with that rouble is that reverse lettering was strange and letters too small. Also, the coin just looked and felt wrong. (IMXO)

How can one say, the prices were ok? IMHO, the prices were more than crazy. Where do you see normal prices? Romanow Rouble for more than 100 $ or Alexander II. Memorial for 3200? Gangut for 32000? Is it normal? E.g., at Gorny auctions, as far as I can remember, no Dvorik (Memorial 1898) went higher than 2000 Euro. I'm so happy to have bought mine (exemplar on avatara of my eBay shop: XF from PP) several years ago at the reasonable price.

I was at the CNG Triton X auction on the 10th. Heritage is child's play compare to this one.

I thought I saw Romanov rouble in your store for 80euro in XF condition. Not much less than $100... Those sold at the auction were high MS. So, it is not that crazy. CNG auction, reportedly, was much crazier. Let us see what happens at the upcoming auctions.

Interestingly, in Russia Romanov Roubles cost 100 Euro since years (at least, in Novosibirsk of course, not in high MS). That's why they are in my shop for 60-80 Euro depending on the grade and low vs high relief. All Romanows I sold till now went to Russia. In another shop (Der Russland Spezialist) low relief Romanow in a lower grade than mine was for 120 Euro, 50% more expensive than in my shop. Ebay results are also 60-80 Euro and more during the last time. But thanks for looking

Dvorik was the coin greatly overestimated there (more than 3000 USD), Gangut too, 1849 Novodels, IMHO, as well.
Do you think, Gangut is worth $32000?

Please provide some details. There aren't any results posted on the CNG website (yet).

Thanks!

The Gangut rouble has always been promoted and over-rated. For such a supposedly rare coin, it sure shows up frequently at auction.

Before it was expensive, now it is hopelessly out of reach.

But there are still some interesting coins that remain affordable. They cost a lot more than they used to, but I still don't need to take out a second mortgage on my house to buy one.

To name a few:

lot 1263 1749 ducat - 40,000
lot 1270 1781 5 roubles - 8,500
lot 1272 1796 ducat - 17,000
lot 1273 1797 ducat - 30,000
lot 1276 1817 5 roubles - 4,500
lot 1284 1832 5 roubles - 60,000
lot 1293 1876 3 roubles - 26,000
lot 1294 1882 3 roubles - 30,000

Craziness goes on ! Stacks auction is about to start !

Does anyone have any hopes ?

I have much better hopes in winning a lottery than winning any high grade coins there

I am ok, so far.

But what's wrong with Stack's - this one is the die of the known fake, why did they put it for sale?
http://www.stacks.com/lotdetail.aspx?lrid=...172&fs=true

Look at the pictures of this series of fakes I assembled on the Russian forum http://staraya-moneta.coinsportal.ru/viewt...;highlight=1797 (only last picture on the page is genuine, all other - FAKES). I personally enquired GIM about this "variety", when one of the colleagues brought it from Ukraine - in GIM they were very determined that this coin is definitely fake. Even from the pictures I collected you may note striking similarities.

100% agree. There was no doubt when I personally inspected the coin. I guess this was the reason the coin did not go for more.
I've managed to win 3 Russian coins. All better coins went for astronomical figures; mostly to Russian dealers.
Last week I've attended Heritage, Markov and Stacks and have to say that this is time to quit coin collecting It is time for big business ! Just look at the jetons' prices at Markov's ! Thousands of dollars for silver jetons? Is that right?

I personally believe that someone is getting royally screwed. Some "poor" rich moron was probably told that it is very prestigious to own those... However, except for the jetons, I saw no unexpected prices (well, maybe 1 1/2 borodino at Baldwin sale and prices for some gold coins) I got some coins at every auction: Heritage -- 3, DM -- 3, Stack's -- 2 + 2 lots of 15 total) Did not get anything I really needed -- but, then, there was no russian copper for sale, which explains it.

My score is lower 2+1+3 correspondingly....Looking at these numbers I realize that we are no longer talking about improving collections, we're trying to buy ANYTHING available...Wrong approach but the only one possible at this time. However, I did manage to put 5 coins into my collection (of 6 total) after all.

Either the collection is weak or I just pay too much

This past past week was crazy for me. The end result is not terrible.
Grand total - 2 coins and 4 table medals.
I am actually pretty happy. Things I bought fit nicely into collection.

Only four people showed up for RNS meeting. We just discussed market trends for an hour.
There was a guy sitting in the corner, writing stuff. When the meeting was over he came up to me and introduced himself as a stuff member of the Coin World magazine. Looks like some stuff I was bubbling about will be written up next month. Can't wait to read it.

I got 0+1+4, the coins I really needed.

Are you just saying that prices were much too high, or are you also saying that jetons are somehow inferior and therefore not worthy of the attention of serious collectors?

Prices are much too high. Until last year you could buy those between 150 and 300. They appeared regularly and were not held to be of any rarity. So, what could happen since then?

1. More people expressed interested in them
2. Supply dried up
3. Or...??

Crazy market! It's like US coins in 1980.

Peter I 2 roubles gold not so long ago were well under $1,000 each.

Now they are suddenly $10,000, $20,000 & more?

Highly touted & over-rated Gangut rouble is now $15,000 or more?

This is more than just jetons!

Take a look at the Stacks auction !!! Amazing ! Will these prices ever go down ? I believe this is a theme for a separate branch

It's beyond amazing, it's crazy.

Here's an example.

The coin is the Eliasberg example of the 1724 Peter I gold 2 roubles (i.e. seaman type).

The coin is scratched and ex-jewellery (mount removed), supposedly EF (but looks more like VF to me). Ex-Eliasberg or not, it is a problem coin.

In the April 2005 ANR Eliasberg sale, it brought what I thought was an inflated price. I attributed this to the "magic" of the Eliasberg name and the fact that so many other coins in that sale brought runaway prices.

So when the SAME COIN was offered at the Stack's January 2007 Gund III sale, I expected to see only a minimal, if any, price increase. Instead, in less than 2 years, the price more than doubled!

Remember, this is for a problem coin!

Speechless !

has anyone noticed any bargains (or even reasonably priced Russian coins on Stacks) at all ?