Okay,

Lets say I was stumbling throough eBay and came across a genuine (yes, genuine, as in the feathers point all the right ways) gangut ruble. The coin was listed as a "Buy" for $200.00 and misidentified as a navy medal. Now I am 100 percent sure it is genuine, but caution overtakes me and I post the link here and ask for opinions.

Who here would look, not buy it and confirm that it was real (remember the coin is genuine) ?
Who here would see that it is real and decide to buy it (inorder to give it a proper home, of course) ?
Who here is reading this and waiting for the link ?

Remember, this is a friendly question and no one is passing judgement (except homeland security, which reads all my email for kicks).

Buy first ask questions later!!!

Hypotheticaly, If you were truly 100% sure, you would have bought it by now.

You could post photos without the link, If you are looking for opinions on the PHOTOS of this coin or medal or ........

None of the above. If I were seriously interested in acquiring a genuine Gangut rouble, I would save up my money and look for one in an auction by some reputable auction house such as Markov, Elmen, UBS or Hess-Divo.

I'm sure there must be fakes of this coin which have the tail feather in the correct position. Anything that rare and valuable being sold on eBay is suspect. As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I cannot believe to be somebody so stupid to try to sell an item which is clear that it can be rare without a minimum of research. How it evaluated the "medal" at 200$?

4. Who here is reading this and combing through all categories looking for a "navy medal"?

I'd expect there to be quite a few eBay buyers checking the medals category every day looking for mistakes like this.

Take it this way though, there are times when sellers really have no idea what they are selling and list it in the wrong categories and price them absurdly low. That doesn't mean that what they are selling are fake - they just didn't do their homework and that serves them right. On the other hand, there might be some ingenious sellers knowing too well that they are selling counterfeits and with the scrunity of forums like this, some are not only using excuses of "Oh I don't know what it is" but as well as listing them in the wrong forum.

Speaking of which I did buy a fake counterfeit and although the tail is in the wrong sign, the mass suprisingly passed the test which I think is 19.9gram? Can't remember what the exact weight of it was supposed to be but yes, it's not a type of fake you want to fool around with, especially if you think 200 dollars is big money.

The only thing wrong with that argument is that the seller must have acquired the coin in the past somehow. Now what are the chances of acquiring a genuine Gangut rouble, which has been extremely rare and much sought after since the type was created, for less than $200? Although there are lots of established sellers who can afford to start an auction as low as $1 even for coins such as this, I think it would take an awful lot of stupidity (or cojones) to do so in this particular case.

Bobh, it just happens. Sometimes, it's really just some ignorant people selling off their dad's collection or stolen collection etc and really have no idea what it is worth. Just how many times do you see people actually coming to this forum and ask what they have. There are plenty that have real cheap coins but there are at really rare times when people do come up with shocking rarities. I think the last wow enquiry on this forum here was a 1726 poltina. (unless my memory is totally off)

I do admit that I got an absurd steal of a Japanese coin off ebay at a mere 20USD out of the current market value of over 800USD. If I am not wrong, the mint release price should have been at least 70USD or so and this is a mint product, not some old ancient coin. Now how that works is just beyond my understanding.

I just bought a Russian wire on eBay. It was listed as Ivan III. I searched through all my catalogs high and low, and the coin was not Ivan III but Vasilii the Dark. The funny part is that when I got the coin, there was a note from the seller indicating that the coin was attributed by Markov. So much for respected dealers. Everybody makes mistakes, and the less a dealer knows the bigger his mistakes can be.

Really only god and this forum seems to know for sure....or at least provides great info for others.

Last year a seller from the midwest was selling a 3K but listed it as gold. The photo was bad so I asked for an additional photo. It ended up being a 3 rouble gold piece, forget what year, but I told him (BIGMOOSE) to correct this listing and post the better photo...not sure why I said anything.....but he did and the piece that was stuck at about $75 ended up selling for about $1,300 a day or so later. He was happy, boy I hope it was a real piece...

The main reason i dont collect wire money is the difficulty in reading those tiny letters, which dont always hold up, and were usually struck partially on the wire. Its quite a challenge.

As to Markov's attribution, he has written many leading academic works on early russian coinage, and is probably as expert on wire money as they get. If anything, he was overly casual in his observation, if he did indeed even attribute that wire coin as the seller claims.

I now enjoy the challenge of collecting wires. But it is hard on the eyes

As for Markov's attribution, I don't know anything past what the note stated. He was mentioned by name (Dimitriy Markov). If anyone is familiar with his handwriting, I can post a photo of the holder with his alleged hand written attribution. Either way, when dealers make mistakes buyers profit!

Good for you! But there is a difference between paying $20 for something and getting lucky, and paying several hundred dollars for some clever fake. I would risk $20 any day if I thought I was getting a bargain, but not $200.