IMIS

I noticed another interesting thing: if a coin from Sincona gets a higher grade from the grading company than the one stated by Sincona, that coin is re-sold for a lot more, but if the grade is same or lower, price declines dramatically. The new buyers seem to be more interested in the numeric grade of the coin than the coin itself.

Don't be. Buying a coin with graffiti like this is a gamble: if graffiti truly dates back to 1870's it may enhance the coin's value in the eyes of some buyers, but if it turns out to be the work of a modern "artist", the value of the coin approaches the price of base metal.

Also, I recall an episode from Russian fiction speaking of a character, who was presented with a rouble (most likely that of Elizabeth) The coin traveled with the character, and one could say it brought luck to the owner. Upon completion of his adventurers the character returned the coin to the gifter with gratitude.

mihaizaha, Thank you for sharing the picture. Do you know the story behind the coin? Frankly, I am a little suspicious of the inscription as the writing appears modern to me.

marv, Thank you for the reference. The website is very impressive.

Very impressive, not to mention lighting fast research! I was considering bidding on this coin at Stack's, but was unsure about the color. Beautiful as it is, I still prefer to see the impact of centuries on my coins. From what I see on Omni coins your collection is shaping to set a new record for rarity and quality.

MARV, This is a fantastic looking coin! Having said this, how sure are you this is an original piece? Do you know its provenance prior to Stack's? I noticed a few blast white talers came to market in recent years and I personally struggle to understand how silver coins could have resisted developing patina for half a millennium.

Do not underestimate the power of bearded chicks over the weak minded. Legend has it that Artemiy Volinsky was able to buy his way out of corruption allegations by presenting Anna Ioanovna with a bearded chick. To qualify for the bonus, you need to firmly establish yourself in the fields of greed and gullibility first.

This freak should be awarded as bonus to the lucky winner of the Siberian 1764 2 kopeck coin. They will make a lovely pair.

Had all the intention of going to Switzerland. Ended up on a different continent instead................Will be feeding dealers again.

No show and tell here?

This piece is reminiscent of the noncombatant version of the 1902 Chinese Campaign medal struck by private manufacturers.

What if we spice it up a notch? Any takers for a futures game?

gxseries, This is a lovely story and very believable for Western Europe; unfortunately there were too many tragic interruptions in Russian history. Take our family for example, none of the material tokens of the days begone survived. However, by some miracle, a few letters and draft pages form various works by one of our neighbors survived in the family archives. How? Why? I do not know, but they are there and to my knowledge they are not known to scholars. So, miracles are possible!

gxseries, To your point, I have recently acquired a couple of scarce coins in amazing state of preservation, that I was not able to trace back to any known collection, or previous sale. It seems that they literally appeared out of the blue. (Yes, they are authentic.)

I would like to offer for discussion the topic of the origin(s) of high grade coins at auctions. Every time I see a new catalogue from a major auction house I am pleasantly surprised at the wealth of material presented. Yes, there are exceptions, but overall most auctions have very nice material. For simplicity, we can stick to graded coins, since more, or less reliable statistics is available for these coins. Sale of old collections seems to be the most obvious source. This year we saw some excellent coins attributed to Newman, Stiller, Demereti and Sodderman, however with the exception of the latter, these coins are but a small part of the numismatic pie offered for sale. I can think of only two possibilities, explaining the phenomena: old school collectors, like Newman, who believed in 'buy and hold until you hit 100 years old' approach have been replaced by new school collectors, who believe in 'buy and resell as soon as coins appreciate' approach, effectively turning collectors into profiteers. The second possibility, is that the vast majority of coins at each auction are sold and bought by professional numismatic dealers, or the market makers. What do you guys think?

He is right about one thing, this coin will fetch a pretty penny.

You are right; smth. is fishy in Denmark. If you are concerned with auction transparency, you should be asking a bigger question: which published results are results and which are 'results'. Can you tell?

Very good arguments were made about the 1764 Siberian 2 Kopeck to support both hypotheses. I tend to place such coins in the 'Curiosity' category, picturing various scenarios over a glass of good wine. Although my gut feeling says it is a novodel, I 'd rather not know for sure...

It will be interesting to put together a collection on the web. I do not think there is one on the English language site. Not sure if we can do it in the format of CoinPeople; it may be better to develop a separate website. Any thoughts?

IgorS, Thank you for these very informative articles.

ok, first auction of the season has ended. Got to admit overall fairly strong, especially for simple shiny coins.

extant4cell: . Thank you for your detailed analysis; I knew you were going to come up with something interesting.

Sounds more like we do not really know for sure :-)

Fully agree with what you said. BTW, how do we know this is the case? I noticed there are coins from that collection being sold as ex Sodermann collection. Is there anything to back it up?