Roman Coins???

Twowood

At the risk of sounding like I just fell off a turnip truck, what's the story with these "Gold Roman Coins" I see posted all over eBay.
Sounds like a wonderful deal...Some guy goes to Italy to do an archealogical dig, he finds a bunch of gold coins and returns home to sell them on eBay for $1.75 each
Has anyone ever taken advantage of this fantastic opportunity? Twowood

chiefbob

For a great source of info on Roman and other ancient coins, go to the "Forum Ancient Coins" site at:

http://www.ancient-coin-forum.com/index.html

They have a message board similar to this one, with an equally nice group of people posting priceless information.

Regarding eBay and those "gold coins found!" listings, caveat emptor! Loosely translated, that's Latin for "another eBay scam". I have "won" a couple of lots there (they are usually offered in Dutch auctions of 500-1000 lots) and have been generally satisfied for the price I paid. The highest was $1.75 each, and the lowest was .75 each. Like anything else, you get what you pay for.

It's true that there are diggers in the Turkey and Middle East who turn up large caches of buried coins and then resell them to a variety of dealers. I have also read on the forum above that the "good stuff", meaning gold and silver, have already been picked out before the eBay dealer buys them wholesale from a supplier. The interesting thing is the feedback from the buyers. They say they found gold in their first selection, and some even claim they found gold and silver in a lot of ten coins. My theory on that is this:
a) the feedback from satisfied customers who found gold and silver are nothing more than shills, or
b) they found what I did - a bronze coin that looked like gold and was heavier than the other coins of similar sizes; the "silver" coins are probably coins with a "silver wash" on them. It's original, but not solid silver.

Here's a pic of the coin I thought was gold:

http://home.twcny.rr.com/bobandcindy/coins.htm

If you are really interested in these historical coins, buy an eBay selection and use them as your first cleaning experiment. Again, the ancient coin forum message boards will answer all your questions and a lot you didn't think of.

Et tu, eBay

ChiefBob