NGC Ancients grades posted

lordmarcovan

001 L.Plautius Plancus 47 BC ROMAN REPUBLIC AR Denarius VG bankers mark
002 Augustus 27 BC-AD 14 ROMAN EMPIRE AE As VG
003 Claudius AD 41-54 ROMAN EMPIRE AE As Ch F sand patina
004 Galba AD 68-69 ROMAN EMPIRE AE Sestertius
005 Vespasian AD 69-79 ROMAN EMPIRE AE As

Any idea why they wouldn't list grades on the last two? That's somewhat worrisome to me.

Both have rather porous surfaces, but I wouldn't have thought it enough for a no-grade situation. (In fact, I have never seen any ancient no-grades at NGC, except in the case of counterfeits, which I do NOT suspect here.) Stuff with porosity or banker's marks or such problems usually get graded but have the problems noted, in my experience.

My major concern with the Galba was that it might have been too thick for a standard slab holder. It's a big, hefty piece.

Hang on a sec and I'll dredge up the pictures of those.

lordmarcovan

The Augustus.




The Claudius.




The Galba.




The Vespasian. (My terrible photos.) I notice they call it an As. The brassy color made me think it was a dupondius.

bronzemat

*Weeps*....slabbing ancients

Sweet coins, especially the claudius & Galba.

mnemtsas2

I like the patina on the Claudius.

Sapyx

<< <i>The Vespasian. (My terrible photos.) I notice they call it an As. The brassy color made me think it was a dupondius. >>


It is indeed a brass dupondius (Sear #2347) - Wildwinds has three of them - so if they think it's an as, that may be the source of the problem - they can't find the type listed as an as. The lack of spiky headgear on this dupondius design might be the cause of confusion.

STLNATS

*Weeps*....slabbing ancients



Fun lot anyway, especially like the Augustus with the moneyer name. Interesting series that I'm not familiar with.

classport

"I like the patina on the Claudius."

Me too dang it!!

I am NOT about to.......I swear

WWW

I never heard of Sand Patina before, but I like the appearance of the Claudius very much.

lordmarcovan

That Claudius was a nice, relatively inexpensive VCoins pickup. I'm especially pleased with it because I have seldom if ever seen "desert" or "sand" patina on a First century Roman coin. It seems to be far more common on the later Fourth- and Fifth century stuff from the East.

Slabbing ancients? Yeah, yeah... I know. The funny thing is, I've become a convert. What can I say? They look snazzy in the holders.

The Galba is an old favorite from my past collection, and I bought it back. (Well, swapped a holey Charlotte Mint gold dollar for it, actually).

Trouble is, NGC bagged it for "Authenticity Unverifiable". I guess they aren't calling it fake, per se, but... well, I guess it's authenticity is unverifiable, for some reason. I do know it had some "smoothing", but that never bothered me.

The Vespasian was bagged for "Rims filed, thus authenticity unverifiable". It was never anything but a duplicate for me, since I discovered it was not a Titus as as previously believed. So no big deal, I guess. But I was upside-down on it in investment terms even before I slabbed it. So I flushed a fair amount of money attempting to slab these two. Oh, well. You pays your money, you plays the game, and you wins or loses accordingly, right?

lordmarcovan

<< <i>especially like the Augustus with the moneyer name. Interesting series that I'm not familiar with >>

Note also that the moneyer's name is M. Salvius Otho... the same name as the ill-fated emperor of 69 AD! I wonder if it's the same Marcus Salvius Otho who was mentioned thus in the Wikipedia article about the emperor Otho:



<< <i>His paternal grandfather, Marcus Salvius Otho, whose father was a Roman knight but whose mother was of lowly origin and perhaps not even free-born, was raised in Livia's household and rose to senatorial rank through her influence, although he did not advance beyond the rank of praetor. >>

Was the moneyer on my Augustus As the emperor Otho's grandfather and namesake?