what kind of coins do you primarily collect
um basically i my preference is Arab
coins
hum
and ancient coins
hum i've got a uh
i've got a few i don't know i don't know i don't even know if they're real but they seem to be very old Greek or Roman coins that somebody gave me as i when i was a kid
never done anything with them i still got still got them in a box
um-hum
i'm mostly into uh
American gold and silver dollars and stuff like that
oh very interesting
um over the years of course by uh my grandparents used to give me silver dollars so i've got a few of those tucked away but
um-hum
um your Greek and Roman coins might you know if if they're um
in good condition might be worth something you might want to drag them out and
i keep meaning to do that everytime i go to a show i keep saying well i'll take them with me and let somebody look at them
they just they just feel phony you know they feel like they're made of lead or something
and uh they don't have any sort of it's it's got a it's got a like a picture on it
um-hum
but there's no uh inscriptions or or dates or anything else
that would be the Greek ones
yeah
okay because i think most the Roman ones have
had something on them
right right so this
yeah it had a it had a had a has a bust of somebody on there but uh
no sort of identifying marks or anything
um-hum
um it the are they silver or
no i don't no they're not they're it's it's too heavy for silver it's it's more like lead i think fairly soft
bronze
oh interesting
yeah i think they're fakes
did did somebody go over to the Middle East where they could have picked up some fakes pretty easily
probably i don't know where they got them from they just came up gave me a whole bag of these things
oh
um-hum
it's probably about thirty or forty of them in there
gee that's
yeah they
you might be sitting on a gold mine
wouldn't that be something
right um i don't know a lot about um Greek and Roman although i'm a member of an organization and that is the the primary interest of some ancient uh Numismatic Society Club
um-hum
and so most of the people collect Roman with a few collecting Greek so every now and then we have a program so i've picked up a bit
hum
but um if it if they're really soft and very early they could be uh i think they call them Lydian coins
huh
and um
gosh all these years i've been thinking they were fakes maybe they're real
right i don't uh you know i i guess they say that a lot of people in the in the Middle East particularly can pick up fakes
um-hum
you know if you go to um uh a fight and then
the people say oh look what i just dug out of the ground and they sell you something they made last night
um-hum
but um
i think that's fairly recent phenomena probably
sounds like some of the coin dealers i know
now now they're supposed to they're supposed to be licensed and the um above board
right i used to be a coin dealer so i i i know i know those guys you know
oh i see
oh and you made your own
yeah i got a whole roll of Krugerrands here would you like to buy i just made them last night
here's a nice uh twenty dollar gold eagle uh just just manufactured in Lebanon last year
was uh was the gold worth i mean was it really gold
yeah that they they are gold they're just of course the the twenty dollar gold pieces go for coin value not the bullion value
right
and amazingly enough you're you're into Middle Eastern sort of coins the the largest amount of fakes of US gold is made in Lebanon
oh really
yeah
is that uh still still true
yeah still is
wow
yeah that's sort of like a cottage industry industry over there
um-hum
uh and and there's some very specific things you can find you can even narrow narrow it down to where it was made
i mean people are so aware of these things that there are certain identifying marks on there that would not be on a real one
and uh you you can almost tell the area
somebody probably even knows the guy who made them
you mean make
oh
i suppose he he has to protect himself too so that somebody can't say
you know when he's selling them that somebody else made it i mean it's
so that he gets his own profits
yeah well the yeah coin dealers are supposed to be smart enough not to fall for that gimmick but i i have seen a few of them sell these things
and course you have to you have to be able to prove they they knew it was counterfeit and that's always very difficult
hum
oh i see otherwise the the buyer is
responsible i mean responsible
well he can he can usually go back to the dealer but if if it's an unscrupulous dealer he'll just say hey you know you you had an opportunity to see it you know it's yours
course you can always turn around and sell it in court and but you'd have to go in on a fraud count and that wouldn't
uh-huh
fraud is very difficult to prove
um-hum um-hum
because you have to you have to show they knowingly did it
right
and that's all he's got to say is well in my in my professional judgment it was a it was a real coin
um-hum
so you know it's his word against mine
right right
that's one of the reasons i got out of the business there was too many shenanigans going on
oh that's interesting because i'm more interested in the research and i'm doing some dye link analyses of of these early coins from the
six and seven hundreds and so and so i'm not into the the buying and selling business
um-hum
um it sounds like i'm wise
yes
yeah nowadays the the the way the uh the market is and the and the way the uh
grading systems have changed over the last few years that's primarily what got me out of it
they they kept changing the grading systems on coins
and you know you go out and buy a very nice silver dollar collection
and you've graded it at the current grade and then the next year they've changed the grading system and now these things are worth a fourth of what you paid for them
you know it's just it it just got it just got ludicrous after a while
oh
um-hum um-hum
uh
what what what the the standards for for an uncirculated silver dollar changed so many times in three years
and a lot of people lost lots of money on that course the the persistent dealers will just sit there if they graded them as M S sixty five then by golly they're M S sixty five i don't care what you say
um-hum um-hum
and they'll keep them until some fool comes along and buys them
right
at inflated prices
um-hum i think that's that's the the hardest thing is that
people who don't really know feel sometimes a sometimes for example i know um you know the ancients better but
because it's old they figure it's got to cost you know thousands of dollars
oh yeah yeah i mean it's really it's it silly i mean i i i used to have people walk into my shop with um
Indian head pennies you know
um-hum
and they say wow you know this is really old
yeah well it's not worth anything
i'll give you a nickel for it you know
oh
and even even some of the rare coins that a lot of people have never even seen like um like two cent pieces
right right
and things like that those are not those are not even expensive i mean you can pick up very nice ones for eight nine dollars
oh really i didn't know that
oh yeah yeah they're cheap they're super cheap
um
oh that
several i mean it's it's it it's funny the way the business works because there're so many things that are enormously out priced
um-hum
um
some some later proof sets because they have a slight error in them are are worth hundreds of dollars
you know and and the coins themselves aren't worth very much at all face value basically
um-hum
uh
and then of course the silver coins are more and more being traded for bullion than anything else
um-hum
uh
you can you can buy bags of silver coins a a bag has a thousand dollars face value in it and it's traded for silver
oh
yeah
so basically if if someone isn't really interested in the coins it's not some an investment
no it's it's more of a uh it's a commodity purchase really
um-hum
uh it is fun though to buy these bags and go through them because you do find some
some uh
nice coins i mean people who are starting out collections and need to fill holes in their books
can fill a whole bunch of them
with these uh with these bags
um-hum
uh especially you you want to get a mixed bag of course dimes quarters and halves
um-hum
uh but you could fill a whole bunch of uh holes with these things
i used to i used to advertise buying wheat pennies um
i'd give a dollar a roll which two cents a piece which is basically overpriced
um-hum
um but i used to go through i i'd get loads and loads of these things i ended up one time with about uh about about twelve bags of these things
and i'd gone through all of them and i found a couple of them i found a nineteen O nine VDB
oh
and uh a um a nineteen eleven which is fairly scarce
i found several good ones out of there
um-hum
people's giving it to me for two cents i uh that's okay
right
turn around and sell it for fifteen dollars
