LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS DEALERS

Yet another great experience from AEGEAN NUMISMATICS, operated by Andrew Caldarone.

I have bought a couple of coins from him on VCoins, and they’re always quite reasonably priced. Fairly graded, thoroughly identified, expeditiously posted, and carefully packaged. I got this coin in under a week. So nice to do business with a dealer who treats a $30 purchase as if it were $3030. And no, I get no kickbacks from this dealer. I don’t even know him. Just appreciate the service.

Post anything you like. Maybe a Constantius Chlorus, or maybe a coin from a dealer whose attention to service you really appreciate.

 

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Aegean Numismatics is a great dealer. I always look forward to seeing that light blue background when I check to see what's new on VCoins. His prices are very reasonable.

 

I can't remember what it was, but I've bought at least one thing from Aegean.

The shipping by Marc Breitsprecher (aka old name Ancient Imports) is always outrageously fast. He also throws in a cool custom made advertising insert.

Although it's way over in France, Numiscorner managed to be very quick. There was something neat about the packaging, but I can't recall what it was.

I don't remember it being that fast, but I will always have fond memories of ordering from Allen Berman. I would get a lot of the 'junk box' ones, and he'd usually throw in decent-sized ones.

Actually, all of my 2020-now orders from various vcoins dealers have kind of fit the criteria.

 

I've ordered more than once from every dealer mentioned in this thread, and have nothing but good things to say about any of them, with the exception that Numiscorner waited a long time to send out one order recently and failed to respond to repeated emails inquiring about the order's status. Otherwise, they're fine, and they certainly have a huge inventory -- especially of French and other European gold coins.

 

Breitsprecher is GREAT! Super likable. Easy to work with and fun
A few recent coins from the husband and wife duo:
View attachment 1457353 View attachment 1457355 View attachment 1457356

Speaking of, here's a couple of the coasters I've of his laying around:
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Praefectus was great to work with:
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Breitsprecher is GREAT! Super likable. Easy to work with and fun
A few recent coins from the husband and wife duo:

Speaking of, here's a couple of the coasters I've of his laying around:


Praefectus was great to work with:

 

^I've also had great experiences with Marc Breitsprecher.

I'd like to also acknowledge Jorn from NeroNumi, on VCoins. He has a lot of interesting items for sale at very reasonable prices. Plus he always includes really interesting and lengthy historical descriptions, information, pictures, etc with each listing, and sends it all printed out with each order. He obviously takes a lot of care and pride in his work.
Also Jorn is great for communication and the shipping is crazy fast (although admittedly, expensive.) I'm talking 5 days from placing the order to getting it in my hands, from halfway across the world!

 

I always have had great service from Aegean; Andrew is really good to work with. I often check his store for the latest coins. I would most likely buy something from him right now, but I’m currently watching a want list-coin at auction that might get pricey.

I’ve bought from Marc Breitsprecher a couple of times in the past, but the high-ish prices kind of turn me away from being a frequent buyer. I do have stuff from his store I am watching, though.

 

Praefectus is the one from Canada, IIRC? I ordered there for the first time; an inexpensive Macrianus Alexandrian Tet. Very fast shipping!

I've made many, many return trips to Forum and Incitatus Coins.

High-ish prices? I'm cheaper than Jack Benny and I've not noticed that.

I've only recently started ordering from London Ancient Coins. It's a teensy bit slower than France (probably a customs thing), but certainly not bad. The coins seem pretty reasonably priced.

Numiscorner's somewhat terse descriptions on vcoins are somewhat irksome, but that's fairly small. I loved my coins and they were very modestly priced for such quality.

I've not gotten around to ordering from David Connors, but I've heard really good things about him.

I've freshly ordered from Biga. No idea how fast it will be, but I thought their wares were reasonably priced and nice.

There used to be this dealer on vcoins, cgb.fr. They actually had a lot of stuff I was interested in, but like the Used Cars quote, "Their prices..."

I've never ordered from the two firms who reportedly add desert patinas to the coins. There's been the occasional non-orange coin from the dealer in the far away and exotic land that I've been interested in, but I'm a little scared to order. I was mildly warned against them even a decade ago.

I've also never gotten around to ordering from Sebastian Sondermann, mainly because I used to be intimidated by ordering overseas. He has a lot of interesting and quality stuff.

Sphinx: I've bought some nice coins from them at coin shows.

Pegasi: Ditto. I do recall a period on vcoins where I got the vibe that some of the offerings were worked on some. I could be very wrong. That was a while ago, though. I was very happy with my couple of coin buys. My favorite was a straight flip from Jon Kern.

There was a period that I ordered a lot from ancientcoins.ca. I think that Dr. Fishman may have retired?

 

Always had a great experience with the dealers I have bought coins from; all are very experienced, professional, reliable, forthcoming and nice: Perry Siegel (Herakles Numismatics), Marc Breitsprecher (mrbcoins), Victor Imperial Coins, Joseph Sermarini (Forum AncientCoins). Also had a very good experience with auctions, but I guess this thread is about dealers, not auctions

 

Ditto on the "two firms".

And +1 on Incitatus Coins. They offer a lot of nice, lower-end stuff at great prices. I've purchased from Steve multiple times.

I like the Jack Benny mention! My favorite comedian. I've listened to every one of his radio shows, from the 30's to the 60's. Great stuff!

 

I collect the originals of radio shows. I have some discs allegedly from Jack. Of course, many of the discs are ex performers or ad agencies.

 

All good names mentioned.

I will give a shout out to Josh Moran of Civitas Galleries. The pictures are very well taken, info is almost always correct and he will note any flaws or past cleanings the coins will have. Prices can sometimes be high on some types but usually worth it due to grade and they can be more than fair in others.

He is also the dealer I will send coins and other numismatic items to when it's time. I always get a fair price and quick payment when we OK the deal. He will gladly take it for trade or payment towards a higher $ coin too.

He's also patient and responds to any questions you have and also ships quickly.

Some of my favorite coins have come from him.

Roy's Coins is great too. He offers a lot of harder to find or one of a kind coins. And he's worked with me with layaway plans and given me discounts and free shipping.

 

I loved the coins I ordered from Byzantium Coins (or soemthing like that) from Germany. I think he retired, though.

 

I recently bought a coin from a dealer I've never bought from before out of Amsterdam, RomanCoinShop.com aka Jeroen van der Meulen. This bronze was correctly cataloged by the seller(often SAX bronzes are misattributed as more common C•SAX bronzes) who rightfully listed it as Extremely Rare but offered it at a very fair price. Most retail dealers just ask crazy prices for rare types like this when correctly identified and a lot of good bronzes sit in their inventory for years unsold so I appreciate his fair pricing. This dealer didn't have anything else for me but I felt like his prices overall were pretty fair. Since his coins aren't on Vcoins you might not have seen his inventory before so I highly recommend checking it out


Roman Republic Æ Sextans(6.82g, 20mm). Cluvius Saxula, moneyer, 169-158 BC. Rome mint(or perhaps Central Italian mint). Head of Mercury right wearing winged Petasos, •• above / Prow of galley right; SAX above, •• before, ROMA below. Crawford 180/5; Russo RBW 765/(Central Italian Mint); Sydenham 361d

Another dealer I've had many good experiences with is Marc Breitsprecher, formerly known as Ancient Imports. He lists a lot of interesting coins so often I buy a couple of coins from him at a time and he usually gives me a great deal and his coins often have interesting provenances too. For such a high volume dealer his RR bronzes and early RR silver are uncommonly well identified also. If you're a collector who is new to the series you can buy with confidence knowing the coin you're buying is probably correctly described which is not always a given, even when shopping with the best dealers. Here's a nice little quinarius I bought from him a while back, a coin which I regretted missing when it first came up for auction but which he sold me for lower than the winner paid after hammer+fees+shipping.


Roman Republic AR Quinarius(16mm, 1.76 g, 10h), "L" series, 211-210 BC, Luceria mint. Head of Roma right, wearing Phrygian helmet. Behind, V; below, L. Border of dots / The Dioscuri, each holding a spear on horseback right; two stars above; below, ROMA in linear frame. Line border. Crawford 98A/3
Ex Marc Breitsprecher, 28 Mar 2020, ex CNG e-Auction 383, 28 September 2016, ex RBW Collection, ex Antiqua Ltd(Steve Rubinger), March 1997

 

I'm not into ancients as much as I used to be but I figured I'd still give a shout to some of my favorite dealers.


Lindsey Goff, Mr Coin (Conyers, GA); got me into the hobby at a young age and really helped me out when I was just starting. Has given me many good deals over the years.

Rob Oberth, RoundTable Trading/Gold and Coin Exchange. I am currently undertaking an apprenticeship (part-time) with him in his shop. Really fun guy and plays no games when it comes to making deals.

Bill Fivaz; a man who needs no introduction. Donates a ton of his time to club meetings and numismatic volunteering. I always try to do business when I see him.

Seth Chandler, Witter Coin San Francisco. Payed for me and a couple of other YNs to go to his shop in SF and gave us a one-week seminar on grading and coin dealing. All expenses were covered by his shop/donors and it was one of the first experiences that led me to choose coin dealing over piloting.

David McCarthy, Kagins; I guess he isnt *technically* a dealer (or maybe he is, idk), but I absolutely love talking with this guy at shows. Always really friendly and shows me cool stuff.

Tom Caldwell, Northeast Numismatics. I've been seeing him at more shows lately and is one of my favorite dealers to catch up with. Overall a great guy, would love to visit NEN someday.

 

I have had many long and mutually beneficial relationships with some of the dealers so far mentioned as well as many who have so far been not. I have had a few good and even fewer not so good. So I decided to pick this dealer. His name is Tom McKenna and he operated out of Ft Collins Colorado. He has long left the business however he did sell me my very first Greek coin. Technically it isn't but it is always within the Greek section.
Carthaginians in Italy Ar Half Shekel Mint operating under the aegis of Hannibal 215-211 BC Obv, Head of Tanit left Rv. Free horse standing right. HN 2016 HGC 1385 3.68 grms 17 mm Photo by W. Hansen
Not only was this my first "Greek" coin but it was one of the first coins that I had ever bought where I started to question the time and place of its minting. Even before I had purchased the coin I thought is was of south Italian origin. That idea was confirmed in an article written by Jenkins in the late 1950's. As I bought this coin many decades later, I cannot nor will not claim credit for this concept. However I did feel rather good about the fact that I did figure this out on my own.

 

Very nice!

 

Thank you for that recommendation. I got curious, visited his store, and found two coins that I have been looking for for a while, at a decent price even. So now I’m an Aegan customer too.

 

I've only bought from Marc Breitsprecher once and it was a great experience. I was very impressed with how quick it arrived across the Atlantic. It was lovely Postumus with Rhine reclining for a very reasonable 70$. It came with a print out scan of the coin and plenty of information including auction provenance.


It is to my dismay that Aegean don't ship to the UK, they certainly have some of the best prices.

 

I'm happy to be a new customer of London Ancient Coins, and they've been added to my go-to list. The one teensy gripe I have is the coins come with no information. I.e. there's a slip inside the flip, but it's some kind of inventory number. That's it. The inventory number takes up a lot of the slip, so one can't really write. The flip side of the flip has an emblem. And I don't have any slips.

It's about two weeks from order to me, which I have no problem with. About the same as I seem to recall from Incitatus.

The coins themselves have been very satisfactory and I had no problems witht the prices.

Oh, where can I get a supply of saflips? My supply from 2009 ran out.

Hmm, wait a sec. Marc B. puts in so many slips inot the flip, I wonder if I can write on the other side of the Mr. B coins advert slip? I'll have to look.

I miss the old days of vcoins when all the dealers' emblems were arrayed in a giant phalanx.

I've been eyeing some coins at Shick coins, but I heard Israel was a pain in the neck to get coins out of. His terms seem to imply that it's a 2 week wait, for the permit. I could live with that.

The Spanish dealers: reading the confusing legalese, there's a 5% permit charge for "third" countries. Is the U.S. a third country?

There's many 'new' (i.e. added since I faded out of active numismatics around 2014).

Zuzim: I've heard very good things about them on CT.

Barry & Darling: I think I might have bought one thing from them over the years? I remember them being at vcoins in 2009.

The Italian dealers: I wrote one of them, asking about the rules. He was very nice, but according to a dumb Italian rule, shipment is only allowed to the EU. So basically I'd have to find a second party to get around it. In this case, I think I found a gold coin to upgrade the very pretty AE that I missed.

Harlan J. Berk. Duh, we all know that firm. I haven't bought anything from them in years, but it was such fun to visit their firm when my grandfather was still with us and we would travel to Chicago. I picked up my favorite coin, a Johannes Tremissis, from him. The pick bins were very fun. They had a lot of hoity toity coins, but they had coins for all budgets.

Jon Kern: no one seems to mention him. I've bought from him exclusively at coin shows, and one of my favorite coins; an enormous posthumous Lysimachus Tet. He had a pick bin of sorts full of them, c. 2002. I want to say it was around $175? The last purchase I remember was c. 2010. He would usually have a hoard of like coins; such as gold Honorius Solidi, etc.


Charachmoba Gym: Try saying that 3 times fast. I have no idea. They must be newer.

Anybody buy from the newer or more obscure Vcoins dealers?

Laurel certified: I had a fine experience and I was very happy with my lovely Heraclius.