The Legion Ring lie
......
or the money printing machine for scammers
Finally the time has come. The fraudulent sellers have taken over the antiquities sector on ebay.
Years of brainwashing the buyer with "customer protection" has now the desired success. No fake seller needs to fear the negative feedbacks anymore. If he meets the ebay guidelines, this "warning" for other buyers is easy removed. The Veste is white again.
Experts believe that 90% of the offered artifacts on ebay are nothing but fakes.
The legion rings exceed the percentage by far. Nearly 99 % of the offered legion rings are fakes. The missing percent, because I might have overlooked a real one. In the last three years, I've only seen two legion rings in silver that were obviously real. Two only among hundreds of legion rings offered. Whether silver or bronze spiced up with engraving - all fakes. Not a single one was or still is genuine.
Legion rings were very rarely found and classified. Silver rings even rarer than gold. The gold rings, which were reserved for the higher ranks of the military, one can count on the fingers of both hands. They come from well-known collections or are exhibited in museums. Quite rarely new finds are added.
Already in ancient times, silver was valued as precious metal. The simple soldier could not afford rings of this metal. Since the color of gold reminded people of the sun, they associated silver with the moon. Besides hammering and embossing (a laborious, costly work, which required expertise), silver-objects were cast.
The fake sellers are unstoppable. Legion rings are offered uninhibited and in bulk. Most are scary fantasy products. Credibility or authenticity is no longer necessary. The mass of uninformed buyers have absolutely no idea of the matter. In the fever of bargain hunting they outbid each other to the pain threshold. $ 800- $ 1,000 for a legion ring fake are achieved, not often - but mostly for rings that look fake at first glance. Almost every day another fake-seller tries to jump on the legion train. Everyone wants a piece of the big cake
One is specialized in fake inscriptions. Everything incised with "Victrix" is bought at any price. The forger deliver what is in demand, copy with each other and try by mass (here the Bulgarian seller with the female decoy) to outdo the quality. The Serbian group usually copies the engraving of coins and hopes that nobody notices.
Some examples are attached. You can find more in our fake-ring-data-base, which is growing every day.
http://ancientartifakes.net/smf/index.php/topic,1103.0.html .You need to register on this forum to be able to see lots of useful information there.
Hot TipDid you ever wonder why the sellers so quickly agree to a return? The reason is quite simple, eBay removes any negative feedback immediately after refund. Never - never - leave your feedback immediately. Wait until shortly before the end of the 60 day period (after auction end) .If the item is a fake, then the deadline on ebay for filing a claim has also expired (30 days plus shipping time). That's a good thing.
Then PayPal enters. Ebay has no longer access to the feedback and PayPal takes care of the refund.
Last pic shows a real legion ring sold by Hermann-Historica