Bactrian gold coins and alexander the great cold coins

Tayshaun

Hello all this is my second post and maybe a little bit over my head but i was watchign tv yesterday and saw a special on the history channel talking about afganistans bactrian gold and it got me thinking if there was any of these gold coins for sale, my impression formt he program was that all of the coins were kept for the countrys history and culture but i was wondering if any of that type or from that region were for sale anywere, i also have decided that i am going to try and collect ancient greek coins mainly Alexander the great coins if anyone has some sugestions as to some good starting coins that are not to expensive please let me know. thanks for all of your help

spoon

I don't know if anyone pointed out this site in your first thread, but VCoins is one of the best places to go to get an idea of what's out there for ancient stuff. Of course there are several other dealer and info sites out there, but this one has several dealers all in one place, with a diverse range of stock. Good for getting a feel for prices and availability. Plus, even though I can't afford a lot of it, it's fun just to browse and drool!

As for your Alexander stuff, there are some neat things that can be had on the cheap. The low end is around $20-30 for drachms. Bactrian gold and silver is some of the neatest stuff out there, since it is often so different from the classical greek. (check out this dude's hat!) But you'll be lucky to find it cheap! Even silver runs $60-90 on the low end. If you want old gold Byzantine stuff is probably consistently the cheapest. I don't want to make it sound as if everything is expensive though, there are a lot of neat Alexander-era silver and bronze coins that can be had at decent prices. But expect $30-50 to be your average low- to mid-grade price.

Ah, shoot! Don't listen to my rambling... just browse through some of the VCoins sellers and it'll answer all your price and availability questions

spoon

Also, once you get a feel for what's there, just try the Search All Stores function with a max price of $40 or so and don't enter a search phrase. It'll show you everything available on site in the affordable range. Click through a few pages in that search and you'll get an idea for what's going to be available in the low bracket. (Be warned, most of it will be Roman empire stuff, maybe put a delimiter in if you get tired of that)

Here's another cool Bactrian guy: Eukratides I, c.171-135 BC. Tetradrachm

And a neat elephant: Menander. 80-45 B.C.