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BLee23
Posts: 335 ✭✭✭
Hello Ancient Collectors.
I have recently grown bored with collecting US coinage, and have begun to admire ancient coins. I am wanting to get my feet wet, but am not sure of the best place to begin my research in building a set. The breadth of ancient coinage appears significantly larger than I am used to, so I am hoping some forumites can steer me in the right direction. Any information and recommended literature would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
I have recently grown bored with collecting US coinage, and have begun to admire ancient coins. I am wanting to get my feet wet, but am not sure of the best place to begin my research in building a set. The breadth of ancient coinage appears significantly larger than I am used to, so I am hoping some forumites can steer me in the right direction. Any information and recommended literature would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
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And, in what way did they catch your attention? Design, or a region, or a time period, or a ruler or ???
Also, some of us are really into a specific metal (I like silver) or size (many of us are older, so larger pieces are more popular).
EVP
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
Here are a couple places to start:
A Guide to Ancient Coin Collecting
Greek Coins Part I
Greek Coins Part II
Greek Coins Part III
Greek Coins Part IV
Greek Coins Part V
I've also posted some coins from my collection in the past handful of months which have some historic information in them that may help you narrow down what you like:
Sikyon stater (and a museum pedigree)
Alexander the Great
Pompeii and Roman Gold
Aegina stater (the first trade dollar)
Antoninus Pius
The Secular Games
Otho
Nerva
Sextus Pompey
Ajax the Lesser
The Eagles of Akragas
to wonderful info. Anything similar to this for Byzantine?? thanks
in advance.
you trust them 150%!!! China is producing fakes at an alarming
rate.
Like a denarius of each of the (1st) 12 Roman Caesars. Or you can do as Lord Marcovan and set your sights on a Greek coin from every major Mediterranean kingdom.
I would warn you though, set your ambitions too high and you'll give up in disgust. It's a different kind of collecting than building US coin date runs. There are no price guides. Don't be afraid to buy a few coins that don't seem to fit together at all. Your interests may change. Don't spend a lot of money at first. In US coins, the advice to newbies is buy the best grade of coin in the best certified holder you can afford. Even a doofus with a poor eye for quality can do quite well just adhering to that advice. Ancients are a different story. Buy cheap coins at first. Most ancient coins are uncertified. Until you are familiar enough with grading and authenticating these coins (and honestly everyone makes some mistakes with authentication... everyone!) you should stick to cheap coins. Try to learn about provenance whenever possible. Unlike American numismatics which is at best 150 years of scholarship, people have been collecting ancient coins for maybe 400 years and there is a tremendous wealth of information out there. Too much actually. Don't go nuts reading until you decide on a specialization for you.
Go to a coin show that focuses on ancients/world (i.e. NYINC if you're in the northeast). Check auction archives at Heritage, CNG, and acsearch.info (mcsearch.info for medieval coins). Search dealer inventories (vcoins.com, forumancientcoins.com, etc).
If you're going to do any reading though, read about the fascinating histories of the kingdoms and empires of old whose artifacts you wish to collect. You can read about the coins themselves later.
EVillageProwler. I have initially been drawn to are Greek coins. The designs are beautiful and I enjoy a number of themes that they present. I love big silver coins as much as the next collector, but I am open to new things. I think collecting ancients will allow my taste to be a bit more eclectic, and to buy coins that speak to me.
Thanks again for the head start, and I always appreciate new/additional information that anyone else has to offer. Hopefully, I will have my first ancient purchase to show off in the near future.
as has been mentioned, putting together a "set" is really whatever you want it to be, it's not like US coins where we go ok, these were minted during this period and I need one of every year and mint mark, you can go that route at times, but there really aren't any defined sets to collect and as has been mentioned there really aren't price guides per say
the twelve caesars thing is popular, I'm doing it myself, but the only reason that even is anything is it refers to the work 'De vita Caesarum' or as it's known "The Twelve Caesars" which is simply a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of Rome written by Suetonius more than 20 years after the last guy died
for greek you have so many different empires and city-states, the possibilities are endless (I like LordM's idea)
World Collection
British Collection
German States Collection
U.S. coins I pretty much fizzled of when I finished my blue collar type set.
This reference book can be found online in PDF, and is a truly wonderful, illustrated document of Ancient Roman Imperial Coinage.
Good luck on your ancient quest. I too have recently took a turn to ancients and have acquired nearly 100 denarii in the last 6-8 weeks
<< <i>Good book to decide if you like ancient greek coins
Thanks for making me aware of this book, I've only been doing this for 1 year and consider myself a newbie as well.
<< <i>Good book to decide if you like ancient greek coins
>>
Must resist the urge to buy this. Must resist the urge to collect Greek coins!
All of the guys here have been very selfless and helpful since I really have turned my attention to ancients in the past year or so. I collected US coins when I was a kid but found myself priced out of everything except raw large cents in mid grades when I returned to collecting after having my daughter.
I fell into ancients because I picked up a few along the way and then got serious about learning some more and adding some emperors that I actually knew. (Who the heck is Gratian??) All of the advice that these folks have given you so far is great. Also, emphasize going to shows where they are available near you, especially major ones where you see a lot of dealers with a lot of similar types of coins so you get a better feel for the price ranges the coins you might like also for authenticity as well. I'm by no means an expert yet, but I am better off than two years ago and have set some guidelines for myself. I share all of my collections essentially with my daughter now who is 11 and so I sort of developed these guidelines with her in mind but they also apply well to sharing your collection with friends and family and for some value in the future I believe.
1) Buy the best coin you can afford...to a point. Like US stuff, that is generally a good rule. But with ancients there is JUST SO MUCH STUFF that you can really find yourself oogling a really nice piece and convincing yourself to buy it because it is in your face at a show or online. But then there may be similar pieces that will take up less of your budget but pack almost the same bang for the buck. It isn't a bad thing to pick up some cheaper pieces (whatever is your budget for 'fluke' purchases) and then take them home to dig further on them. That way if your attention drifts you aren't in an odd piece for a ton of money. For example, I really like copper and tend to stick mostly to that for aesthetic purposes but also because I can buy more pieces on my budget. I tend to save larger sums for the fewer silver pieces and I also tend to focus those purchases for emperors I know for sure that I want a better or more significant piece for, like my 12 Caesars set. It's also easy to use a copper piece to hold a spot in that collection for the sake of accomplishment but then to add a better silver piece when you find the right one.
2) Look for full legends and design elements. Like Lord Marcovan says, having the head half lopped off or most of an elephant or major reverse design element missing really kind of kills the beauty of the piece and you may regret buying a piece just to fill a hole when you see a much better one for not a ton more money soon after. The benefit of buying full legend pieces also makes it easier to show and maintain interest on the part of the audience whether it is you, a child or a friend. When you can point out the name "NERO" on a coin clearly it will hold their interest much longer than saying "well this was issued by Nero, but the strike is weak or the name has worn off or the strike was off so the name was missed." Also part of the fun is to be able to look up and translate the legends and understand exactly where in this emperor's life this coin came from.
3) Start with an empire, emperor, motif or region that you find really enjoyable and start purchasing many coins on the low end. It gives you a quick kernel of a collection to organize around and it will also maintain your interest much better than picking a crazy large goal at first. Recently I found the zoo series of Gallienus and have had a lot of fun buying coins with the different animals. No auction records will be broken when I sell these coins but they are sure fun and gave me a break from my 12 Caesars set during a time when I seemingly couldn't find anything to add to it in my price range. There are so many coins of Constantine the Great for example that I don't know if it would even be possible to purchase one of each regardless of grade or budget. But you can sure have a lot of fun trying and there will be no shortage and lull between pieces when you first start collecting like if you tried one of the emperors with ridiculously short reigns like Galba, Otho or Vitellius. Ask some of the guys how long they looked for any of those emperors or how much they had to pay to represent them in their 12 Caesars set.
4) Buy books, go to shows, poke around on the sites like Wildwinds, FORUM and here. There is a lot of knowledge and let your own curiosity guide you from page to page. If you look at it like homework, it will probably kill the fun. The reference books can be very expensive, at least to me but I happen to like books more than just the internet to work with. So I was a little patient and have picked up a reference here and there at good prices and have built a pretty decent reference set. Editions don't matter so much because the price info is even more skewed and out of date no matter the edition so you are really looking at them for identification and general rarity et cetera. Shows are good too because you get a lot of knowledge from guys that have been doing this for decades and they like to show coins and talk about their stuff which is a fun combo. Most of the dealers that I like also don't mind spending time with the guy with $300 to spend even if they have another fellow looking at coins that sell for $1K or more right next to you. Everyone starts somewhere, and someone needs to be buying the $20 and $100 coins just like the $1K coins. If you talk to a dealer that seems like they don't have time for you, blow past him and find one who does. My rule of thumb is that if a dealer treats my 11 year old right, I will surely at least looking to buy some things for me as well from him. Also the benefit of finding dealers that you trust and get some face time with at shows leads to having coins offered to you through mail lists, email offerings and websites. Don't be afraid to get a better price too. Buying a few coins? Even $20 a piece coins in groups of four or five might get you $10 or $20 off if you start buying many coins. They are pretty happy to rotate a bunch of inventory out of the door, especially if they see that you will be back.
5) It's okay to set something down and pick it back up. Whether an individual coin or a set that you are working on, walking away for awhile sometimes gives the mind and wallet a break, lets you focus on what you really want and also gives a temporarily hot market a time to cool off.
Also, don't wait to take pics of your coins and show them here. We will help where we can to identify and give huzzahs. I didn't start until recently and I am glad I do now because unlike showing your millionth new coin purchase to your wife, gf or kid who just isn't feeling it that moment, we are pretty much always ready to look and comment.