~ LM PM draft
lordmarcovan
Posts: 43,471 ✭✭✭✭✭
Hi, Rick.
Your PM is exactly the kind I like receiving. Thanks!
Let me address your questions as best I can.
There are of course many different references for world coins, and no all-encompassing single one. For post-1601 coins, you'll want the Krause Standard Catalogs, of course. For ancient and medieval coins, it's much more specialized, and to tell you the truth, I don't have a very big library. I just use a variety of stuff, mostly what I can access online. The boards at FORVM Ancient Coins have a lot of resources, and that's a good site to buy ancients from, because they come with all sorts of information in the flips. In time, as your tastes develop, you'll learn what books you'll want to add to your reference library.
I have tendencies, of course (British coins, for example), but no hardcore preferences, I guess. I learn by sampling different things. I've always liked both US and World coins, so now I'm free to pursue both in the same set. My preferred hunting ground for ancients was always VCoins.com, which is an online mall full of excellent dealers. In the last year, I also started shopping on MA-shops.com, which is the European equivalent of VCoins, and just as huge. I just buy what interests me, which is the truly liberating aspect of collecting a Box of 20. The only rule with a Box of 20 is that you're limited to 20 pieces (oh yeah, and slabs), but since I have a modest budget, I can't collect many supernice coins anyway, so I have found it fits my style perfectly.
All over the place, though the sites I mentioned above get browsed a lot. There is some real eyecandy at Atlas Numismatics, and all of it is already slabbed, but they can be pricey. Civitas Galleries is another good place to browse. Josh Moran of Civitas is active on the forums, and posts under the handle "CIVITAS". He can probably help you a lot. Hanging out for any amount of time on the World & Ancient Coin Forum can help a lot, as you may have already deduced from lurking. If you do any shopping on VCoins, I can tell you some of my favorite dealers. Haven't really had a bad experience with any of them on there.
Nothing set in cement, no. There are certain types of coins I'd like to have (a Roman gold Aureus, a really nice Athenian "Owl" tetradrachm, some nice 16th century German State thalers like the stuff Zohar posts, etc.) And I'm quite fond of early proof coins. But otherwise my goals are fairly flexible. I just want to gradually acquire more beautiful, historic, and higher grade coins as I go, thereby (hopefully) increasing the total monetary value of the collection over time. But I'm sentimentally in it as much for the love of the coins (their history and eye appeal) as I am for any monetary return they might bring me. I do try to "buy smart" as much as I can, but when it comes time to sell I usually just barely break even. (Win some, lose some, but just break even most of the time.)
I don't mind your asking at all, and thanks for the compliments. Made my day, to tell you the truth.
When I started the box, I didn't even have enough slabs to fill it, let alone fill it with anything nice. If you look back at some of the earlier incarnations of the set archived in my second post in the Box of 20 thread, I had some ancients which had cost me only $15-20 (which I had used to fill out an NGC submission). Though interesting, these coins actually cost less than what it cost to slab them.
The low end of my set nowadays is probably in the $150-175-ish range. The most expensive one by a wide margin is 1842-D USA half eagle. I bought that with the proceeds of a British type set I'd built for my daughter, so that one technically belongs to her. She is letting me "play with" her investment so I'm holding that one in my set for a few years until it comes time to sell it when she needs college textbooks or a wedding dress or something like that. (She's 14 now.)
Thanks for the PM, and I look forward to hearing from you and seeing how you proceed. Feel free to ask anything you like.
~Robertson ("Rob") Shinnick, "lordmarcovan"
Your PM is exactly the kind I like receiving. Thanks!
Let me address your questions as best I can.
1. Is there a good book or reference material you would suggest to learn more about collecting foreign/dark ages/ancient coins?
There are of course many different references for world coins, and no all-encompassing single one. For post-1601 coins, you'll want the Krause Standard Catalogs, of course. For ancient and medieval coins, it's much more specialized, and to tell you the truth, I don't have a very big library. I just use a variety of stuff, mostly what I can access online. The boards at FORVM Ancient Coins have a lot of resources, and that's a good site to buy ancients from, because they come with all sorts of information in the flips. In time, as your tastes develop, you'll learn what books you'll want to add to your reference library.
2. Do you look for specific time periods, countries, etc.? Or do you just buy what you like?
I have tendencies, of course (British coins, for example), but no hardcore preferences, I guess. I learn by sampling different things. I've always liked both US and World coins, so now I'm free to pursue both in the same set. My preferred hunting ground for ancients was always VCoins.com, which is an online mall full of excellent dealers. In the last year, I also started shopping on MA-shops.com, which is the European equivalent of VCoins, and just as huge. I just buy what interests me, which is the truly liberating aspect of collecting a Box of 20. The only rule with a Box of 20 is that you're limited to 20 pieces (oh yeah, and slabs), but since I have a modest budget, I can't collect many supernice coins anyway, so I have found it fits my style perfectly.
3. How do you determine the price for the stuff you buy?
An awful lot of gut instinct goes into it. If I think it's cool and it seems nice at the price, I go for it. But I do try to cross-compare with other listings as much as possible. If for example you do a keyword search on VCoins or MA-shops, you'll come up with lots of hits from lots of different dealers, so if you see several dealers offering a similar coin in similar grades, you develop an instinct for who's pricey and who's reasonable. It's far from perfect, this instinct, but it serves me OK. Of course when you start dealing with ancient and medieval coins, no two will ever be alike, and you have to learn to "wing it" a lot more, since reference material for research is either limited, expensive, or nonexistent. Of course for post-1601 coins there are the Krause Standard Catalogs, which you don't want to be without. They come in one volume per century and are also accessible online through the NGC world coin priceguide (which is a convenient, though not entirely user-friendly, resource).4. Where do you look to find foreign/dark side material?
All over the place, though the sites I mentioned above get browsed a lot. There is some real eyecandy at Atlas Numismatics, and all of it is already slabbed, but they can be pricey. Civitas Galleries is another good place to browse. Josh Moran of Civitas is active on the forums, and posts under the handle "CIVITAS". He can probably help you a lot. Hanging out for any amount of time on the World & Ancient Coin Forum can help a lot, as you may have already deduced from lurking. If you do any shopping on VCoins, I can tell you some of my favorite dealers. Haven't really had a bad experience with any of them on there.
5. Do you have a long-term plan of what you want to have in your set?
Nothing set in cement, no. There are certain types of coins I'd like to have (a Roman gold Aureus, a really nice Athenian "Owl" tetradrachm, some nice 16th century German State thalers like the stuff Zohar posts, etc.) And I'm quite fond of early proof coins. But otherwise my goals are fairly flexible. I just want to gradually acquire more beautiful, historic, and higher grade coins as I go, thereby (hopefully) increasing the total monetary value of the collection over time. But I'm sentimentally in it as much for the love of the coins (their history and eye appeal) as I am for any monetary return they might bring me. I do try to "buy smart" as much as I can, but when it comes time to sell I usually just barely break even. (Win some, lose some, but just break even most of the time.)
6. When you upgrade/change your box of 20, do you sell the other coin to create a space in your box? If so, I would like to have the opportunity to buy some of your left overs/left outs.
Yes. That's a necessity, on my budget. When one goes out, it helps to pay for the one that comes in. And ... great! I could always use somebody who's interested in buying my castoffs (or perhaps selling me some of his!) The next to go out is likely going to be the French Colonies sou or the Saxony commemorative. I have only 81 bucks in the French Colonies piece (though it's likely worth about twice that), and I have 201 bucks in the Saxony piece (which is probably a tiny bit too much, but I'm including slab and TrueView fees in my cost.) 7. Getting personal(feel free not to answer), what is the most and least you have paid for the coins in your box?
The bottom line is that I think you have some really cool stuff. You have done it on a limited budget(like mine) I would like to learn how a little more about how you do it.
The bottom line is that I think you have some really cool stuff. You have done it on a limited budget(like mine) I would like to learn how a little more about how you do it.
I don't mind your asking at all, and thanks for the compliments. Made my day, to tell you the truth.
When I started the box, I didn't even have enough slabs to fill it, let alone fill it with anything nice. If you look back at some of the earlier incarnations of the set archived in my second post in the Box of 20 thread, I had some ancients which had cost me only $15-20 (which I had used to fill out an NGC submission). Though interesting, these coins actually cost less than what it cost to slab them.
The low end of my set nowadays is probably in the $150-175-ish range. The most expensive one by a wide margin is 1842-D USA half eagle. I bought that with the proceeds of a British type set I'd built for my daughter, so that one technically belongs to her. She is letting me "play with" her investment so I'm holding that one in my set for a few years until it comes time to sell it when she needs college textbooks or a wedding dress or something like that. (She's 14 now.)
Thanks for the PM, and I look forward to hearing from you and seeing how you proceed. Feel free to ask anything you like.
~Robertson ("Rob") Shinnick, "lordmarcovan"
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