The Value Of Ancient Coins

I've noticed the price for ancient coins in general has been rising even in the short time I've been collecting for almost a year.

Most of those you can get for that price are uncleaned. Common decent coins that don't need to be cleaned or minimal cleaning will cost on average around $5 - $15 unless you manage to get a decent deal of course. There are a lot of very expensive coins as well. Then again I've seen uncleaned coins going for $5 - $10 each which is very high for those kind of raw coins.

Another answer is that a lot of coins are still being found overseas by metal detectors. Don't complain because once people stop finding tons of them, the price will probably rise dramatically. I am more than happy about low prices for lots of coins or I would not be collecting at all. It was a deciding factor other than not wanting to collect modern coins anymore, the price is within my reach for a lot of ancient coins.

Coins are very small as compared to Roman statuettes or larger statues. Not to mention that coins are by far in greater supply. It's all about supply and demand as well as whatever the dealer decides to price a coin.

Throw the book out if you think coins are priced like moderns are. There isn't any chart that you can look up, nor any clear guidelines about prices. ERIC II and AORTA do have rankings for Roman Imperial coins and some pricing averages at auctions, ebay, etc that's based on prices a year or two ago. You just have to feel your way through it while searching for coins that you like as well as being affordable.

I've been collecting Ancients for over 30 years and I've noticed fluctuations both up and down over that period. As a general rule, the price of these coins have not changed much. Of course, 30 years is only a very small part of 2000 years. When I first began my collection, the only way to get coins was from well known dealers and from some coin shows. Now the internet brings them to us at huge volumes, sometimes directly from the people who find them. Someone once mentioned in another post the sheer volume of coins struck, and since found, is almost impossible to imagine. Perhaps someone here will remember the number, but I cannot.

Yes, I too have seen the rise in the internet prices in the past year. I do not know what to attribute to that. Maybe fewer coins. Perhaps more buyers. Maybe both or something else altogether. But like echizento said, I'm glad they are still cheap. Cheap enough for me to afford one every so often (more often then I should I think).