How Many Collectors Of Ancient Coins Are There?

I would speculate that there are no less than a hundred thousand collectors who live, breathe, and die for ancients, and probably millions or more who have at least one or two ancient coins in their collection.

I only have two or three ancient coins. It is a field that I would love to expand my collections in -- but the barriers to entry are many and sometimes high.

Some thoughts from my inexperienced point of view:

It seems that there are many, many fakes, and they can be very difficult to detect.

The books and literature to attribute your finds are expensive and often out of print.

Many sellers are not located in the US, resulting in large shipping fees and customs issues.

A large majority of ancient and medieval coins are not certified by a reputable TPG, which discourages modern numismatic investors who are hesistant to collect and invest in ancient and medieval coins without an expert having looked at the coin and declared it genuine/correctly graded/attributed.

The history behind ancient coins is not emphasized. (from the Phoenicians, Greeks, Byzantine Empire, Celts and Romans, the Saxons...the great Islamic conquests and the Crusades to take them back, the Holy Roman Empire, the German States, the Spanish & French & English kingdoms...most of this is not taught to our children in school anymore, indeed ever, except perhaps very briefly mentioned.) Without this to encourage young collectors' interests and demand for coins there is not much impetus for young numismatists to start ancient/medieval coin collecting. There are great stories to be told, but no one really tells them anymore.

There are not really very many standardized price guides. Modern coin collectors in the US are used to having many price guides that tell them wholesale and/or retail values for dates and mint marks. This is a barrier to bidding/buying ancient and medieval coins because you often have no idea if the price the seller is asking is a great deal, a reasonable price, a bit high, or way overpriced. No one wants to spend $200 on a coin and then find out that you can buy them all day long for $30. The counterpart to this is that dealers are reluctant to stock ancient inventory; they don't know much about it either, and they have limited resources for pricing and margins. This negatively affects both acquisition and resale. As a result, ancient coin dealers tend to focus only on ancients and specialize in that area, isolating them from other collectors who might become interested in ancients if they saw the coins in showcases and books at their local coin shops.

There is a lack of newsstand publications which focus on Ancient/Medieval collecting. The ANA's Numismatist occasionally runs articles, but there is nothing on the order of a COINage or Coin World or Coins Magazine for ancient coinage.

A number of unscrupulous sellers feel the need to flat-out mislead non-informed collectors about some things over and over: apparently every medieval Spanish coin or bit or cob was "pirate treasure", every prutah or lepton is a "Bible coin", cleaning that lot of dug LRB's is an easy and fast process that will let you find fabulous rare coins for cheap, etc.

The denomination and composition of popular ancients such as Roman/Greek coins can be difficult to grasp without a bit of effort; diobols, tetradrachms, dupondii, denarii, tremisses, solidi...etc. This leads to mislabelling and misidentification by sellers and buyers. Silvered AE's get sold as AR's, there's billon, copper, brass, electrum, and the various gold alloys.

Finally, pricing for popular ancient coins in general tends to be quite expensive, perhaps excepting antoniniani/radiates/LRB's; with middle to higher grade coins, even uncertified, going for $50 to $500 or much more. This discourages young collectors without high disposable incomes from joining the hobby of ancient coins; even a theoretically-simpler set such as "All Roman Emperors after the year 200 AD" is going to hit you in the pocketbook a bit.

Just my opinions, and hopefully not too much of a sidetrack.

Sel,

A lot of collectables discussion is going on in various groups on Facebook. This forum's membership is small compared to some of them. Not that I'd ever discuss my coins on Facebook but many others apparently are not fazed by having your full name and a ton of other identifying details about you attached to your every comment.

Some interesting food for thought in this thread, and a wide range of opinions (from a high end of "no less than a hundred thousand collectors (of) ancients" to a low of "5 to 10 thousand."

I find Paralyse's response especially interesting and a bit depressing. A lot of good points are raised there that, while true, I hope will not impede too many potential collectors of ancients. I would point out that, with regard to the "lack of...publications" issue that "The Celator" was a great one that went under a few years back...the ostensible reason being personal issues that the editor was having (many believe that competition provided by online ancients-related sites and forums must have contributed to his decision).

Regarding encouraging young collectors: Paralyse's point about aspects of history not being emphasized in school is well-taken, although I'm not certain whether the problem is so much a lack of content in the classroom, or a lack of contextual/historical appreciation on the part of some of the younger generation. As someone who makes a living teaching fulltime in Ferguson, MO, I know the challenges of trying to foster a love of history and the humanities in students with very challenging lives and limited opportunities off-campus.

Ancient Coins for Education (ACE) tried, in its limited way, to turn kids onto history by using ancient coins in the classroom. What a wonderful idea! With the cancellation of "The Celator" one doesn't hear much about ACE much anymore, and their website seems to be at least a year outdated - suggesting they may not be that active these days. Too bad if true.

Regarding the challenges presented by the complexity of the subject matter (navigating coin types, denominations, etc.) and spotting fakes: all certainly true, and all potentially representing difficult hurdles and possible turnoffs for some would-be-ancients collectors. But, of course, these could also be approached as exciting educational challenges that encourage immersion in the subject. Clearly preaching to the choir here, I know.

I would also hope that potential collectors lurk here, and are encouraged by the supportive comments we give each other - and that they may join our nut house at some point.

Somewhat tangential to your query is the rising prices of Ancient coins, specifically Roman era coins of mid-high price range. I do not know how this correlates to the quantity of collectors. There seems to be a strong appetite by high end collectors for Roman era coins. I watched a Libius Severus sell for 18,000 CHF last month, when similar ones had gone for half that in recent years. A Hadrian Aureus I acquired six months ago is being sought after by an avid fan of Hadrian for three times what I paid. I mention this because I think ancient coins are far more tenacious than the modern million plus types marketed in the U.S over the last couple of centuries. If that sounds dismissive of U.S Coin collectors, my apologies. Indeed, I debate that point with my 95 year old Grandfather who prefers U.S coins to Ancient ones. I have no idea why though.

I noticed one of those three is the fakest gold Maximian I have ever seen! Ha!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/27206420194...e&rmvSB=true

I agree about the TPG's -- we in EAC are often the same way about our coopers ;)

That was more from a general newcomer's point of view, since they are told time and again that slabs are "safe."

I guess I could use myself as an example for this thread.

As some of you probably seen, I came to this forum for the very first time maybe 4 months ago with zero experience and not a single ancient in my collection. I had always wanted an ancient coin ever since I was a kid, but my parents always cautioned me against making such an investment, saying that there is not a single worthwhile ancient coin to be had for less than $100, and the few ancients I had ever seen (Athenian tetradrachms, solidi, denarii, etc) seemed to confirm this, so I never gave it much thought.

When I had the disposable income to start expanding my collection, I decided that I wanted to splurge and finally scratch that itch, assuming I would spend $10 on a single AE4. A member on here sold me some of his extras, and I figured I was done. Somehow, I decided to start surfing ebay for ancients, and ultimately ended up buying a few that seemed like a good deal.

Today, I have a good 350-450 ancients, the overwhelmingly vast majority of which were purchased in unidientified lots for $0.50-2.00 each. Had I known that was possible, I probably would have started years ago instead of just a few months ago.