Medieval Vs Ancient Coins

It's a pretty loaded question... what sort of goal are you looking to accomplish? An emperor set? Kingdom/culture set? Type or mint set of a particular issue?

In general, Greek coins are going to be the most expensive, and late Roman coins are going to be the cheapest, unless you are willing to delve into really obscure medieval Indian coins or 6-8th century Silk Road bronzes.

Personally, I would dabble a bit, find what really interests you, and then pursue that, taking it slow and as your budget can accommodate. If you need to get your hands dirty, I would recommend you buy a lot of Roman bronzes for $1-2 each on eBay, and work to identify those. Go for ones where all coins have full portraits and legends, and keep searching until you can win one on a middling bid.

For me it has been more worthwhile to collect ancient more than medieval coins. There is much more variety with ancients IMO than medieval. Medieval coins tend to be small in size and expensive. I could buy a 16 gram Greek tetradrachm for the same amount as a .9 gram medieval coin. I would rather have the tetradrachm.

You've received some great advise already. You also need to consider the time you have to devote to your collection, not just the money.

Most of the ancient coins have exceptional books and web portals that are easily accessible. That isn't quite so true of medieval.

For me, at least, learning the Roman coins was the easiest to start with.

Romans are probably the easiest to assemble a "set" since their coinage was arguably the most organized, consistent, and closest to what we look for in modern coins (e.g. later coins have mintmarks). Some inexpensive sets you could strive for:

The Constantinian dynasty (could be done sub-$50 in low grade with patience):
- Constantius I
-- Wife Theodora
- Constantine the Great
-- Mother Helena
-- Wife Fausta
-- Son Crispus Caesar
- Delmatius Caesar
- Constantine II
- Constantius II
- Constans
- Constantius Gallus Caesar
- Julian II

Technically with the above but usually omitted due to price:
- Hanniballianus (Held title of "King", nephew of Constantine)
- Nepotian (Usurper, nephew of Constantine)
- Procopius (Usurper, cousin of Julian)


The Five Good Emperors / Nerva-Antonine dynasty:
- Nerva
- Trajan
-- (Wife Plotina and her family are silly expensive)
- Hadrian
-- Wife Sabina
-- Aelius Caesar
- Antoninus Pius
-- Wife Faustina I
- Lucius Verus
-- Wife Lucilla
- Marcus Aurelius
-- Wife Faustina II
- Commodus
-- Wife Crispina

Barring Nerva (can be had for $50-100), Trajan's wife, sister, and niece ($1,000+ each), and Aelius (generally $100+) you can get the emperors in silver for about $75-150, and the wives for about $200-250, a good chunk of which will be Sabina. I sold a lot containing most of them in low-ish grade silver for $120 recently.


If you want variety, you could also do a survey set of ancients from across the world:

Greek:
Archaic (pre-450 BC): Miletos small silvers are like $25
Classical (450-330 BC): Cherronesos hemidrachms are ~$30-45
Alexander III: Drachms are about $50-100
Hellenistic (323-100 BC): Lots of cheap bronzes
Late/Provincial (100 BC - 300 AD): Lots of cheap bronzes here too

Celtic:
Eastern style (Copies of Alexander III and related): $50-200
Celtiberian (Spain): $10-50 for bronzes, $100 ish for silver
Central style (Copies of Roman or Greek): $50+
Gallic potins: $50+
British: $50+
"Barbarous" copies of 2nd-4th century Roman: $1-50+
"Migration period" and post-Roman Germanic: $50+

Roman:
Republican: Denarii can be had for $50-150
12 Caesars: Easy to find cheap Augustus provincials, Claudius bronzes, and Vespasian/Domitian denarii for $10-50
Nerva-Antonines: Lots of cheap denarii
Severans: Super common denarii; You can get Septimius Severus or Alexander Severus for under $50 in XF
Crisis: Bronze antoninianii can be found in lots for $1 each
Tetrarchy: Bronze follis in low grade for less than $15
Constantine and later: Lots for $1 per coin

Byzantine:
Post-Reform folles can be had for under $20 for a nice massive coin
Anonymous folles (featuring Jesus) are a must-have type and are sub-$10 in low grades
Billon or copper trachys (cup-shaped coin) can be fairly cheap

Persian / Middle East:
Achaemenid Siglos: $40 in low grade
Parthian drachm: $40 ish for common emperors
Judaean widow's mite: $10 ish
Elymais bronze drachm: $15-20
Sassanian drachm: $20 or less for Khusro I, Hormizd IV, or Khusro II
Umayyad dirhem: $20-40
Abbasid dirhem: $10-30
Other later dirhems: $20-100

India:
Mauryan punchmarked silver karshapana (300-180 BC): $10 or less
Sunga cast bronze karshapana: $5
Apollodotus II silver drachm: $15
Scythian Azes II tetradrachm: $45
Kushan bronze tetradrachm: $15
Nahapana silver drachm: $20
Western Kshatrapa drachm: $15
Satavahana bronze karshapana: $10
Gupta silver drachm: $10
Maitrakas silver drachm: $10
Gadhaiya Paisa drachm: $10
Chola AE Massa: $5
"Bull and Horseman" silver jital: $10
Delhi Sultanate silver Tanka: $30
Mughal silver Rupee: $20

China:
Ban Liang (210-118 BC): $5
Wu Zhu (118 BC-618 AD): $3
Wang Mang (c. 7-23 AD): $5-20
Tang (618-907 AD): $3
Song (960-1279): $3

I'll have to defer on the European medievals, as I don't know the cheapest to represent that series.

Hopefully that's enough to get your research started

Finn... Just wow! The amount of time and effort you took to put this together for me is beyond belief. Thank you SOOOO much!

Like Bob said, I strongly agree that your portion of the post should be stickied somewhere as a starters guide to how to start a collection.

I wonder if any of the Medieval collectors will step up to the challenge and create a similar list for their time period :P

Looking at this list really gives me some great ideas. I already have one Constantinian coin (Constans) so maybe that is a good idea but the Byzantine Empire is also very interesting to me. I think I am going to do some research and see what direction I go :)

Thanks again Finn!

Thanks all! I really need to make it a priority for 2018 to get my long-running threads back up or kicked off. Maybe it would be a fun idea to create a survey thread to link to various pile-on threads for specific collecting areas? I really liked the Women of Rome threads before those lost steam a few months back!

Yikes!

Yeah I know that I gotta step up my game a little. Won't be tonight though.