How Do You Collect Ancient Coins?

I was collecting Roman coins for 15 years before venturing into Greek coins. The reason is simple; they are easier to understand. Roman coins are connected by a time line sequence, and have Latin legends. European languages are based on Latin. For this reason they can be more logical to understand

Roman Republican Coins were issued moneyer families, and there is still some debate regarding their time line sequence. Roman Colonial coins most often have Greek legends, and for some, are a little harder to understand.

Greek coins were issued by independent City states and are only generally connected by a culture. Because of this, a collecting strategy has to be less structured. The decision to buy them is best made on an opportunistic basis.
I regard ancient Greek coins as miniature pieces of metallic art, and this is fed into my making a decision to buy.

The problem of fakes can be a problem for the beginner collector of ancient coins. If you are going to buy a valuable coin, do so from a reputable dealer, who knows his stuff.
I have a few valuable reference books on fake ancient coins; how to make them, and with this knowledge, how to identify fake coins. I also have a 'black' collection of about 100 fake ancient coins for close examination 'in hand', for my own education.

The most important tool in this regard is experience. I am still learning. This is where a reputable dealer can help; he gets to appraise a lot more 'dud' coins than most collectors do.


For identification, I use Sear's series of books:
Greek Coins (2 volumes) Roman (4 volumes), Greek Imperial,
and Byzantine Coins. The 'VCOINS' and 'Wildwinds' are websites are used by me as well.

Calgary Coins has a very good lecture series on the Web on how to identify fake ancient coins. A couple of hours of patience will be richly rewarded if you read this.

Very interesting Sel 69l, about having your own black collection of fakes for your own education, how do you acquire these? Did you perposly buy these even knowing these are fakes or is that really how many are out there and how hard they are to tell from the real thing and you accidentally bought them thinking they were real? I will look into the books about identifying fakes. I would really like to educate myself on these fakes. Thank you to everyone who has posted so far. It is greatly appresiated.

This is an interesting thread....

I started out with a single late Roman bronze of Arcadius. I wanted to collect one of each Emperor. I found this to be a daunting and cost prohibiting challenge. Only as I researched did I find out there were many, many, many more Roman emperors then I could have ever imagined. Many I have never heard of and some of them only have a few coins, and those coins are ugly and buukuu bucks. After I abandoned the idea. I thought it would be interesting to get into Greek coins. I started out with a few very very small bronzes from Asia minor. My small Greek bronzes are mostly in high grade, and I paid a fraction of what they are worth today. (I have watched the overall price of ancient coins skyrocket.)Then I felt I wanted to collect Greek Silver.

I then found out that the truly awesome was truly expensive. Some expensive in the extreme.(Lambo) I then dedicated the next 5 years to the acquisition of large Greek Silver coins from the centuries BC. I have made it my goal to get the absolute best coin I can possibly afford when I do decide to buy. After several years of trying to get big Greeks, I found my collection nice but very disjointed. There was no overall theme and no definite collecting goal.

Thats when I made a decision. I would attempt to collect representative pieces of each of the cultures of antiquity. Roman, Greek,Phoenician, Persian, Bactrian and Indian coins. I favor silver but I still cannot turn down an impressive bronze coin. I have a thing for "large" ancient coins. My collection than spread out across the world in every direction. I found myself attracted to the underappreciated, and little known kingdoms and lost empires of time long ago.
As my collection matured I ran into several problems. The first was organizing them. Do I organize by Ruler, Empire, Geographical region, ruling authority or period of manufacture? Where do I stop collecting?
I always wanted ancient coins but I found many of my coins were not technically ancient, but medieval. Many of my coins were minted after the fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476. Some of the most interesting coins are found shrouded in the dark ages.So I established a new cut off for my "ancient" collection, AD 1453, the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks and the official end of the "Roman Empire." I have English Hammered coins and miscellaneous coins of the modern world but hardly as coveted as the ancients.

Staying vigilant for a deal has paid off many, many times. I would not say my collection is top tier or Museum worthy but I do have a few coins of which I have "the best" example known. (or at least sold in the last decade or so), but they are from empires that exist as footnotes at the bottom of the page.
Staying vigilant for a deal and relying on the help of your contemporaries (us), will prove the best way to start out.

I have procured many coins that I thought A) I could never afford, B) never see, C)didn't know existed. Just to name a few, Alexander the Great Lifetime Silver Tetradrachm, the Athens Standard, Athena/ Owl tetradrachm, and coins minted under the authority of Hannibal as he attempted to invade the Roman Republic, as well as a high grade tetradrachm of the famous Cleopatra of Egypt.

You have quite a journey ahead of you, and your collection will expand and mature to include things you could not have dreamed about.
The hard part is when someone says they have a 150 year old coin, and you have to act impressed at the age...


EDIT: Horrible spelling and grammar, Yikes!

I'm a ancient coin ADHD hunter/scavenger..i bounce around between what ever style catches my fancy from one month to another and search out stuff that I can actually afford. for the last month I've been on byzantines...I'm starting to get a new chinese itch...we'll see where that goes. I've never been able to stay focused enough to attempt a proper collection of something...there are just to darn many cool ancient coins, types, empries out there.

Ya Sel 69l, I've thought about that. What would be a good price for the uncleaned roman lots and what size coins would you recemend?

A long time ago someone asked "What do people collect?" on the Moneta-L Yahoo group list. I assembled many of the answers here:
http://esty.ancients.info/numis/collect.html
One nice thing about ancients is that (almost) no one will tell you what you "should" collect. Collect what you like and be glad if others collect differently -- less competition!
-- Warren