Coin Collecting May Not Be That New...

Interesting. In his book "Ancient Coin Collecting" Wayne G. Sayles devotes a section to the history of coin collecting, and he presents ample evidence to suggest that collecting started more than two thousand years ago. He points out that Aristotle, the early Ptolemies of Egypt, King Attalus I of Pergamum, King Mithradates of Pontus, and Rome's Augustus were among those who collected art and, quite probably, coins. Augustus, who enjoyed collecting coins from foreign lands, would give them to friends as mementos. (We know this from the writings of Pliny the Elder)

Sayles goes on to describe a number of ancient hoards that have been unearthed over the years that, rather than having homogeneous types - with lots of duplications - as one would expect to find in a stash of commercial coins, have instead lots of varied types from different - in many cases quite distant - cultures and with no duplications. He makes a strong case that these hoards, dating well before the Common Era, were coin collections.

Just wondering, would they have had a Forum Communitatem Pecunia back in the days?

And with papyri perhaps delivered to Forum members by chariot, a single thread must have taken years!