Greek Silver Fractions Comment

Local dealers (in the assorted hobby malls, flea markets and coin club meetings).

That said, when I visited Lithuania in 2012 and Bulgaria (and briefly Serbia) in 2014, I did buy some coins over there and bring them home (though in Bulgaria I tried my best to avoid ancients, because I really didn't want to end up in jail, and during the Lithuanian visit I didn't see many ancients anyway).

I don't buy any coins online (I did in fact buy a coin online once, a few years ago, and didn't like the experience), but I do occasionally receive some as gifts (mostly from assorted other CCF members).

Just wanted to mention that I did finally get a 5th century BC hemiobol (a Kyzikos boar/lion issue, 9 mm, ~0.37 grams*).

It did cost me 1000 rubles ($17) - which is a lot of money considering my budget! Now if only I could persuade myself from going to the same place next week and buying a similarly sized Phoenician fraction for $20...

(If I manage to take a half-decent photo with my smartphone, I'll post it in this forum eventually.)



*) In the absence of a working scale, my coin weighing system is hilarious - I balance a ruler over an AA battery (or a similar nearby object, but an AA battery works very well), then carefully put the coin being weighed at one side of the ruler and known counterweight coins (usually, but not always, assorted Soviet kopeks) at the other side, move either or both until the result balances, and do some simple calculations involving the law of the lever.

This arrangement is usually only precise to 0.05 grams or so at best (usually even worse than that, depending on the counterweight choice), but in this particular case, after checking with several different counterweights, I'm confident enough to say that the true weight is probably between 0.33 and 0.40 grams (likely near the middle of this range), and 0.37 is what the catalog says, so let's go with that

Collecting coins is mostly a hobby pursued alone. For most of us, even our spouse does not care much. Friends are friends in spite of the fact we show them coins, not because we show them coins. They rarely have much interest.

So, I suggest you display them for yourself. A nice Abafil tray with small slots will hold 77 coins on gorgeous red velvet. That would be a good-sized collection. If it were simply open on your desk you could enjoy the display every day (Keep a magnifying glass handy). Then, if by some rare combination of circumstances, a guest might actually care, they can see the coins.

One problem with good descriptions on flip inserts is they draw attention to the insert and away from the coin itself. Slabs are even worse by a large factor. Let someone look at the coin and not the flip.