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 Replies: 18 / Views: 4,820 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1315 Posts |
I've always been fascinated with ancient coins but have never collected any. Really know nothing about them, but I would like to acquire a few and learn something about it.
What coins would be good to start with on a limited budget, and what pitfalls might I avoid as a beginning collector.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you much.
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2838 Posts |
Hello, Collecting ancients does not have to be expensive so your budget will be fine. Its like all other areas of collecting, yes there are very valuable coins but for each of those there are hundreds of more affordable ones. I always recommend Roman coins to people who want to start an ancient collection - they are generally cheaper than Greek coins and often the Greek alphabet can confuse beginners. Roman coins use a Latinised alphabet so certainly for English speakers they are easier to understand. Having a limited budget can be a blessing in disguise as you are less likely to have to worry about fakes - its not cost effective to fake cheap coins. I would suggest you start with some bronze Constantine the Great coins. I say this for two reasons, firstly he spent a long time as Emperor (306-337AD) minting over 300,000,000 coins so lots are available. Secondly he is quite well known and written about so you can learn about the person on your coin, makes it much more interesting! He was the first Emperor to adopt Christianity (although still kept many of the old gods), he re-united the Empire after a series of battles, was probably the last 'good' (from an Empire point of view) Emperor but still suffered from the insanity/blood-lust/depravity we all love to see in the Romans. Coins of the earlier Emperors are more expensive so I would suggest starting with Constantine and if your interest continues just work back in time. You can pick up a decent quality bronze of Constantine for around $10 on ebay if your patient, $20 if your not. I bought this for $7 inc P+P a few weeks ago, it has a nice green patina and quite a bit of silvering underneath it. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...t_876wt_1139As far as confirming if the coins you are looking at are real the seller is more important than the coin. Check their feedback and buy from high volume sellers if you still feel unsure. Thats about all I can say - once you get one you can then enjoy researching it - be warned though, its addictive! Edited by bobbyhelmet
03/01/2011 7:01 pm
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Rest in Peace
United States
1729 Posts |
Collecting Roman and other ancient coins is indeed addictive. Hello. I'm pls. I'm a Roman coin collector addict. Furthermore, I'm addictive to uncleaned Roman coins. I already have a few Byzantine coins in my collection, and now I'm thinking about acquiring some Greek coins. Is there no end? If you like surprises, buy a lot of uncleaned coins on ebay. I recommend oldcoinman, but there are others who are honest sellers of uncleaned coin lots. Avoid ANY seller who hints that gold may be found in these lots - you can be sure that the original person who unearthed the lot in Serbia or Bulgaria or wherever easily spotted any gleaming gold in the lot and removed it before sending the coins to a stateside seller. On the other hand, I have found two silver-washed (coated) Roman coins and a silver billon Ottoman coin in lots I've bought on ebay. Good luck - and above all, have fun with it. |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1315 Posts |
Thanks for the advice.
I will follow these leads and see how I do...will report back later with the results.
Thanks again.
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Valued Member
United States
327 Posts |
Uncleaned coins are a crapshoot, especially from ebay US.If you must use ebay hit the UK site. I've bought from Common Bronze and gotten nice stuff. The prices are not bad and if you are unhappy Tom and Tony will make it right! They get some really cool Black Sea "Greeks" and the Spanish finds run from Roman to the Early Medieval period, including Crusader coins. I *think* they still have the free coin cleaning guide available; if not, shoot me a PM as I know I have it. Cleaning is not for the impatient, or the non-detail oriented, but the rewards are great. YOU are the first person to see that coin for many centuries, maybe a Millennium or longer. |
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Valued Member
United States
244 Posts |
If you're not sure where to start, I recommend not starting with coins at all, but starting with a book or two. A good book to start with IMO is Sayles' "Ancient Coin Collecting". You could also opt for one of Sear's books, but those tend to be a little more dry. Still, I have no regrets about picking up "Roman Coins and their Values" early in my collecting. Unlike US coins, there aren't really well established grades or values for most coins. Eventually you'll come to have a feel for what's worth what, but at first, it really pays to find a dealer you can trust - and who you can learn from. ebay is a TERRIBLE place to start in that regard. Like US coins, you do have to worry about fakes. Once you've been around ancients for a while, you'll be able to spot many of them right away, and various online databases will help identify others. Until you get to that point, I emphasize again, find a dealer you can both trust and learn from. |
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Valued Member
United States
293 Posts |
What I did a year or 2 ago when I was first getting interested is read a bunch of stuff here and at a couple of other sites. Kind of get to know what you're looking at. Find a book if you can. Then hit up your local coin shop(s) and ask if they have any ancients. I was lucky in that one of them had a nice box and a couple of trays full. Doing it that way I could look at them in person and know what I was looking at, unlike ebay and other websites. I also have a very limited budget, so I was looking for something in the $20-30 range for my first acquisition...additionally, I wanted it to show someone I had heard of. I ended up buying this:  Marcus Aurelius 177 AD. Æ Sestertius. I have since added about 15 or so additional ancient coins and 1 uncleaned lot that I'm still working on. None of them are rare or extremely valuable, but they all get people VERY interested when I show them! Everyone has seen a penny or a dime, no matter how rare or in what kind of uncirculated condition your collection of US coins is in...but not many people have seen a coin from Ancient Rome! Very fun conversation pieces and I really just like them a lot. Can't wait to add more in the future! |
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Valued Member
United States
380 Posts |
Very cool! I would love to add some ancients to my collection!
About how thick is that coin?
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Valued Member
United States
327 Posts |
I'll also recommend the wildwinds database.
Despite it's somewhat odd name, it's a large (LARGE!) ancients database. One can (and will, trust me on this) spend hours going through the extensive listings, which include 2 sided scans and an actual correct attribution. There is even a partial inscription search, which is most useful indeed.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
842 Posts |
If you do choose ebay I would highly recommend the sellers purse_of_the_legionary, desimone_1, and rectororbis. I have purchased from them many times and have never been let down. They are the most professional sellers I have encountered there and they sell very good, authentic coins. |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2889 Posts |
I used to be of the opinion that buying the book before buying the coin was the right thing to do. While there is certainly a lot of wisdom in that I think that the phrase was largely coined (numismatic pun there :) ) before the advent of the internet. Nowadays there is so much information available at the click of a button, a novice can get a feel for what they like reasonably quickly. But there is nothing to really compete with holding an ancient coin in your hands, knowing that it is a couple of thousand of years old.
This is part of the reason why slabbing ancients has never (and I suspect will never) really catch on.
If possible I'd advise getting the basics from the Internet - for free - then going to a coin show that sells ancients where you can get your hands on straight away. You'll know then if you have the bug or not. Work out what you can afford to spend and buy a couple. The chances are your taste will develop and refine over time but if you are anyway half sensible you won't lose much by the learning process.
If there is no coin show handy, there are many good dealers out there that deal through the post, lots of people here can advise.
Have fun.
Edited by Bacchus2
03/08/2011 2:28 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1315 Posts |
Update: Thank you all for your replies. After getting the first responses, and following more or less the suggestions made for a beginner, here's what I have done so far. Went on the web and book marked several ancient coin sites, including Wildwinds. Went through them some and saw what a tremendous amount of info there is to be learned about these coins but saw a lot of good pictures and kinda got a idea of some of the types and what nice coins look like. Ordered a book from Alibris about ancients and collecting.(should arrive soon) Looked on ebay for roman coins...used highest price first to see the good ones..then went to lowest price and picked the one with the best eye appeal( to me) for the lowest price, 9.99 with shipping.   Decided to try a small lot. I found many that would probably be the "crap shoot". So again went for the best looking ones(to me) for the lowest price...28.95 plus 4.00 shipping. I'm pretty sure they're all common(from the 'dirty dozen' I read about on one web site).  I kinda got caught up in the thrill and decided to look at some Greek coins. Did the same thing with the highest-lowset pricing, then picked this one for 29.00 free shipping. When I emailed the seller about whether the coin could be cleaned he offered to send me a few common Romans for free with my order so I could practice cleaning them first. Thought that was nice.  Total spent...71.94 on seven coins and two used books under 10.00 each(one is the Sayles book). These are the ebay pictures I had to pick by. Please give me opinions and criticism about how I did on my first attempt. You can be harsh if need be. But please don't attribute any of them as I would like to try this on my own when I have the coins in hand. Then I'll take photos and report back later to see how I do on that part of the collecting. If you all don't mind. Thanks for all your advice. I will bookmark any web sites and sellers you all have told me about. Also I'm going to check my local coin shops to see what they have. Edited by Doucet
03/08/2011 3:07 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2889 Posts |
Well done on getting your feet wet - so to speak.
As I'm sure you know there is nothing there that is super rare or anything, but they are quite nice coins. I'm not going to tell you what they are but for me the most interesting two are the Greek one (you just can't beat them for style) and the tiny light coloured one withe the "SC" on the reverse. A shame the obverse wasn't a bit better on it but it's more unusual than the others.
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2838 Posts |
Good job - a very sensible way to start. If you spend $10 on a bad coin then you can laugh it off, if you spend $100 on a bad coin then its not so easy! You'll be able to learn a lot while researching these when they arrive. All of these are good enough quality to be fully identified and accurately aged as on the whole they have clear text and mintmarks. I'm sure they will give you many interesting hours of searching. I agree with Bacchus2 that the little 'SC' coin is different to whats normally found in these 'dirty dozen' lots. All in all a good first outing - you'll find, if you stick with collecting ancients that the knowledge will come (albeit slowly) and soon you'll be an armchair expert sniping bargains on ebay! Good luck in attributing and if you get stuck I'm sure we can provide a gentile nudge in the right direction  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1315 Posts |
Thank you all for the replies. Some of the coins have arrived. The dirty Romans will go in for soaking tonight. Some of them are very small! I started to attribute the first Roman coin in my post pictures above (a commemorative) and have learned quite lot in the process. I have it pinned down pretty close, but this research leads me to a number of questions. bobbyhelmet, you were not exaggerating when you said I would have "many interesting hours of searching". I probably have eight hours searching on this coin and still need to learn how to describe it correctly. I may be kinda slow. This is probably hilarious to guys, for a little common coin like this.  I'll post it in a new thread, with better pics, and ask for your opinions in a few days. Thanks again Oh....... my wife finally likes my coin collecting with these ancients. She thinks they are fascinating. She said "Honey when you find one, we can go and visit where it came from." uh oh. Doucet |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2838 Posts |
I find the hunting the most fun - and the best way to learn, we all started from the beginning at some point |
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Replies: 18 / Views: 4,820 |
Posted 03/01/2011 7:19 pm
