You might think while looking at peoples collection of late to middle Roman or Persian bronze, silver coins in their collection or Geek, Byzantine, or middle ages coins...are they real? how is it that these ancient coins dont cost a fortune? I am afraid they might all be fake!! Well, first off...anyone who collects these coins know that many DO cost a fortune, they know the difference between common and rare...that is why you dont see a lot of coins of Nero, Augustus, Otho and the like in great condition posted on a regular basis. Although even some of these, while much more expensive on the whole, can be bought in decent shape for surprisingly cheap at times... What you see most commonly are mid to late bronze and silver coins...and indeed, most of these are real. These are found in large numbers in buried hoards, or they are found here and there in small hoards. In places like Bulgaria and Turkey there are some places where you can literally walk out of your door with a metal detector and in a days looking find 3 or 4 of these...places that had large encampments and settlements. The Romans and Persians were notorious for burying hoards of coins...this was pre-banking and if the Romans walked off with thousands of silver Persian coins, they would bury them...maybe they would never make it back...people buried their own money, something happened and the small fortune was never retrieved...Romans buried money. Buy the mid to late empire the population of the empire had expanded drastically...during the reign of Constantine, there was over a million people living in Rome alone...then you have many other large population centers ALL OVER the empire, in Europe, eastern Europe, turkey, north Africa, etc... for the million in Rome alone there had to be many millions of coins minted...mints had to supply many millions of people with money to spend...and there were many different mints all over the empire doing this...Siscia, Nicomedia, Rome, Antioch, Britain, Serdica, Carthage, Cyzicus, etc...etc... all minting coins...most likely millions each year by the the days of Constantine... Think of a coin like this: in terms of a modern penny, nickel or dime...made of copper or bronze...at the time, not worth a whole lot but enough to by what you needed if you had enough. How many millions of pennies, nickel or dimes are minted each year in America...or in the last 5 or 10 years. Rome as it lay in geographic terms was much like America...it wasn't just Italy or the city of Rome...it was all of Europe, much of the middle east, Britain, and north Africa (and sometime more)...each of the regions minted coins, each one had a good size population to keep in money... Now of course today we have banks and we dont bury our savings...but just think if we did? how many pennies and how much change gets dropped everyday...then think about how many hoards of coins (if we didnt use bills and we buried them) might end up left in the ground when its owner, for some reason, never made it back to retrieve them...If I had to bury everything I have in the bank right now in coin form...it would be quite a sizable hoard of coins... They had other ways of storing money but it wasnt reliable...would you store your money in the town temple if you knew for a fact that if some group attacked the town...the first place they would go is the temple for loot? Anyway...the advice you hear is all correct...know who you buy from, know what you are buying...there ARE a lot of fakes out there, mostly of the higher dollar items. People are less likely to spend the time money and effort faking cheap common coins...but they have.
I have borrowed these photo from a guy on another forum who shares with us when he gets new shipments in directly from the source...I believe these are coming from the ME...this is just one guys hoards...and I believe he mostly is a middle man in that he receives them from the source...cleans them...then sends them on to a buyer or buyers buying back some for his own store...there are others who post finds on the forum from eastern Europe, Britain, etc... Here are some photos of late roman imperial bronze/copper coins fresh from the ground and ready to be cleaned. These are better than average quality and will sell for a premium. These are not the same as the cheap (but authentic) rough uncleaned some of us buy in hoards that have been ravaged because of improper burial...these were protected in the ground so they are in excellent condition. I have seen the same things for Greek (which are more rare oft times), Persian, middle ages....etc... I am drooling as I post these... these are several different hoards posted by only one guy...and he is far from the only guy bringing coins to market.
Now lets see these hoards cleaned up by a master: and lastly...from the same guy, some more unfortunate coins that didnt fair near as well Are there fakes? oh yes... These are all fakes and this is just one of many sad examples of fakes that are out there...but you will also notice that most of these are fakes of coins that fetch rather high dollar amounts...though there are some relatively lower dollar examples... Why did I post this? to let people know that there ARE authentic ancients out there, they arent that terribly rare (though some are) and while like any high dollar collectable there ARE fakes...there are also a large amount of very real, and quite affordable coins out there to be had for the person who takes the time to learn a bit about them, and learn who and where to buy from...and if you are ever in doubt, there are true experts out there who will be honest with you and tell you if they think or know its fake...one should not be afraid to collect ancients because of fakes...just know what you are doing. Because I used his hoard pictures to illustrate...if its okay I would like to say that these coins are courtesy of Salem Alshdaifat and Holy Land Coins and examples can be seen here: http://www.vcoins.com/ancient/holyland/store/listCategoriesAndProducts.asp?idCategory=60 at that link you can find hoards of Roman, Greek, and Persian coins...most are sold as fast as they come in...but luckily he often keeps them up to see...
During my time in Egypt I knew places to find ancients, just walking around certain ruins. It was not that difficult. I saw plenty of fakes in the markets, but no one sprinkles fake coins around for free in the desert. And if I could walk away with a handfull in the few hours I had, imagine what someone doing it full time could find. Thanks for the informative post, those are great hoards. And some nice statues of Hathor and Osiris, amongst other gods.
"If I could get my hands on just one of those crates...I would never buy another coin I think "Oh really? And what, praytell, would you do with three thousand identical campgates from Thessalonica? :-D Drusus, thanks for posting this topic. I've had to explain to people countless times that, simply because a coin is a thousand years old, it isn't necessarily priceless. The worst is when they have a really nice coin, a denarius or something, probably worth 70-100 dollars and they're still dissappointed!
Great write up :thumb: Unfortunatly a lot of people dont want to believe that they are not worth a fortune, Old + $$
And one thing that was not mentioned that helps keep these coins affordable. The number of collectors of them, compared to those who collect the more modern coins, is a small fraction of the number. Here in the US you might find one collector of ancients for every 100 collectors of coins made in the last three hundred years. It might even be a smaller number than that.
That may be the case, but I think a more important factor is a general lack of concern about minor varieties. Few people will collect ancients by more than type. Lol, imagine trying to collect by RIC number...
great post! I was wondering this myself. maybe you can make a thread, or maybe there is one, about tips to clean roman coins? I havent done so well with mine, lol
great pix, drusus. great thread guys, i have been thinking of buying some uncleaned ancients and loved the pix, drusus. i would like to clean them,then attribute,but i never figured out how to clean them properly. i know it is complicated can anyone offer some basic advice on how to do this? i am interested in ancient history and coins, it would be great to combine my to interests. also,can anyone recomend where to buy uncleaned ancients,hows ebay? thanks for the help.
Drusus, That was most informative. I've got a few of these bronze beauties myself. What could I do with a case?
This site does a good job of explaining it and giving different techniques, some better than others...even giving some alternate methods. http://www.dirtyoldcoins.com/restore/index.html But in not so many words, it depend on the coin and how crusty it is. Soaking and some scrubbing might be all you need, for real crusties it might be much more. Soak wash scrub soak pick scrub, repeat. There are faster ways but they are also more risky when it comes to possible damage to the patina or coin itself.
thanks. ive used electrolysis. but for some reason the coins i got were very stubborn... lol. so i resorted to scraping.
Hoard of 8655 Constantinian Era coins . Dear all thanks for the tips and showing my Hoards in your board, and I am happy to join your board. I do deal with Hoards all the time, and I claim that I am a source because I deal dirctly with the source, and buy dirctly from the finder, and when I offer a whole hoard I have to sell it as intact to give the buyer the chanse to decomment it and photo it, and then I buy from the researcher some for my store. but I do sell indevisual coins that are mostly in high quality or rareity, and mostly I have the chanse to pick the best of the Hoards befor they go to the market. for some pictures for the befor and after cleaning plz see this link http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=37851.75 and yes there are ancient coins, and in my posetion as whole seller I go through so many coins every month, and %80 I dont agree at the price but the rest you see in my store, and still %90 of my sales are privitly and wont see the light at my store since they will go to dealers and spread at the market. hope I will be helpfull in this board best regards Salem alshdaifat edited Howdy Salem - Welcome to the Forum !! Sorry I had to edit out your link, but self promotion and links to personal sales web sites are not permitted in this part of the forum. Once you have made 10 posts though you can post a link to your site in the Open Forum section of Coin Talk.
