Could a kind soul point me to good website(s) for Id'ing ancient coins

jengebretson · 04-01-2005, 08:29 PM

I have begun buying some uncleaned Roman coins just for fun, and wish to id them.

I believe I have some Greek as well as 1 or 2 from a middle eastern country... I haven't the slightest idea what the "squiggles" convey.

I am totally new to this field. The coins themselves are to be from roughly 200-600 AD.

I googled... but the mass response was quite overwhelming.

Any help from those more knowledgable would be much appreciated.

thanks

afvetroman61 · 04-01-2005, 08:43 PM

Hello!

Welcome to the forum! I also collect Roman coins, and I have many that I have yet to identify also. Here are some good sites to check

www.bitsofhistory.com/ace/attrib.html

WaA140 · 04-02-2005, 12:16 AM

This is another good forum or was a year or so ago.
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php

mmarotta · 04-02-2005, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jengebretson

... some uncleaned Roman coins ... some Greek as ... from a middle eastern country... from roughly 200-600 AD.

1. You have to start with books. Websites are secondary sources, based on the assumption that you have some knowledge.

2. The two best online catalogs for ancients are Wildwinds (www.wildwinds.com) and Coin Archives (www.coinarchives.com).

If you cannot read the squiggles, identifying coins is going to be hard, boring work. If you live in or near the USA, there are some books that can help you get started. Among them are Ancient Coin Collecting by Wayne Sayles and Handbook of Ancient Greek and Roman Coin by Kenneth Bressett & Zander Klawans . Otherwise, a library might be a good resource.

Reid Goldsborough · 04-03-2005, 08:50 PM

There's an old maxim in numismatics, "Buy the book before you buy the coin," but this no longer applies in the age of the Internet. There's lots of very well researced, organized, and written material about coins, ancient as well as modern, on the Web, which won't cost you a denarius to access. Books and journal articles are where you go for more information -- the Web is still far from comprehensive regarding relatively narrow areas such as ancient coins.

Here's one place to start:

http://rg.ancients.info/guide/ancients.html

Sites about attributing Roman coins are listed about one-third down.

satootoko · 04-03-2005, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reid Goldsborough

"Buy the book before you buy the coin," but this no longer applies in the age of the Internet. There's lots of very well researced, organized, and written material about coins, ancient as well as modern, on the Web, which won't cost you a denarius to access.

There's also a lot of garbage on the net, and without a basic grounding in a subject - coins or otherwise - it's pretty hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. At least with books there are usually bibliographies that can be checked to determine whether they are on the same planet as the truth.

Reid Goldsborough · 04-04-2005, 01:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by satootoko

There's also a lot of garbage on the net, and without a basic grounding in a subject - coins or otherwise - it's pretty hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. At least with books there are usually bibliographies that can be checked to determine whether they are on the same planet as the truth.

This is true, of course. Reading critically, paying attention to information validity, is more important on the Internet than in print because the barriers to entry are so much lower. Still, there are some very credible Web sites out there, about ancient coins or anything else, and ways to determine this. Are there are some very suspect books and journal articles. The Internet doesn't have a monopoly on disinformation.

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