Why is it that so many ancient coins look like they have never been circulated but yet US coins that are less than 200 years old look tattered? http://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp?vpar=718
Because many have been buried for several thousand years untouched and the majority have been cleaned in one form or another. The rules of modern coins dont apply too much with ancients. Thats what makes them a bit more appealing with some collectors.
I have read somewhere that even though these coins are ancients there were millions made. Many of them were never circulated and still looks very clean. Of course some of them were cleaned as well.
Uh I basically answered it, just not in paragraph form, lol. But I can see why you want Chris, I view his & doug s. posts whenever one appears.
Some circulated quite a bit, to the point where they got counter marks to still be acceptable, and to the point that dealers today wont buy/sell them. These were the coins you spend. The nice ones, especially silver coins with higher purity, you'd put in the bank (a secret hole in the ground) and then you die
Ancient coins changed weight standards with some regularity resulting in some issues being hoarded not long after production. Large sums that we would pay on credit cards or checks were represented only by coins so, for example, an Athenian tetradrachm might have never been spent as a single but have been in jar of 1000 and buried in new condition. A few ancients circulated for 100 years and got worn out but many did not. Given that there were millions and millions made, a percentage made it as struck. Coin dealers don't show the 90% that suffered badly as often as they do the 10% that are good looking so we may forget that there once were many more that did not survive being melted as bullion. Within the last century we have seen some poor grade silver ancients sold for about their metal value. Since the dogs were not legal tender any more and not in demand by collectors, they got melted. I collected for 30 years before I ever saw coins of the grade Randy shows above. Now there seems to be a demand for them that was not as common before the eBay era. I suspect there are many other factors not mentioned here but that is what comes to mind.
OP, you also have a bias going on with the 200 year old coins you are viewing as well. Almost all good chain cents long ago are in long term collections, so most of them you see are the low end coins. I would say most ancients in the ground not protected by a container are either gone, (dissolved), or in low grade. Some survive in better grades, if non-acidic soil, but most did not. Its the coins in protective pots that survived the best from what I have read, and most XF ancients come from those sources. The numbers minted, though, are well above in the millions. It was in the billions. There have even been impressively large hoards found. One was found about 500 years ago, about 450,000 gold roman coins. Unfortunately most were melted since there were simply not very many collectors of them at the time. Even today there is a industry rumor that about 500,000 ancient jewish coins were found in one hoard a few years ago. Modern collectors, and society in general, tend to view antiquity as backwards, but they had a thriving economy, and all of it was based on coins as opposed to today. Therefor massive quantities were needed to be struck, luckily for us collectors of ancient coins. Couple that with lack of banks so almost everyone buried their life savings for protection, and it adds up to massive coins being found still today. Chris
