http://esty.ancients.info/numis/rarity.html Newsflash: The above is only about 11 years old so it is breaking news when compared to ancient coins but it does a great job explaining why you should not get too wrapped up in the rarity myth. If you are considering spending extra money buying a coin you don't want because someone told you it was rare, at least read this page first. It is brought to you by the same guy who has the best site on the web for Valentinian/Theodosius era late Roman coins (RIC Volume IX).
Yeah, it seems rarity is not as important as much as popularity is. I have this R5 coin of Constans, though the r5 doesn't mean much. Although I have not seen this for sale, 2 similar r5's are being sold for about $50 in similar condition. Coins of Hanniballianus, from the same period, are R2? and are listed as "very rare" and sell for significantly more. In similar condition to this one of Constans, it may be listed for $200-$400 and theres about 20 (+ or -) on vcoins, with 2 being newly listed Thanks for the link Doug!
You brought up two good comparisons Randy. You brought up a variety rarity versus a person variety. Huge difference. Basically the order of importance of "rarity" I would say would be CIVILIZATION-RULER-TYPE-VARIETY. If, (and its a huge if), demand was constant, the only coin known for a civilization would be more valuable than ruler, and so on. This illustrates why a scarce ruler is probably more valuable than a rare variety. I am glad you posted the link Doug. Always good reading, and I remember reading that page back when it was "new". It really helped me understand ancient coin rarity as a newbie. Way too many dealers take advantage of US collectors and their penchant for tiny little differences mattering, and the general agreement that rarity of anything in US collecting means high value. Most of us with larger collections I am sure own rare varieties that we don't even know about.
The whole point is that 'rare' is interesting but does not make something valuable unless people who don't know much about coins find the item interesting without knowing or caring if it is rare. EID MAR denarii would be expensive even if they were as common as Tribute Pennies. If the Bible said that Jesus was shown a sestertius, Tiberius denarii would be cheaper than Domitian. Florian is cheap not because he is common but because most postgraduate history students don't know who he was. The example of Licinius II was made. About half of his coins have relatively interesting left facing busts so I can only agree with him as super boring when we consider the other half showing a nobody in a non-interesting way.
I remember visiting this site and reading it for a long time a few months after I started getting into ancients. Just going through it again I see its still updated on some pages!
While all of Warren Esty's pages are worth reading, I'll point out that he has a really great collection of old coin catalogs and his listings point out which ones are necessary for which specialty. For example a great resource of collectors of Septimius Severus is the Spink auction #123 of the Kelly collection. I'm nowhere near as much a catalog collector as Warren is but a numismatic book collection really needs some catalogs. The question is which of the thousands of them fit your interests. Recent sales may be available on acsearch or other online resource but some of the best ones are older than have been digitized. http://esty.ancients.info/catalogs/
Why have the price of coins of Nerva gone up so much? Looking in RSC from 1968, and comparing the to other coins listed in it, and then with the price of them today, that they seem to have jumped in price quite a bit.
Nerva: Short reign, interesting (ugly) guy, needed for short set 'Adoptive Emperors' where others are easier to find, 13th Caesar (if Suetonius had mentioned him the coins would be more expensive) Of the reasons, I think the big nose is probably factor #1.
