As I view coins for sale on sites, I often see the words "scarce" or "rare" at the end of the listing. Yet the price doesn't reflect what I would consider a price would be for a rare coin. What determines the description of "rare" ? How is it known that a particular ancient coin is scarce ? And if it's because it is rarely listed or seen for sale, Why isn't it priced as a rare U.S. coin would be that has a low mintage ? Thanks ! (still trying to learn).
Rare is a relative term. I've seen sellers describing Gordian III silver as "rare". Is it rare compared to the large surviving populations of US 19th and 20th century coins? Sure... but definitely not rare by ancient coins standards. I wouldn't call a type of ancient coin rare unless there were less than 100 known examples. Scarce would be suitable for less than 500 known examples. Anything more would be common. But keep in mind that even rare ancient coins may not be worth a lot if there's not much of a market for them. There are some fairly common ancient coins that come in high prices because the ruler depicted on them is one that is in high demand, while other fairly rare coins don't comand very high prices because they are from some obscure Empire or ruler that not a lot of people are interested in collecting. Another thing to consider is that the market for ancient coins it's much smaller than for modern coins. Just look at how many people at Cointalk collect modern US and world coins compared to ancient coins.
Rarity in ancient coins is meaningless UNLESS it's associated with high demand (for example, rare coins in a widely collected series like the portrait series of rulers). Everybody on eBay says their coins are rare. So what? Even if true, it's unimportant unless they're selling Romulus Augustus or a Colosseum sestertius or some other rare coin that everybody wants. You probably want to avoid sellers who claim their coins are rare (unless they can tell you why the rarity of their coin is important) - it's the mark of an amateur who doesn't know what they're selling.
I recommend reading this page by our own @Valentinian, which covers the topic of rarity very well: http://esty.ancients.info/numis/rarity.html
The market is different for US versus ancients. Several people want to collect every single date and mint mark in the Morgan silver dollar series but few for instance want to collect one of each denomination for each moneyer in the Republican bronze series like I do(the number is probably less than 10 and I know most of them), so I have bought multiple coins with less than 20 published examples either in sales or major museums for less than the cost of a single slabbed common date MS Morgan. On the other hand, some coins like Eid Mar denarii and Athenian dekadrachms always fetch extremely high prices because they're both rare and interesting to just about every collector out there, so the market is huge.
Yes, I go back and reread this every few years. This, along with Frank Robinson's book on coin collecting, is some of my most enjoyable numismatic reading. OP, there are so many different types of ancient coins, that there are simply TONS of scarce and rare coins you can own if you research and pay attention. I spent almost a decade finding one particular one I wanted, and people only call it "scarce". If you are the only one who wants the coin, you can get a rare coin cheap in ancients. However, if two of you really want it, it can send the price through the roof. A friend collects Thasos bronzes, (maybe the most complete in the world), and when one he did not have came for sale he HAD to have it. Unfortunately someone else HAD to have it, and he had to pay $600 for a little off centered bronze I would not have picked out of a $20 pick bin. So rarity cuts both ways.
There are way too many ancient coins for anyone to collect them all so people tend to define what it is that makes a coin rare and desirable in their own terms rather than using some agreed upon list like 'Red Book'. To many, any coin of a certain ruler is the same as any other since they only want one coin per ruler. Therefore some rulers are 'rare' and others are 'common'. Specialists recognize rare types from common rulers (or Greek cities) and will pay more for those types. Really deeply into it specialists see minute differences in some of those rare types and may pay more but they are few enough in numbers that the effect on the overall market is relatively small. I like 'rare' coins in the areas I collect but care little about rarities in areas I don't study to any great degree. Enough people work this way that rarity means something only when all parties agree on a definition of the term. Example: Philip I is a very common emperor. He has rare and common types. He has popular and boring types. He has scarce and common mints. If you want one coin or a complete set of Philip's issues, you will differ on which of the coins below is most desirable. I wonder how many different opinions those reading this would have on which is the rare one. Is the rare one the most desirable? Would it sell for more than the others? How many out of a thousand collectors would agree with your answers? How would the answers to these questions be different if the coins were US cents?
After reading the above page and the great points made in all of your responses, It just fans the flames of collecting ancients for me. I'm learning a lot from this Forum. Thank you.
Some great posts here, and since we're on scarce, I'll post one of my recent purchases. This is not rare, just hard to come by, and sometimes very affordable.
Yay! The dancing chicken. I couldn't help myself Aiden. Really, I love your coin, but it makes me smile every time I see it.
Also some coins can be common but rare or scarce in high grades. In this case its almost like US modern coins. Take for instance the coins from Nabataea, now I don't know how rare or scarce these coins are in high grade. But so far I have not seen much, most of these are in really low grades.
It looks like the dancing chicken until you see the wreath as a separate item with the legs of the eagle holding on from behind and the wreath ties as what they are rather than chicken feet. I suspect this looks a lot more like a wreath on a mint state coin.
When it comes to Romans many dealers use Roman Imperial Coinage also known as RIC. These volumes of books are widely used by collectors and attempt to categorize rarity on a scale from R5, R4.......S to C. R5 being unique, S being scarce, and C being common. Each Volume 1 to 10 has a slightly different rarity scale. The problem with these books is that some volumes are nearly 90+ years old since being first published and these scales don't accurately represent today's market. Even though the scale should only be used as a guide, the books themselves are great references.
wow ... way to take the fun out of it, my friend just jokes, mentor ... => as always, you're correct (I didn't see it until you pointed it out)
