The local owner is not knowledgeable on Ancients. He grumbled about me taking photos of them. But the prices were or seem high to me. They were running from 100 to 300 dollars. I don't think any of these are really worth that. Sorry for the bad photos it was the best I could do with the grump. He had had purchased a group of coins from a seller and these were among them.
At first glance - skimmed - I recognize a lot of ordinary ancient coins. No treasures at first glance - but it's hard to tell with this “quality” of images. I would now have to try to identify every single coin, determine it and then look for the value. But I'll be honest - I don't feel like identifying all the coins for you and then finding out the value. You can try this yourself with the help of ACSEARCH. The great thing is - you will learn a lot about ancient coins. Determining them yourself is the best way to learn and get to know the value. And, in my opinion, determining the value yourself is also an essential part of collecting. And last but not least - many of the pictures are so dark that you can hardly recognize anything - or the light from above is too blinding. You can't even make out anything on many coins.
There is certainly a lot to learn through them. Just enjoy identifying them. Recently I bought a lot of 30 Roman Provinical bronze issues for $700 and I am really enjoying researching them
I ran some of the photos in photoshop to brighten them up and the silver coins are decent, but the majority of the bronzes are in low-value condition and many of the others are common as dirt. So if the dealer is asking $100-$300, each, run, is not worth haggling. If it was $300 for the whole lot, then it's more than worth it.
I did a search on Vcoins and I could buy the same coin for 40 to 75 usd. Roman coins do not sell well in a small town coin shop. I don't know if he over paid but I will go back in 6 months or so to see if he has reduced the price.
The "Domitianus sestertius" is actually Hadrian. I noticed Carus, Postumus, Tetricus, Constantine I and II, Delmatius, Septimius Severus, Vespasian, Philip I, Severus Alexander etc.. like others have said, primarily common coins. The antoninianii and folles would probably sell for around $30-40 or so on EBay in that grade (there was just a Carus that went for around that yesterday); the denarii are probably in the $65-80 range. I'm not sure about the sestertii. A bit short of the range you were stating that the dealer wanted to sell them for.
Sure, they are fairly common; I just enjoy very much checking the attribution and learning about ancient times ( something that was fairly superficially taught in school) through them. This is the lot:
Regardless of the assuredly low amount he paid for them, he is afraid he will sell a good one for less than it is worth. Those who know little about ancients won't pay much for them (they fear they might pay too much) and won't sell them at prices experts would pay (they fear they are asking too little.) With an ignorant seller, like your local US-coin dealer, there is almost no way to win. My local dealer rarely gets ancients, but when he does it is from an estate with US coins which he bought for the US coins (usually from an executor who knows nothing about coins) and the ancients were counted in as no extra value. Anything I offer for an ancient is his profit. If you want the whole batch you might tell him you think they won't sell and you are willing to wait. Ask him to please contact you down the road when he is ready to wholesale them out. It is highly likely he will, in a few months, be wishing they were gone and wholesale them out to another dealer, maybe at a coin show. The price any dealer would pay is likely to seem very low to you. You might be able to say you will beat any bone fide dealer's offer. Or, if you only want a few, let him know you are likely to be able to beat another offer on those. Sometimes dealers sell to other dealers anyway (even for less) for the good will. Dealers deal with other dealers more often than they deal with you and the other dealer can return the favor later. It must be hard to have so many ancients coins in a local store without and easy way to pick from them at good prices. I have never had that problem in the last 40 years! Fortunately, the internet is close at hand.
