Ancient Identifications Help Pt. 1

Hello,

Recently I was contacted by a friend who has inherited some ancient coins from his father who just passed. He asked me if I could try to put a name and value on them, but I know as much about ancient coins as I do quantum physics, so I am posting these here in hopes that some one knowledgeable in this area might be of assistance. Unfortunately, we don't have weight or diameter for any of them, but I can give an approximate size if needed.

There are a good number of them, so please excuse me if I am breaking the rules by posting multiple coins in one post. If necessary, and permissible, I will break them up into smaller groups.

Without further delay, here are the coins and thank you to anyone who might come along and help!

1.







2.







3.







4.







5.







6.







7.







8.







9.







10.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

These are my quick impressions, any additions or corrections are welcome. Most of your coins are Roman Empire unless noted otherwise.

1. Ptolemaic Egypt, one of the many kings named Ptolemy (c. 300 BC- 40 BC).
2. don't know, possibly Phoenicia? (if you rotate the reverse 90 degrees it kind of resembles Phoenician boat on waves)
3. Byzantine empire, anonymous coinage c. 1000 AD
4 and 5. late Roman bronze, 4th century AD
6. Probus (276-282) Roman Egypt, tetradrachm, dated Year 5
7. obverse seems to list Maximianus as Caesar, but I thought all his coinage was as Augustus only? (name clearly has "Maximianus" rather than "Maximinus" who did issue coins as Caesar)
8. Phillip I (244- 249)
9. Caracalla (198-217)
10. Constantine I (the Great) (307-337), early in his reign

 

You will get a much better result by posting separately. I will say these look, by-in-large to be decent to nice coins. It's difficult to keep going back to look when one is trying to attribute. But I'll try

1. Ptolemy (Egyptian), 2-300 BC (I can't make out which Ptolmy, but it's in good condition. What is the size and weight?
2. Phoencian (not sure)
3. Byzantine
4/5 Late Roman Bronzes (LRB)
6. Probus
7. Maximianus
8. Philip I
9. Caracalla
10. Constantine I

As far as value, you may want to look up sales results at a site like CNG

Edit: I see @Parthicus beat me to it.

 

The man who served as Caesar and adopted the name was better known as Galerius. His later coins often included GAL in the legend but some bore your legend and that confuses too many people. Maximianus issued no coins as Caesar so any CAES coin will be Galerius. As Parthicus pointed out, there was another man with one letter difference who we call Maximinus II (no A) recognizing there was a much earlier emperor also spelled that way. The unusual part of your post is that the coins all appear to be genuine. I don't give prices but will go so far as to say none will make you rich. The best is #1 but a weight and diameter would be needed to even come close to a price.

 

I knew that.

 

Am I to take it that it's rare to have authentic ancients? Also, these are not for sale, just doing a favor for a friend who would like his father's old coins identified and valued. Then he can decide if he'd like to sell.

Thank you to all who helped!

PS - Any help on Pt. 2 would be appreciated as well!

 

No, it's not rare. Many non collectors of Ancient coins have a misguided belief that Ancients in general are rare. They are not. Millions upon millions were struck for the Roman Empire, somewhat less for Roman Republic and Greek coins. Don't get me wrong, there are rare issues that can set you back many thousands of dollars. None of the coins you posted, however, are in that category. Your friend's father had some nice coins, but none of these are rare. Many of these you can find for sale on Ancient seller's web pages, such as Vcoins and CNG, for much less than what you might think. Tell your friend to keep the coins. He's not going to get rich selling them. They are highly collectible and would sell, but he wouldn't make much. Keeping them he has a memento of his father, and perhaps he might find an interest in collecting these wonderful pieces of history.

 

Thanks again, Bing! I don't know much at all about ancients compared to most, but all I know is that most aren't very valuable. I knew this coming into the post and wasn't expecting any gems, I was just wondering why it was unusual that these were all authentic considering that very fact that most of them aren't particularly valuable.

 

Usually when non ancient collectors post coins they have bought or gotten somehow they are almost always fakes. That is why we are surprised to see a non collector with so many nice and authentic coins. There is a major industry overseas in making fake ancient coins to sell to tourists and novices and has been for decades.

Those are nice coins worth in the $25-$100 range. The Ptolemy looks the most valuable to me (if it is a bigger one, like 40mm diameter).

There are ancient coins worth thousands to hundreds of thousands but they tend to be more rare and have been known to be valuable for the last say 100 years so they don't tend to turn up randomly unless they have been buried in the ground for 2000 years.

John

 

If YOU have any interest in the hobby, but have no idea where to begin, might I suggest putting your name in the hat for a handful have nice Ancients at https://www.cointalk.com/threads/free-coin-friday.289465/

 

To elaborate a bit more on value: for most ancient coins, condition and/or historical significance has a greater influence on value than scarcity. Unlike modern coins, all ancient coin dies were hand cut, so each die is unique. There are all kinds of minor variations in coins--sometimes a deity is facing right and holding a short sword, sometimes facing left and holding a spear. Plus, many coins have control marks or mint marks, so there may be literally dozens, even hundreds of minor variations that, while of interest to a specialist collector, might not have any impact on market price. (Here's just one example from Victor Clark's web site: http://www.constantinethegreatcoins.com/asstVLLP/)

So when someone says a coin is valuable because of its scarcity, it's usually because it depicts an emperor who reigned for a very brief time, or from a city that did not mint many coins, or perhaps a particularly scarce and valuable denomination, like as decadrachm.

 

Examples of Philip II with reverse variations

 

Theodosius handled this well but I'll just agree. Most ancients offered are genuine but most fakes seem to find their way to people who don't know anything about coins and got some coins from a relative or came home with them from vacation. They are the people who usually write in and ask this question. I hope your friend decides to keep the coins and get interested in the hobby but, if not, selling the group should be no problem. How much they sell for depends on many factors and whether he wants to sell all together or write up each and seek separate homes.

 

#4 is a billon reduced Centenionalis (denomination) of Helena, mother of Constantine I (the Great), issued by his sons to commemorate their deceased grandmother. The Obverse reads FL IVL HELENAE AVG; the reverse reads PAX PVBLICA, and portrays Pax (peace) standing left, holding an olive branch and scepter. I'm unable to read the mint mark in the exergue.

 

Thanks, Doug, that makes sense. As far as I know, he has no plans to sell them. However, he doesn't really plan on entering the hobby either, he must wanted to know what they were and if any might, by an off chance, be valuable.

 

By the way, the figure on the obverse of #3 is Jesus.

 

#1 Ptolemy II or III I would guess
#2 Arados Phoenician Dagon or king head right galley on 2 lines waves later 4th c BC
#3 anonymous byzantine follis 1000-1100 ad
#4 later roman (see above)
#5 Valentinian dynast probably the weakest of the group
#6 Probus like the guys said above
our friend bings answer looks good for rest
as far as value that is subjective take the information and go from there!
the arados coin I would ask 85$ and hope to get something in that range
hope Ive been a help and also I dont see any as being fakes from what I see in the pictures at least. Enjoy

 

If this were the case and he were my friend, I would suggest selling #1 from this thread and #11 from the other because their value outclasses the others and probably would not be appreciated by him more than the others. Neither is an exceptional example but the types are always in demand. I guarantee there are people on this list who would like to have them at a fair price. The exceptional example of the bunch is #6 which is just a lot prettier than that common type usually comes. It is not worth a lot of money compared to the other two but it is not a beginner coin either. MarcosX is right about the Phoenician #2 but there are nicer ones which would be preferred by most people who could appreciate the coin.

 

Truth is they are cool but you wouldn't get a $100 for all of them put together or sold separate.

 

I would disagree