Preparing to collect

I maintain a bucket list that has photos of coins I would like to get someday. They are mostly artistic Greek coins. I am lucky to find 1 or 2 a year from my bucket list that I can afford and are decent quality. When I find something new that I like I save the photos to my bucket list.

 

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My goal is to as comprehensively as possible collect the mainline Roman Republic coinage, with a secondary goal of adding interesting provincial, colonial and imitative issues along the way. Given that, Crawford is sort of my base checklist with a goal of collecting one of each type identified(which of course I will never completely be able to do).

Crawford was published in 1974 though, so newer work has added new issues like the various categories of anonymous bronzes and subgroups to the early victoriati, denarii, etc and Russo, Witschonke and others have published even new signed issues or new denominations for existing issues or in some cases have proven that coins that Crawford considered false or altered and rejected should instead be considered authentic, so to this base list many others are added. Right now I only have an actual checklist for the early issues up to about 150 BC or so(and I know I'm still missing a few issues) which came into being because I was making a digital photo file to make it easier for me to find examples and I realized that first I needed to sit down and make a list of all the different issues that have been added since Crawford.

 

I'd really enjoy collecting this list at some point. Daunting as it is, I think it'd be endless fun. Have you begun to (or been tempted to) specialise in any particular province or city?

Btw, do you know how complete that list is? Just at a quick glance it looks like a number of nomes are missing from the Egypt section.

 

The more common provinces were first to complete. For Moesia Inferior, Pamphylia and Aeolis I have at least one example from each Roman mint city. At some point I started to focus on certain provinces. Out of 24 cities in Thrace I still need 2 more to finish, Nicopolis ad Nestum and Elaeus. Macedon has 11 cities, I need 1, Heracleia Sintica. For the rarer provinces like the Cyclades or Byzacene, there is always hope.

No, if anyone knows of one please post it. RPC is how many books? You are right about the nomes. I don't think this could ever be a complete list. Border cities, take Parlais for example, depending on the date was either in Lycaonia or Pisidia.

 

I don't really have a mental, physical, or digital organized list of all of the coins I want, but I do have a small mental list of my most wanted rulers. Some that come to mind are Julius Nepos, Romulus Augustus, Charlemagne, Priscus Attalus, Anthemius, Constantine III, Constantius III, Maximus of Spain, and Sebastianus. I also want a papal monogram siliqua. But my #1 is a monogram coin of Odoacer, first king of post-Roman Italy:


I'm sure it won't be this nice, this one is just to show the details clearly. When I do get one it will be more like as shown:



And I'm perfectly ok with that! I just want Odoacer so bad...

I know a couple of guys on here that do have him and other awesome rare late Roman coins, so they are more than welcome to adopt me, become the Caesar to their Augustus

 

@ValiantKnight, long ago, when paper catalogs delivered in the mail were the way people got to see fixed-price coins, I got an Empire catalog with an Odovacar AE4 for $125 (Empire list 25, July 1985, lot J201, in "F"; I still have the catalog). I called immediately to order it and Dennis (the dealer) told me it was gone already and I was about the twentieth caller requesting it. I could tell he was irritated with himself for pricing it too low and having to answer so many fruitless phone calls. At the time I lived in Montana and got mail after noon. He mailed catalogs from Florida. I thought the east-coast buyers had a head start of a day, or at least a few hours, on anything that came in the mail. If it was special and underpriced, it was always gone. Now, the internet has evened things out. Electrons reach the west coast just about as soon as they do the east coast!

 

Great post, Valentinian!

I obtained most of my Judaean collection using the:
Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum: The Collection of the
American Numismatic Society, Pt. 6 : Palestine-South Arabia
By Yaakov Meshorer

I used the book as an I want one of those catalog.

 

Reading this thread, I've realized that even though I'm generally conservative, I collect like a hippie. Not only do I not have lists of what I want, I don't even know exactly what I have. If it's pretty or historically interesting and I can afford it, I'll buy it. When I read a fascinating post here it motivates me to find an example of whatever coin was discussed.

 

A must-have volume if you're interested in Levantine coins, and one of the cheapest numismatic catalogs you can get. They overprinted this volume, God only knows why. Did they think thousands and thousands of people would actually be interested in such an erudite pursuit? Number one on the New York Times Best Seller List: SNG 6!!

Edit: Actually, a lot of collectors are indeed interested in these coins, particularly collectors of Judaean and Biblical cities, but still, they way overprinted these.

 

- Fun. Period.

- Historical approach, rarely do I get excited with numismatic technicalites - however, I appreciate the information and the collectability appeal for specialists!

- Generally BCE... CE is too "young"

- Roman Republic
- Litrae
- Didrachmae
- Denarii
- Aes Grave
- AR sestertii

- Quinarii

- Etruria

- Carthage

- Capua during Hannibal's Occupation

- Samnium

- Diadochi

- Marsic Confederation

- Historical figures / junctures

- China

- Carpe Diem, hey, @AncientJoe is right... this is what makes the Hobby FUN!

- Roman Rulers (not a true focus, but now have 142 of them)

- Scarabs ( @TIF is vacuuming up all the cool Egypt coins, so I go after the dregs and get scarabs. )

- Other.

 

I prefer to look at the above in the opposite way. When I see a coin I like and can afford, I don't let the fact it was not on my list stop me.

My Want List:
1. Coins that speak to me more than they do to most people.
2. Coins I (or most people) never before knew existed.
3. Coins I can reasonably figure I may not see again 'this life'.
4. Coins I know I will regret not buying before I get home from the show or before the sale closes.
5. Coins that have merit but few 'normal' people want but only if I think I know why and disagree.
6. Coins I feel are worth the cost when it means I don't buy something else.

Few coins make all six list criteria. Coins missing point #1 have little chance. Sometimes I'm wrong and a #3 has to be purchased again because I can't admit I was so wrong.

Curtis Clay has said that collectors collect to have things their friends don't/can't have. I think he may be right in many cases but we need to avoid buying things that those friends would not even want to see or the point is lost.

 

"Arousing envy", are the words he used to describe his personal motivation. I read this some years ago and really appreciated the honesty. Also to his credit, he mentioned two other equally worthy collecting motivations - stimulating studies, and finding bargains .

 

Has the coin surfaced since 1985? It would be interesting to see what it would fetch today.

 

I have not seen it, and I pay some attention, but there are too many sale venues to be able to be confident it has not surfaced. It is my impression that very few Odovacar AE4s are offered. It was as good as this CNG coin:
https://cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=140703
($2600 plus fees)

This next one has a much better obverse, but a worse reverse because it is off-center:
https://cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=273294
($2000 plus fees)

Most $125 coins from fixed-price catalogs from 1985 could be bought today for not more than twice that amount. Whoever got the Odovacar got a very good deal!

 

True.
It is a large folio volume that takes a tall shelf, but has very good photographic coverage of coins of the region. I liked it so much that I bought several extra copies!

 

What are you preparing for? You're always preparing, just go!



Sorry...

 

Preparing to collecT
Keep on going Succes