Thinking of getting a nice pre made set of ancients just to have. Apmex has numerous amounts of them https://www.apmex.com/category/29930/ancient-medieval-sets Are these a good purchase? What should I know before purchasing one? All help appreciated!!!!
I think you'd be better off (happier) if you used these as inspiration and went and found coins that had the appropriate appeal in your eyes and buy those until you create your set. With these pre-made sets, you have no real idea what each individual coin will look like, and some coins might be the same type, but have differing aethetics.
They are expensive. The photos do not show you the actual coins you are buying. It is much more fun to hunt down individual coins and a lot cheaper.
Just briefly looking at those it seems you're paying for an expensive wooden box with average coins in it.
Nooo!!! Nothing against APMEX generally, or fancy packaging, but steer clear of preassembled, fancyfied sets like that. They're marketed to the general (uninformed) public. It's the sort of thing put together for TV promotions. The coins may be acceptable, but they'll almost certainly be common pieces in very generic, average condition. And grossly overpriced, even after you take take the fancy box into account. You could buy nicer coins individually, learn a bit about them in the process, buy your own fancy box or album, and spend a fraction of the price. I would imagine that if you got together with folks like @Ken Dorney on the coins and @Deacon Ray on the packaging and presentation, you could put together a nicer set for much less money.
Their "The Vikings" set doesn't even include a Viking coin! Not that it could, for that kind of money. Weird how it has a Roman rather than Byzantine coin in it.
Hi @CoinBlazer Great to have you onboard the Ancients Forum. I can't blame you for being impressed with the APMEX boxed sets. They really seem like a good deal to a beginner ancients collector. The packaging is really nice looking but that's as far as it goes. I bought several of them many years ago when I was just beginning to collect ancient coins. I'll tell it to you like it is though—the coins in these sets are not good quality. Yes—they're authentic but they're low grade, overpriced, over-cleaned, and many of them have been whizzed. Follow @lordmarcovan 's advice and put together your own custom set of ancient coins purchased from trustworthy dealers. Some of the most reputable dealers are members of this forum. I'll send you a list of my favorites.
@CoinBlazer here are the sets that I purchased when I was new to ancient coin collecting. I gave most of these sets away to members of my church. These folks were very appreciative but none of them are serious coin collectors and they were more impressed with the Biblical history connection than with the numismatic quality. I will say something positive about these sets however. Aside from making nice gifts to non-collectors they did spark my interest in ancient coin collecting.
@Deacon Ray - I thought you also made some packaging like that for some sets you gave away? Well, we owe APMEX a debt of gratitude for indirectly steering you this way. I don't think there's anything wrong with giving or receiving these sort of sets as a gift, and if it sparks someone's interest, so much the better. The only problem with that is that somebody will end up wasting money. Nice gift. Poor investment.
Yes, @lordmarcovan , I made a couple of eclectic gift sets. Here's one that shows some how-to images using a Lighthouse™ presentation box.
You can do it. You don't need any expensive equipment. I do everything using my laptop and my HP inkjet printer. Here's my Vespasian Denarii and my Indo-Scythian displays. I made these for a glass display case that I set up at my church.
Yes!!! See? I told you Deacon Ray was The Man when it comes to graphic design and presentation! You'll have much more fun assembling your own set with the help of the folks here, and you'll learn a whole lot more, and be able to hand-pick the coins you like, and probably still come out cheaper, with something you can truly be proud of putting together, instead of paying too much for something, looking at it a few times, losing interest, and setting it aside. Build your own. You won't regret it.