Over the past week or so I have spent an incredible amount of time(mostly enjoyable) trying to classify some ancient coins for a co-worker. The help I received here from everyone was outstanding :bow: to say the least. Now I think I have the bug, and much to my pleasure my wife who thinks it is ridiculous to have an entire album of all the same looking coins has shown an interest in ancients, only problem :headbang: is I have no idea where to start. I have previously limited myself to American coinage and have diligently researched and studied each coin type prior to making any purchases. I like to say at work that I know more about lincoln cent varieties(still a novice) than most people know about their lives. I am not sure I would still be breathing by the time I had studied enough to feel confident buying the coins. I am not looking for short cuts to knowledge, but would like some advice on where to start, maybe some experiances of when you guys first started collecting ancients. I think I would like to start with the Byzantine empire but am open to sugestions if there is an easier starting point. Help please. As my signature says I work in Quality assurance and can be easily distracted by minute details.
Where to start? I'm prejudiced. I'd start with this page and the 6 that link from it giving what I considered to be a primer in ancient coins: http://dougsmith.ancients.info/voc.html I called this series 'Vocabulary' and included bold faced words along the way that I believe you need to understand before you get comfortable in ancient numismatics. If you still have interest in the subject after reading (understanding???) those pages, I'd be happy for you to read any of my 100+ other pages which I posted between 1997 and 2003 before I wore out and decided there were plenty of other places online for beginners to go. This was not the case in 1997 so that's why I started the series. I spend very little time telling you what to collect. There are thousands of options when it comes to specialities and there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying a little bit of this and a little bit of that as the mood strikes you. My favorite answer for what I collect is 'coins I like at prices I can afford'. That brings up the matter of money. Ancient coins 'worth owning' sell for roughly $5 to $500,000. There are many very nice ones in the $50 to $500 range. Above that, I really believe you need first to get some experience even if you have the checkbook of Bill Gates. You need to learn where and from whom to buy what you want and never buy something because you think you should unless you also can say you like that coin. Someone will tell you to buy the book before the coin. I'm OK with that and have about 30 feet of bookshelf space devoted to coin references and have spent several hundred dollars on books this year even though I have been doing this for decades. If I were you, however, I'd start by digesting all the free stuff available online. Where to go depends on what you decide to collect. One 'given' is that you should join and read forums online like Coin Talk and Forvm Ancient Coins discussions (like Coin Talk but nothing on modern coins). There are Yahoo lists on general collecting and for speciality interests. I just found a posting online that lists and transliterates everything I wanted to know about ancient Indian coin legends. You may not be into learning Devanagari yet but its out there just in case. You mentioned Byzantine. I barely collect Byzantine but still have a couple dozen or so that appealed to me over the years. Others here will tell you what they collect. I do suggest picking something in your price bracket. If you can spend $500 to $5000 per coin, you may be interested in Greek tetradrachms. Over that you can collect dekadrachms. Under that, you can play with the rest of us who can only afford bronzes and minor silver. Most beginners start with Romans. I did. Many start with Late Romans because they are cheaper. I started long enough ago that most people began with silver denarii of the earlier period so I know more about the third century than the fourth. Figure out where your interests and checkbook overlap. Feel blessed to have a wife that can understand the appeal. I agree with her about the business of filling a set different only by dates and flyspecks. There are flyspeck collectors in ancients and even a few coins that can be collected by date series. I wish you the best in finding a part of the hobby that fits you best. Whatever it is, don't be afraid to ask for opinions here. We all share opinions (not always in agreement).
Doug Thanks for the great advice and the great links, I see I will be spending the next several weeks filling my brain with facts and figuring out how I want to collect. Being in the military and having 3 children entering college in the next 4 years I am definately going to be playing in the little sand box. Kie
Let me state that Doug's site is one of the most, if not the most, respected site for education on Ancients found on the web. hya: This site is lucky to have his contributions. I also find Bill Welch's site helpful for us novices and non-collectors: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/moonmoth/ancientcoins.html Many nice pieces of numismatic history can be purchased for a surprisingly low amount. Slabbing of Ancients is frowned upon by many, if not most, Ancient aficianados. Since Ancients are usually cleaned, many concepts associated with grading modern coins are not valid. Also, there is powerful experience actually holding in one's hand a coin that is two thousand years old. Finally, although David Vagi at NGC-Ancients does a great job of authenticating and attributing coins, there is no guarantee, unlike with modern coins. Plus, there is a sense that if Ancients were regularly slabbed, there would be a risk of Ancient coins becoming more of a commodity to be flipped and traded as opposed to remaining an object of a deep and heartfelt passion to be studied and treasured. These are all good arguments against slabbing Ancients and I can agree with them all. [Unlike Doug and many others, however, I feel that if I were to buy a more expensive coin (especially with my limited background and experience), I would want the coin authenticated by someone.] Here's an interesting coin and it's associated controversy: http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?search=Brutus+EID+MAR&view_mode=1#1 Here's the controversial paragraph of the catalogue description: This exceptional gold issue has been reason for many heated discussions among prestigious experts. In particular professor Crawford decided not to include this coin in his "Roman Republican Coinage". The reasons for this are explained by professor Crawford in appendix, p. 552, n. 107. He considered the coin to be a forgery, even though he had only seen a picture of it, as he was not convinced of the existence of this issue and of the theories adopted by professor H. Cahn in the article where this coin was published for the fist time in 1953. He also considered the coin to be suspicious in its self. As further backing of his own opinion, Crawford gave news of a further three specimens regarded as false, he also informed of a cast of this specimen at the ANS with a label reading: Forgery - Athens Despite this controversy, the coin was deemed authentic by the catalogue and sold for more than $92,000 (to a museum, I believe). We have discussed before on this site the difficulties of authenticating some Ancient coins and how even the most respected experts can disagree. Just use your common sense and you will be fine. Others on this site will direct you to trustworthy sources for Ancient coins (and which ones to avoid). My final piece of advice: Learn the history behind the coins and it will become a lifelong and rewarding study. guy
So what exactly are you looking for out of this? History? Artistic merit? A wide variety of coins from a wide variety of places and times? Or do you just want to feel it out a bit and grab whatever suits your fancy at the moment? Since you mentioned Byzantine coins, you might want to pick up this intro book for Byzantine coins. If you get interested enough to go into them further, the standard reference is Byzantine Coins and Their Values by David R. Sear. If you want a little history about the empire, you might want to check out Procopius' Secret History. It was an unpublished work written by Procopius about all the things he wanted to say about the emperor Justinian but couldn't say in public. It contains some pretty interesting and crazy stuff. Another work, if you don't mind getting rather medieval, is the Chronographia of Michael Psellus, which is a very well written work about the emperors of the 10th and 11th centuries. Edit: I also want to make sure you keep in mind that the Greeks and Romans/Byzantines weren't the only guys making coins in the ancient world. You can find some really great stuff from the Parthians and Sassanids as well as many others.
Guy Thanks for the cool websites to peruse and the sage advice Gao To answer your questions yes, yes, yes, and yes. I guess what I am really looking for is the history behind the coins, I have always loved ancient history( not a history buff yet) and believe if we do not learn from history we are doomed to repeat their mistakes. I will be ordering the sugested reading tonight, not sure how I picked the Byzantines, always felt some kind of draw toward them. It's eerie in a nice kind of way.
I like the Ancient coin collecting books by Wayne G. Sayles, they are pretty inexspensive and good introduory books. I think bargin bins are great places to start.
I made the mistake of avoiding things not in Greek or Latin for the first part of my collecting career. There are some wild places out there not to be missed!
A great site for mostly Ancient Roman history is: http://www.unrv.com/ Although this is a non-numismatic site, many respected authors and scholars participate at this site. The site is open to anyone with an interest in Ancient Roman history, including rank amateurs like me. Check out the Forum section. There is a wide range of topics discussed ranging from military subjects to religion in the Ancient world to more mundane matters of daily living. There is really no interest in numismatic issues at that site, however. Nevertheless, the site is a great place to pursue one's interest in Ancient history. guy
While there are always better histories if you seek them out, one quick trick is to use a search engine (Google or other) and type in the ruler's name followed by wiki. This should produce the Wikipedia article on the person. Some are much better than others but it is an easy place to start.
Everyone starts ancients a little differently. I'd read the first Sayles book and found it confusing and disorganized. But I was "loaned" an old copy of "Roman Coins and their Values" by Sear, read the whole thing, and was hooked.
Guy Excellent website I could be lost in there for weeks. All great data and ideas, I like the history aspect and I like to hold the artifacts and wonder what they have been through, who has used them. While shields and swords etc seem more romantic and daring coins seem to fit my budget best and tell a more intriguing story in the long run.
The history aspect, (and a metal detecting find), is what got me into collecting ancients around 1990. I had always admired and had been interested by Roman civilization, specially as it affected the area of germany I live in. One day, whilst out walking with my wife in a field, I found a roman sestertius of Marcus Aurelius, together with a large corroded nail. This find brought made face to face with the distant past, not as something abstract, but as something real. That old nail could have been dropped by a roman merchant, tradesman, or maybe even a legionary, 2000 years before, along that same path we were walking on. From that day on my interest was piqued. I could therefore suggest that a good starting would be to focus on a period of history you are particularly interested in, or, a civilization or culture which captivates you the most. That provides a great combination for building a satisfyting and rewarding coin collection.
