My First Ancient Coin Purchase!

I just made my first Ancient Coin purchase (a 2,100 year old Roman coin). A few things really attracted me to this coin. The primary motivating factor for me was I loved the interesting toning/color on both sides -- I have seen few ancient coins with color this nice. I loved the ornate designs on both sides -- the head of mars with the helmet and stars on the obverse -- and the wreath & the galley with oars on the reverse (at first I thought the galley was a bird!). I liked the fact there was writing on both sides; it appears many ancients have little or no writing, or lettering on just one side. I liked the fact it was graded by NGC as I was concerned about buying a counterfeit (with little knowledge, it made me feel better that it was graded and authenticated).

This was information from the seller:
Roman Republic
Q. Lutatius Cerco 109-108 BC
AR Denarius (3.8 gr)
Sear 182
Obverse: Head of Mars wearing crested Corinthian helmet ornamented with stars.
Reverse: Galley right, Q.LVATI/Q; surrounded by oak leaf wreath.

I have so many questions about this:
Was Cerco the ruler of Rome at that time? Is Denarius the denomination? Does anyone know how much that was (roughly)? I am guessing this is a silver coin? No idea what "Sear 182" means! If anyone can translate the other writing on the coin, that would be great! I paid $237.50 on eBay and there were 52 bids (which is a lot of bids). Is there an online price guide for ancient coins? Also there books or web reference sites anyone can recommend?

 

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beautiful you know how they would mint coins at that time they would get a sheet of mettle and get someone really strong to hit it with a hammer that has the coin reversed on it and that would make the coin.

 

Very nice! I always go to wildwinds.com. This is the sear 182 page. Not sure how old their auctions are, but your price seems good. Think your coin is better than what I see there at $200-250.

http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sear5/s0182.t.html

 

Wow this is a big purchase for a first timer. It's a beautiful coin, the price is about retail, shame it's in a slab. Cerco was the moneyer, more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyer#Roman_Republican_moneyers

 

rarecoin, thanks for sharing the "minting" process, i had no idea, wow.

snewman, great link, thanks. that's very helpful. what really sold this coin to me was the great color (toning).

mat, yes the price looks right in line with retail prices. amazing how inexpensive these coins are. funny you say it's a same it's slabbed (how come?) ... actually the slabbing made me feel better about it not being counterfeit. if it wasn't slabbed, i'm not sure I would have bought it. thanks for the weblink on cerco ... i will study that as I want to know more about what i bought.

thanks again for the feedback and input!

 

Nice! Remember, its not how old the coin is, but how much blood was spilled over it, that matters.

Interestingly enough, a lot of Roman coins come from stashes by dead roman soldiers who burried there money before going out into the field, and if they died in battle, hey, they sayed there

Ruevain

 

Well there was alot if monyers. And ancients can be had for $10 and average silvers for $40-$80 depending on the emperor/emperess you pick. Republicans are a earlier era of Rome then imperials like Nero & Constantine. They are also more expensive but have more interesting art to then, like yours. As for slabs, most dedicated ancient collectors detest slab, as do I. We like to hold the history. It's just one of the many areas where "the rules" of coins like u.s has doesnt apply as much.

 

i like the boat, btw

 

Interesting factoid mrbrklyn. So are Roman coins more common that Greek coins? Which civilization has the rarest coins (in general) ... Egyptian?

thanks for explaining the slab comment, mat. now i get it. well i can always crack it out, however I like that it's protected (at least for now!)

 

To answer some of your other questions, "denarius" is the name of the denomination, and it's indeed silver. The exact buying power of the denarius varied over time, like most denominations do. According to Kenneth W. Harl's Coinage in the Roman Economy, the base pay for a legionary was 112.5 denarii during the period of 141 BC to 46 BC, when Julius Caesar doubled it. We don't have that much price inormation, but Harl indicates that it would probably take them about 5 days wage (25 asses) during this period to buy a month's supply of grain. This coin was worth 16 asses, so it was definitely not small change.

"Galley" indeed refers to the boat, and "Sear" is the author of one of the standard references for Roman coins (Roman Coins and Their Values), and the number is the reference number this type of coin was assigned. Unfortunately, he's put out several different editions, so it can be hard to tell which is being referenced sometimes. I'd think that it's the most recent one, but I don't have a way to confirm this.


For guides, ancients in general are more complicated than modern coins. The dies were all hand carved, so there's a huge amount of variation, and different guides will use different standards to determine exactly what makes a coin different. In addition, condition, strike, and style have a lot more variation, making it a bit harder to get firm prices. There are indeed price guides for certain specific areas of ancient coins, but there isn't a guide that covers nearly all of it.

For sites to check out, http://dougsmith.ancients.info/ is one of the best sites to start with, as is http://www.forumancientcoins.com/moonmoth/ancientcoins.html . For attribution, http://wildwinds.com/ is great.

 

If your happy with the slab then keep it in, its up to you. I'd have that sucker out, lol. But I dont blame new ancient collectors liking the safety of the slab, there is alot of fakes but thats in any area in the coin world

As for Roman's more common then greek? Hard to say. There is ALOT of greeks available at all kinds of price ranges. I have more romans then greeks and I own no greek silver but I am only 17 months in collecting ancients so I am not comfortable buying greek silvers due to alot of fakes & they tend to be more expensive then your average silver roman imperial.

I highly suggest you visit http://dougsmith.ancients.info/voc2.html for info on Roman Republic coins, which yours falls into.

And visit the main page for information for beginners of ancients and the various worlds of Ancients one can collect. It's alot to take in but well worth it if your serious, which you may be due to spending so much for a first coin

http://dougsmith.ancients.info/

But congrats again, I would own that in a heartbeat if I had $250 to play with, but I am cheap and like getting more for my $, lol.

 

Very cool coin and beautiful toning!

 

In general, Roman coins are more common than Greek, but there are commons and rares for almost any grouping you make. The most common coins are almost certainly Roman bronzes from the fourth century, particularly the Constantinian dynasty. Egypt really only made immitations of Attic tetradrachms and I think briefly some coins on Persian standards before the Greeks conquered them, at least as far as I know, and those are certainly rare, but not the most expensive coins out there. Coins from Egypt under Greek rule are reasonably common, and under Roman rule, they become very common, particularly tetradrachms from the late third century AD. As for which culture is the rarest, it's hard to say. Plenty of very obscure ancient cultures made coins, and I certainly haven't studied them all. It could very well be some extremely obscure, virtually forgotten society in India or something.

 

In general, it is not close. Rome lasted a lot lot longer than Greece, and over a larger territory except for the Alexander conquest. They also had a central government

 

If I am not mistaken, Carthaginian coinage is pretty darn rare & as Gao already said, a "forgotten society in India".

 

Very cool ancient!

 

Although I understand and even agree somewhat with this opinion, I also appreciate an "expert" who renders his opinion that this coin is authentic.

Although I don't need to have a coin slabbed, I appreciate buying from reputable sites where I know the coin is thought to be authentic.

As you know, buying from Ebay from an unknown seller can be fraught with dangers.

About $200 is my threshold to depend on my own amateur opinion on any coin's authenticity.

Despite buying this coin on E-bay, the buyer can have confidence that at least NGC-Ancients' expert David Vagi feels that this coin is authentic.

For non-coin collectors (like me) or novice numismatists, having some authentication is always comforting.

Of course, experts might find authentication unnecessary and slabbing close to heresy.


guy

 

Great info gao! when you say base pay was 112 denari ... what time period was that for (a week, a month, a year ?)

So 2 of these coins could buy a months supply of grain. Hmmm, how much would a months worth of wheat, rice, oats cost today? Perhaps that's around $40 in today's prices? (maybe?) ... So I think based on that, this coin might be have a denomination of about $20 using today's valuation of the dollar. So this might be like a $20 coin of it's day?

So base pay of 112 denari might be around $2200 (I am thinking that's an annual salary). That would convert to $183 a month or $45 a week in salary. That's around 2 denari a week in salary.

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Well said Bart9349. My feelings exactly. Being new to this, I wanted to reduce my chances of buying a fake.

Thanks, wooleytree, randy, and mat!
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While books like Harl are great for developing a feel for spending power of coins we have to recognize that Rome was subject to the same pressures as modern times. When I was a new collector the US minimum wage was less than 1/5 what it is today. Back then we might consider $8 as a fair equivalent but I thing $40 is closer today when more people make $8 and hour than a day.

Your coin is well worth the price paid in most markets but several of us (myself included) would not have paid that much for it on eBay. Some of us agree with the theory that slabs are safer but I find those white tabs that hold the coins in place repulsive and whould not own a coin in such a coffin. That doesn't mean you shouldn't. I respect David Vagi's opinion but won't pay for it and was not a bidder on this coin even though I do not have one of the exact type (but would like to!). There is a lot of room for opinion in ancient coin collecting. Watch this space for examples of what the rest of us buy. One of my recent posts showed three Republican denarii I got at a coin show which happened to sell for about the same total as your one coin. You may be able to sell your nice slabbed one for more but I have three times the fun with my three. That is why I am happy that there are so many options available to us.
http://www.cointalk.com/t182078/

Post more as you get coins or questions. It is a friendly group even if we don't all agree on everything.