The coins were issued by the millions for hundreds of years. Often they were hidden by the owner & then the owner may have died suddenly leaving them to be unearthed later. I've heard that it was common to bury your coins before you entered a city because you never knew if you might be robbed when you entered. Just this last year there was a huge vessel found by a metal detectorist in the UK in a farmer's field. It was buried just below the level that would have been hit (discovered) by the farmer when working the field. There are lots of good stories about ancient coins told here at CT. You can do a search. This thread & others in the ancient forum are a good read. http://www.cointalk.com/t196219/
I agree collect89...still it seems strange. Some coins in the late 1800's were also minted in the millions, yet even in fairly poor condition they go for hundreds. Yet a 2000 year old coin sells for 20. It still boggles my mind...
But in the late 1800's you had things called banks. Ancient people did not have them, they had storage if you were rich, but had to pay every year for it. Common people had to hide their valuables, and the safest way was to bury it in a pot. If they died, no one knew where it was and it sat there for centuries. Basically, modern coins were subject to damage their entire existence, ancient coins have mostly been hidden away safe from human damage until fairly recently. Make more sense? Chris
I hear you Chris, but the price difference still astounds me. Considering that those coins were often crafted individually, it amazes me they are so cheap. But I won't argue with the market...i'm happy to pick up a 20 dollar ancient at a coin show from time to time...
I think it's a function of the difficulty in collecting them. It's easy to collect lincoln cents by date, or a type set of all quarters, but where is the easy set of ancients. There is also a lot more research involved in collecting ancients compared to other common US type coins. I think this keeps the demand for these coins down in general.
I agree with this. I think ancients are typically collected by the more sophisticated and educated collector. Which is a smaller fraction of an already small fraction of people who collect coins. Its supply and demand. Morgan and Peace dollars for example are easily recognizable and have nostalgic value to many people. Ancients came out so long ago that people just dont know anything about them or what was happening at the time. Theres a long disconnect for people. So many people just dont collect them. I wish I knew more myself. I could get into them and have often thought I should start collecting them. Sent from my Motorola Electrify using Tapatalk
I can say the same thing about U.S. coin collectors. Dont get me wrong, I have a decent U.S. Type set going on & still love certain U.S. coin series but start talking about all the die marriages, VAM, Sheldons, Snow Varieties, Overtons, and so forth and my brain hits a wall. That to me makes U.S. coins a pill to collect. I have 1 R5 half dime, 1 R3 Large Cent, 2 R4 Bust halves and so on, but I see them as any other coin of the type. With Ancients, each one is unique and there is areas one could go really advanced like some here do, but I myself dont. I collect what I like with them & thats why I enjoy them. I have a couple of ancients that ended up special & just like the U.S. ones I have that are special, I go "cool".
Good post. The main thing I could say would be that most of us who get into ancients do not have Ph.D's in history or the like. We get into the coins and then learn more and more. One of the coolest things about ancients is the continuous learning. While a certain coin may appear common, upon furthre research you learn that this god was honored by this emperor to thank him for a safe voyage, or to commemorate his father, or many other things. One thing to remember about ancients is the importance of symbolism. Most people were illiterate, so symbols were very powerful communication tools. Every single symbol on an ancient coin had a meaning, and is there on purpose. Its basically a language that ancient people would have understood, but we are illiterate in. I know when ancient collectors discuss coins it all sounds greek to others, (sorry for the pun). However, you do very quickly pick up what is being discussed. I would pick on Mat here to show how you can quickly become an ancient collector. His progress on here concerning ancients has been astounding, from a neophyte to a more advanced collector in a fairly short time.
Was looking for a thread about cleaning ancients and ran across this. Just wanted to add a few thoughts. "the coins were issued by millions" "with ancients, each one is unique" Uh...ancient coins of some kinds were issued in the millions over long periods of time, so none of them is really more unique than some modern error issues. Also, the coins stored in hoards tended to be silver and gold coins which people did not carry for daily purchases, so burying them was a poor mans bank (I saw a survivoralist program recently where this dude was burying silver dimes in irrigation tubing so he could come back after the END OF CIVILIZATION and pick them up). My understanding is that this makes some copper/bronze issues harder to find than some gold or silver ones. I have a few copper ancients and enjoy them as much, if not more, than my modern issues (post 1500). If anyone has a link to a good cleaning procedure, I would appreciate it. Also any sources of uncleaned ancients that is reputable.
Tough time to be getting into uncleaned coins. The last good lot I bought was about 7 years ago. The sources continue to pick out any last good coins left in there. Honestly, it used to be a decent way to get into ancients, but today I would advise you to simply buy cleaned coins and try to find some good deals. Many pre cleaned coins could use some more work, so you will still get a chance to clean them. Short of that, there us a yahoo group for uncleaned ancient coins, you could try asking around there. I am afraid all of the sources I used to buy from are gone.
I'd be amazed if many ancient coins were issued in the millions. The overall population of humans simply wasn't that high...and... the more wars they fought, the quicker they debased their coinage. Having replaced the debased denarius with the antoninianus, the Romans managed to debase even the new coin this fast in just a few decades of the disastrous 3rd century AD... Old-fashioned as they were, dem Romans still kept a small quantity of precious metal in their coins. Unlike some countries I could mention
Well, under Augustus Rome had about 45 million people. There was no paper currency or banks, so all transactions and store of value all had to be coins. The estimates on numbers of dies and die life all tell us, especially in the later empire, that literally millions were struck every single year. You say the population was small, and it was smaller, but there was a much higher need for coins then than today. I believe that would also help account for the difference. We think of ancients being very slow making these, but about 50 of these coins a minute could be produced, and they had tons of mints.
Your points are good, and I guess I was thinking of Rome the city while you mean the entire Roman Empire, which is doubtless appropriate since I'm sure these coins circulated widely. You sometimes read of major transactions being carried out with trunks of sesterces etc. I don't even know when notes started being used unless it was with the medieval goldsmiths. And that started the real manipulation of money! Well, actually I guess the debasement right above constitutes manipulation too.
Paper money started in China around 1200 AD. It died out and was resurrected around 1600. It was first used in the western world around 1600 and first used in the western hemisphere in 1690.
