How big is your collection and what is in it?

I say go for it and post

 

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Any ancients?

11.329903°N 142.199305°E. You might get a little wet so bring an umbrella .

Whoa dude I love the internet I don't want the whole thing to crash and burn!
(just jokes )

 

In that price range you'll probably need to go with a "New Style" Athens tetradrachm, a test-cut and worn Classical, a later version, or an Arabian imitative.

Examples of various types, all images from CNG's archives:

Archaic, very expensive:


Classical (there are many subdivisions of this category). Without test cuts and in good condition, they be will north of $1000, sometimes far north:


A later style, less artistic but less expensive:


Arabian imitations, also less expensive:


"New Style", which come in a wide array of conditions and prices and with a wide variety of reverse names and control marks:


Athens tets currently for sale on Vcoins (if you don't want to wait, although you should be able to pick one up for less at various auctions).

 

Well, mine is still very small, but the winter FUN show is right around the corner!

 

I have been collecting 15 years and have accumulated 572 ancients. Unfortunately, while each coin has been cataloged, I lost my photos last year, and still have hundreds of coins to re-photograph.

Greek - 225
Roman Republic - 224
Imperators - 25
12 Caesars and family members - 59
Roman women - 32
Byzantine - 7

 

Ugh!

 

2,500+ Roman Imperial. Primarily Septimius Severus and Probus.

 

There is no such thing as a best coin in that bracket. What you will get is the sort of thing I collect and that make up so much of my collection not the sort of thing that the majority of collectors here and in general want in their collections. There are several choices:

If the coin must be a Classical tetradrachm, it will be test cut and probably poorly cleaned. These coins are very high grade silver and, therefore very soft so they are harder to find with good surfaces and unworn. They were struck on flans a bit smaller than appropriate for the dies so it is common to be missing part of the design. The more design you are willing to give up, the less wear you may get for the money. The majority were cut through the face of the owl. You will pay more for one with a test cut that is located nicely somewhere else.


If you can live with the degraded style of the century or two after Athens was the big name in Greece, you can get a coin with a lest obtrusive cut or even no cut but that will be pushing your $300 limit seriously.


If size does not matter, you might consider a smaller denomination like the drachm which is 1/4 the weight of the popular tetradrachm. Drachms are much more scarce than tetradrachms but sufficiently less popular you could get a worn, off center one for only $95 in 1987 when I bought this one. See, no test cut.


Even more likely to produce a good looking coin would be an obol or 1/6 drachm but now we are down to about 0.6g and most people don't like them that small. There are smaller ones but the scarce fractional obols are more expensive than whole obols. I like the style on this one. It is an early style with three separate tail feathers on the owl. The equivalent tetradrachm would be well over $2000 and much easier to find since there are hundreds of tetradrachms available for every coin of other denominations. Remember what I said about soft silver? This coin does not have much wear but it is quite beat up.

TIF mentioned New Style. I'm not sure you will do a lot better on them since decent ones are closer to Classical price than they used to be. You might be able to get a reasonable one for $300 but it might have a bit more wear than the example below.

My most recent purchase was a New Style tetradrachm with a couple problems that made it perfect for my collection but not for yours, I suspect. It was nowhere near $300 I assure you. When you see those test cut coins, this is what they were looking for. The coin is an ancient counterfeit made with a silver layer over a copper core. We call them fourree which is French for stuffed.


Here is the point. As a collector, each must make certain choices. I have shown 5 1/2 coins here which in total cost me less than one really nice tetradrachm of the same types. I could have bought these or I could have bought one coin costing the same (and much easier to find since every dealer has one in stock, it seems). I chose. For most collectors wanting an owl, the best thing to do would be to put the money aside and add to the fund until it would cover what most people would call a decent coin. You choose.

 

Very few and only two non-us coins 1737 8 reale/1736 half reale -5 morgans-5 seated dimes- 1 capped bust half dime 1 seated half dime 2 capped bust dimes 2 1830's large cents-3 indian cents.5 proof Franklin halves Sold/traded quite a few this year.Probably a few I forgot about,tough being a geezer.....

 

Ancient about 300
Dombes 200+
World coins about 1800, including France (300ish) and UK (200-)

They are not at home, should someone want to know

Q

 

"Gimme Chocolate" is the best Babymetal song too. I play it every morning to annoy my housemate.

 

The coins I have on Tantalus is
- British (2)
- Celtic (2)
- Greek (77)
- Roman Imperatorial (1)
- Roman Imperial (223)
- Roman Provincial (33)
- Roman Republican (4)

With about 100 yet to go on.

 

Currently I have 400+ Flavian imperial and provincial silver coins and several hundred LRBs. The Flavians are in a safe deposit box, the LRBs are in a mason jar.

I've been collecting ancients for 12 years. From the start I knew I wanted to collect Flavian silver. My very first ancient coin purchase was a common denarius of Vespasian. It's the history that draws me to that era.

The LRBs are not a collecting focus and are mostly unattributed.

 

Haven't got time to go through all the drawers & count the coins right now.







J/K ! That's a photo off The Bode Museum's Website.

 

well, i lost count. i'll re-inventory in before the end of the year. about 300 ancient coins, and about 250 modern coins though....that's pretty close.

 

You win. Time to close the thread, guys

Seriously though, seems like a huge number for a collection. Is this higher range as far as private collections go? I'm guessing it is but I just want to be sure.

 

I like your collection!
I would like to start collecting Roman and ancient coins myself.
I'm not exactly sure where I should begin, but I do have a lot of interest in getting started.

 

Check out Vcoins and the FORVM ancient coins store, for starters. FORVM is one of the dealers that lists on Vcoins too, but if you choose to purchase something from them, buy it through the FORVM site to get a better price than Vcoins. Check out the "For Sale" board here too. Several of us sell coins there from time to time.

Also, spend some time researching(check out Doug Smith's website) and just window shopping. Try to figure out what you like and what you don't like. If you see two of the same coin, look really hard and try to figure out if you like one more than the other and why that is, or if you like certain aspects of one and certain aspects of the other.

 

in the last 6 years, I have been focusing my collecting on U.S. type coins 1892-2009, and the year type series 1929-2009. My 1892-2009 type set presently includes 143 coins. My 1929-2009 year type series has 508 coins in it. I can still add and upgrade coins to my type set, but for now, I am happy with both. I should add, my type set includes all the regular issues+ many commemoratives, and bullion coin types.