Ok, im starting to collect ancients, and i was wondoring if there are any books i should buy, and if there is anydifferent gear for ancients than there is with US coins. I see some advertized on ebay as "Uncleaned", so do you HAVE to clean ancients? Im going to go for greek and romans so, any help would be apprieciated.
Some people (like me and a few others here) buy uncleaned Roman and Greek bronzes. They're very cheap (usually only a few bucks a pop), but it takes a lot of time and patience to clean these coins, and you can easily ruin them if you're not careful. Most of the Roman ones are from coins from near the end of the Empire, i.e. Constantine the Great and family. As for books, they can be pricey, but look for one by the author Klawans (last name). I forget the name of the book, but it's an intro guide to ancient Greek and Roman coins. Good luck! Oh, and you can buy plenty of coins that need no cleaning at all. And as a rule of thumb, nice Roman silver coins are less expensive than nice bronze and copper coins, as they tended to get used less. Common ones can be had for around $40 if you know where to look.
Its a coin so worn it doesnt have any detail left. at this link you will find the best books you can buy regarding ancients... http://www.davidrsear.com/books.html
Ha, it's a coin that is so worn it's basically just a piece of metal with no discernable design on either side. Sometimes, esp. when you buy uncleaned off of eBay, some of the coins are already slugs, but there's so much dirt and crust on them that you can't tell until you've cleaned them. Other times the coin is pretty worn, but due to OVER-cleaning, you destroy what little design was left. These are 2000 year-old coins, so there can certainly be a lot of slugs in a 'lot' of uncleaned coins. However, ancientcoins.ca sells uncleaned coins that have virtually no slugs in any given lot. They are very good about picking out the bad stuff before selling anything.
I would start (if you are collecting Alexander the great&Succesors/Rome/Hellenistic, not just one of them) with some relatively common coins of the most famous rulers in nice grades (Alexander the great drachm, Nero-Vespasian-Trajan-Hadrian denari/Parthian tetradrachm) and then get some odder pieces.
Klawans, Zander. Ancient Greek and Roman Coins (2003). A widely recognized intro guide, fairly cheap.
Wow, i was just lookinat some of the prices, how much more expensive are ancients than a normal US collection?
codydude815, I have a couple of recommendations for you. When I was first getting started in ancients, I read "Ancient Coin Collecting" by Wayne G. Sayles. It's an excellent introduction to ancients. From there, you can branch out into his other Ancient Coin Collecting volumes or read some other different books. Secondly, you can collect "Greek and Roman coins" and many do...however, once you get into it, you may find that the subject area of those two broad categories is far too vast and you may want to then specialize on a certain area or range...or not, up to you. Look at coins on VCoins often. You can learn a lot just by looking around. Also, I have no idea what part of Illinois you live in, but if you can ever get down to O'Fallon, IL (suburb of St. Louis), there is an excellent shop there that sells ancients called Pantheon Galleries that is run by Bob Novack. You will love looking around in there! PM me for any details you might want. Have fun! Oh, and just like U.S. coins, it all depends on what you decide to collect. Ancients aren't necessarily more expensive than U.S. coins. I bought most of my ancients for under $25.
Cody here are a couple of good cheap books that have line drawings of a number of Roman coins Roman Base Metal Coins - A Price Guide Roman Silver Coins - A Price Guide you can find them at http://www.rotographic.co.uk I am not sure but they might do them as downloads, I know that some of the books are now been sold that way
The books recommended so far are good. Another would be The Handbook of Roman Imperial Coins by David Van Meter. Another good resource for you will be http://www.forumancientcoins.com & http://www.ancients.info One of the better places to shop is VCoins. There are deals to be had on ebay, but be careful & ask questions here or on one of the other forums. There are lots of fake coins on ebay. As tcore said price will depend on what you want & what condition works for you. Real nice Imperial Romans can be had for pretty low prices. Earlier Romans & a lot of Greeks will run you a bit more usually.
Ancient coin collecting may look expensive on the outside, but, in reality, its MUCH cheaper. Mostly because you don't have gradeflation running up prices on coins. A nice ancient sells for good money because its a nice coin, not because its "MS-68 RB!!!!!" Also, you can often get ancient coins unidentified at shows for decent prices. Every coin you buy is cherrypicked. :-D One last thing - despite what people tell you, don't buy price guides. AT BEST the prices are grossly overestimated for the common stuff and grossly underestimated for the rare stuff. Buy identification books, thats what you really need. I'd recommend, for the beginner, Roman Silver Coinage or Roman Coins by David Sear.
Ardatirion, I recently started Ancients myself, then decided to try to start a group. Slow goin, but it's getting there. I tend to favor the Adoptive emperors, and am starting a family tree of sorts. You're more then welcome to check out the group site... http://groups.msn.com/ancientcoincollector/_whatsnew.msnw There's a few link to other sites, plus I've uploaded files for identification. Feel free to check it out. Fred WINS# 616
