How did you become a collector of ancient coins?

Russian coins collectors saying: "if you’ll present to the child 5 kopecks (great and beautiful copper), he will be a collector of coppers, but if the ruble, the collector of rubles." These are two major, substantially parallel worlds in the Russian numismatics. When I was 13 years, the neighbors in the village found a treasure of pre-revolutionary coins and grandmother bought me a 1896 ruble and 50 kopecks. I have been collecting coins of the Russian Empire for about 20 years, and has gone through many stages from the simplest coins to the rubles and poltinas with a budget of a few thousand dollars per coin.

I think almost all of us started with the collection of old coins of the motherland.

At some point I noticed that I am watching with the interest at the auctions offers of ancient Greek coins. At that time I knew nothing about them, but they were just beautiful and simply catch my eyes on them. The principle of my collection has always been that every coin has to tell his story. This means that if I bought the Peter 1 ruble, I have to know the history of his reign, to tell others. And at some point, I suddenly thought, what a great story can tell, for example, a coin of Alexander the Great? But when I bought my first ancient coin and looked at her from the edge, it was like a world switched from 2D mode to 3D mode.

Since then, I lost all interest in the coins of the New Age.

Just imagine the problem that faced by any engraver, such as the 18th century, for example. What was the task? Show the official portrait of the emperor… state symbols and etc... Enough clear and concrete task.

And what was the task of the master, who prepared dies for this stater? To embody the image of Beauty, Youth, Sunlight, Art, etc. - all, what was the personification of Apollo. Immortal Divine… transcendence essence, that the master could only imagine. What is the solution of this problem with abstract an infinite field of unknowns, which resulted in the appearance of perfection on the coin?

It's a large difference.

And by the way, I think that when someone begins a collection of ancient coins, this means that he came out of the "matrix" of catalogs and lists into the real collectors life.

 

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My favorite roubles of Peter 1.

 

Like most people, I started with coins of my home country. My grandparents were collectors (hoarders?). It's a long story and if you're interested, it is here.

 

I became interested in pre-1964 U.S. coinage because of the rising price of silver a few years ago. From there, I got interested in other U.S. coins beyond the value of silver in it. But after a while I lost interest. If you've seen one Peace dollar you've seen them all. I thought about collecting by type but that never really happened because I discovered other areas of numismatics. These were U.S. military trade tokens and at the same time ancients. I have the good folks here at CoinTalk to thank for that! After buying a couple tokens/ancients and learning more about them I was hooked.

 

Like most collectors, I started collecting coins from my home country. I got bored of set collecting really quick, so I adopted the variety offered by the type set.

I started collecting Chinese coins after I had bought a couple during my trip to China in 8th grade. Then I got a hoard of 500 Song-Dynasty cash coins for Christmas, so I began buying more older and older Chinese coins. Then I bought a hoard of Ancient Chinese coins. As I was sorting them and pulling out stuff to keep, I became fascinated with their history and I fell in love with the archaic calligraphy. Then at the end of my senior year in high school, I won a lot of rare ancient Chinese coins, many were of types I had never dreamed of getting. They were all checked out as genuine, meaning I got them for 10% of their value. At this point, I was hooked on the Ancient Chinese coins.





I have since branched out into Ancient Greek, but I won't stray too far in that category until I am more financially sound, I better know the market, and I learn more about the coins in general.

 

I'll think British Petroleum has something to do with it, as a 14 year old I got these
free promotional tokens from my parents and family , everytime they filled up their gastank they got one or two of these BP tokens.
BP sold display cards at 10 cents to put 'm in.
The next year (1970) BP gave away ancient Pirate coins and ancient Kings of France
tokens.
Probably a nice idear to repeat these promotional actions nowadays ?

 

If you can handle the Chinese market, you can handle the ancient Greek market! Don't hesitate to ask questions.

 

A recent topic:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/your-first-ancient.279020/

The first.

Septimius Severus (193 - 211 A.D)
AR Denarius
O: SEVERVS AVG PART MAX, Laureate head right.
R:RESTITVTOR VRBIS (Restoration of the City), Severus in military attire, spear in left, sacrificing over a tripod altar with right.
Rome mint, 201 A.D.
3.3g
18mm
RIC 167a, RSC 599, BMCRE 202

 

It has taken me three years to learn the Chinese market. I jumped into the Greek market a month ago. I bought an intro book and downloaded @I_v_a_n 's books, so I am going to learn.

 

Man, I miss my grandmother sometimes

 

I started much as everyone else, collecting US of all types, then world and ancients. I still have a limited interest for some modern 'type' collecting but ancients have become my passion satisfying some deep historical craving within me LOL

 

Hmmm... As a child, Ancient was a perspective. My Grandmother inadvertently got me started when I was 9 years old (almost 50 years ago...) We dumped out a coffee can of my Grandparent's change and I found an 1863 US Civil War Token. 1863 was ANCIENT to a 9 year old! Finding this was beyond bizarre when I think of it now - my Grandparents were NOT collectors, and I could not conceive how it got into the change. They had NO clue what it was until I took it to a coin shop in Mountain Home, AR). I worked up the gumption to ask if I could keep it... and it started me into collecting "old" coins. I focused on Odd Type Coins, but became frustrated with all the slabbing and silly grading systems that "commoditized" the whole Hobby in the US. I have always loved Ancient History as a past-time diversion, and I finally woke up 25 years ago and began slowly collecting Ancients instead of Moderns.

 

Yep. When I bought my third slabbed coin I figured out collecting this way was not for me. Think I bought one more after to be sure.

 

Like many US collectors I began by filling holes in Whitman folders. I graduated to US type coins & error coins & then began collecting coins of the World. Back in 2011 CoinTalk's ancient forum shared the same forum as World coins. This allowed me to lurk and conveniently view ancient posts. I was bitten by the ancient coin collecting bug and haven't been interested modern coins since.

By the way, I really enjoyed the OP. I think that several of us in the ancients forum share many of the same feelings & memories.

Edit to add: a kool "Kyme" koin photo.

 

I've bought two slabbed coins, and in both cases the holder made them worth less than they were actually worth. I just have been too lazy to crack them out.

 

At the moment, I'm in the fair and sunny city of Berlin, Germany, where my first coin was struck, a large silver 5 Mark coin of the year 1904. With the mustachioed portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
I'm Dutch, and I grew up in the north of the Netherlands. When I was 9, André, the boy next door was a friend of exactly my age. His grandfather was a tall old man of about eighty, with a large silvery bristling moustache. As a young man, in the 1910s, he had worked in Germany in many different places, and earned well.
I think it was 1964 when he decided to divide his last silver coins between André and me.
I received a 5 Mark piece, two 3 Marks, seven 2 Marks and a lot of small fry. Quite a sum for 1910, and the older I become, I'm more and more amazed about this gift to me, the neighbor's boy. But it was right to the mark.

 

One day I'm going to get rid of mine except for one...because I still like it.

 

I got bored with the whole obsession with investing in the U.S. coin collector community, and also with the obsession over the grading. I could not justify spending $1000 for a coin because it was MS-65 vs $400 in MS-64 when I couldn't tell the difference nor cared enough frankly. Not to mention the repetitive discussions on US coin forums online. So soon after I joined cointalk I decided to browse around to see what non-US collectors were up to and found you ancient nutcases here, and you seemed like awesome people and your coins were so good looking, there was so much variety, and so much history behind them...and best of all, no obsession with MS-64 vs MS-65 vs MS-64+ or MS-64*, or whatever. So I decided to become an ancient basket case too and sold my US collection to join the insane asylum here on the ancients forum.

 

i actually started with ancient coins, and branched into modern coins as a "side hobby".

i like old russian coins, that peter the great coin is awesome @I_v_a_n

i have some big russian coppers..









and some little silvers...

 

Ancients are addictive. I love history the only subject other than art & welding I was any good at. I started with pre U.S Civil War to 1940''s American, then world.
I just got bored to death. My passion for history drew me into ancient coins. IMO is the best era in history to study. I took the leap about 4 or 5 months ago. I still add to my moderns when I see a dam good one.