My old "A to Z" (Augustus to Zeno) Roman Imperial collection

(Link to Photobucket album below)

This was my first novice collection when I finally got serious about ancients. I decided to do an "A to Z" (Augustus to Zeno) portrait set of as many Roman emperors and empresses as I could get my hands on. My first criterion was a good portrait, and secondary consideration was a readable name on the flan if possible.

I started this collection in the summer of 2007. It lasted only a year, because in the summer of 2008 I was laid off in the recession and forced to break the set up and sell everything off, just at the height of my enthusiasm for it.

Still, I got pretty far with it, and managed to capture a hundred or more different emperors and empresses, in a year's time! I was pretty hot to trot on this stuff. When the forced sale came along, I surisingly did OK on the sales, considering this was a novice collection and an emergency sale. No doubt part of that success was due to the sympathy my fellow Collectors Universe members had for my economic plight, but still, I did OK. Bought nearly everything off VCoins from trusted dealers, since I didn't trust myself to shop eBay or other venues.

Here is a Photobucket album of most (though by no means all) of the set. Some pieces are noticeably missing- I note the absence of my Pupienus and Crispina sestertii, for instance. But this album is all I have left to show of these coins.

It wasn't a waste, though. Bittersweet though it was, these coins were a valuable tuition for me and I have zero regrets about having built the set. I might give something like this another go again someday.

 

It was! I did do it a second time with my old "Twelve Caesars" set, and of course I still dabble a little with Romans in the present "Eclectic Box of 20" set.

When the Box of 20 "matures" to the point where I'm not going to sell anything out of it or be able to afford upgrades, I might set it aside and pick up a raw Roman emperors set along these lines again (adding Julius Caesar so it can also be a 12C set at the same time).

Doing it a second time, I'd pay more attention to interesting reverse designs. In this, my novice set, I was mostly just after a good portrait and a readable name in the legends. Those are still primary criteria for me on a Roman coin, but if I revisit this, there will be more variety in the reverse designs besides just the typical single-figure personifications.