First Ancient Coin I bought for myself

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Ok, yes I have to agree speaking only of moderns. And yes, while I do have stackers I also have bullion in slabs, but those things aren't meant to be touched and loved so to speak.
I think if you let yourself, you will find ancients to be a totally different experience.
For me it is the history, then the fact that they are affordable for the most part and you can touch them.
Storage though it's the same, humidity and moisture can bring the unwanted.

 

Like others I also avidly collect moderns its probably 51% 49%, 51% being ancients!


Thanks,
Jacob

 

If you are compelled to try to complete sets, you can decide to define "set" differently. We see collectors on this list with one from each mint that issued "huts" or "soldier spearing fallen horseman."
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/an-ugly-milestone.306485/
You might one of each AE type of some emperor Valentinian (AD 364) through Theodosius II and Valentinian III (AD 450).
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/ricix/

I'll bet most of us do like to work on sets where we see a theme we'd like to complete (e.g. at least one of each emperor, or each of the twelve Caesars). Pick your own theme and don't let anyone tell you your collection is a failure if it does not have that key date in high grade (as US coin publications hint every issue.)

With ancients, buy anything you like. If you post it here with some information about it, the post will get "likes" regardless of the grade and red book rarity and value.

 

Back when I first started buying uncleaned ancient coins, I was inundated--great word, inundated; I use it whenever I can--with 4 common reverse types:

GLORIA EXERCITVS - Soldiers with standards;
FEL TEMP REPARATIO - Emperor spearing fallen horseman;
GLORIA ROMANORUM - Emperor dragging captive; and
SECVRITAS-REIPVBLICAE - Victory advancing with wreath and palm.

I decided that rather than get irritated about constantly finding these pesky little LRBs, I'd start collection them in much the same way that I collected US pennies as a kid. So I put together a checklist of emperors and mints of each type, figuring that instead of thinking: "Oh, Crimminy, not another Gloria Romanorum. Borrrrrring!" I'd think: "Wow! Arcadius from Siscia! I need that one."

It almost worked. I collected these for several years, and got close to completing a couple of the issues. Then I found a rare Constantine in some uncleaned coins and switched to collecting him. Within a few years I'd sold most of the earlier collections on eBay to pay for new Constantines.

BUT MY POINT--I do tend to ramble on Saturdays--is that I still have the old checklist in case anyone, particularly anyone used to collecting US type sets, is interested in picking up where I failed. I've gone ahead and uploaded it to my web site:

http://feltemp.com/Library/Common_LRB_Reverses.pdf

 

Fantastic coin @Kasia. That's one of the nicest first purchases I've seen posted

I look forward to seeing where you go from here.

 

You know though, those of that collect fallen horseman all have very different collections.