ANCIENT COINS BEGINNERS’ FAQ THREAD

Thanks, everyone! When invited over to “the dark side” as several CTers have called the collecting of ancients, it’s nice to have a little flashlight (torch for those across the pond) to help us find our way.

Steve

 

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Thank you, Gavin, for the interesting post! Sorry I'm late to the party—I've been occupied with a charity project.

For an excellent ancient Judaean coin reference site, I'd like to recommend the Israel Numismatic Society's MENORAH COIN PROJECT at: http://menorahcoinproject.org

As far as outstanding dealers in Biblical coins, who are constantly acquiring new inventory, I recommend: https://mrbcoins.com & https://www.zuzimcoins.com

 

Stylistically, this appears to be an early ruler with his profile facing right.

It is Copper/brass and weighs 198.8 grains. It is approximately 29 mm in diameter, but appears to have been cut at two edges at some point.

So far I have not found an example with tha "A" followed by the "C" on the right. I'm still looking.

 

Perhaps it is too late but the first thing to learn is that sellers of absolute junk late Romans often use terms like Constantine era to mean anything remotely Roman. Since the name Constantine was last used by Constantine XI about 1100 years after Constantine I, I suppose one could make a case for this being acceptable.

If you asked some of us, certainly me, you would be advised not to start out with unidentifiable or marginally identifiable bulk coins even at $1 each. You will find few as nice as that Byzantine, I would suspect, and you will be a lot more prepared to ID even ones that nice after gaining a little experience with coins with more detail. The same $40 could have bought you 4 or 5 slightly better coins from almost anyone who has collected a while and outgrown this level material or, perhaps, one really decent coin that might still be in your collection in a decade or a lifetime. I still have three coins I owned over 50 years ago. I also have coins I regret buying now but probably contributed to my education as much as they cost.

Finally, I'd suggest a moderator be asked to move posts to this thread starting with #14 to a separate thread and lock this FAQ thread so only FAQ type posts are here and specific cases do not make it too long to be of use for the original purpose. I can not fault Marshall for not realizing the patterns of posts here but it is a lot easier on all concerned if we start new threads for new things and add comment posts only to threads that are on the same subject. When you desire to find something again, I suspect you will understand why I feel this way on the matter. Welcome.

 

Not to belabor the point, but if this is to be a post as a resource for beginners (which I most certainly am for ancients) perhaps @Marshall is best served in his other post, https://www.cointalk.com/threads/educating-marshall-discovering-ancients.325492/ Oops, Doug already said that...never mind...

 

Indian coins: http://www.coinindia.com/home.html

 

Thank you for this!! We need more medieval coin threads!!! ;D

 

Great thread that I have bookmarked. Thank you to all who have contributed!

@TIF linked this site on another thread that is extremely useful for attribution:
http://www.catbikes.ch/coinstuff/coinstuff.htm

Also includes a links page to many other useful attribution resources:
http://www.catbikes.ch/coinstuff/coinlinks.htm

 

Another very common question from newcomers is "what is this coin worth?".

To answer that question you need to know what it is. Once you've determined that, and the following links can also be useful in that regard. These are some of the main places we look when trying to determine what to pay for a coin:

CNG's archive of sold coins. An excellent resource and it is free.
ACsearch. This has become a paid service. If you don't have a subscription you won't be able to see the prices realized at auction. Sometimes you can look at the listing, see which auction house sold it including date, auction number, and lot number, and then go to that auction house's website and check their archives directly
Vcoins. A conglomeration of online coin ancient coin stores. Use this to check the offering price for coins similar to yours.
MA-shops. Similar to Vcoins but based in Europe.

Of course you can also do an advanced search on eBay, specifying "sold" coins, but there are so many fakes and so many uneducated buyers that it is difficult for a newcomer to sort fact from fiction.

...

Newcomers will of course need to learn about fake coins, how they are made, how to determine if a coin is fake, and where to go to see listings of fake coins.

Resources for learning how fakes are made and how to detect them:

http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/fakes/cast.htm
http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/fakes/struck.htm
Forum Ancient Coins' "Learn to Identify Fakes Coins"
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/numis/fakes.html (part of CoinTalk member @Valentinian's extensive website about ancient coins)
http://ancientgalleonllc.com/uncategorized/identifying-fake-ancient-coins/

Databases of known fake coins:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/fakes/
http://www.forgerynetwork.com/default.aspx

Extensive lists of known sellers of fake coins (heavy on eBay dealers; always check for the seller name here before considering purchase of an eBay coin unless you know the dealer to be reputable):

Forum Ancient Coins "Notorious Fake Sellers List"
Warren Esty's (CoinTalk's @Valentinian) list of disreputable sellers

...

The best online resource for learning about and attributing coins of the Ptolomaic empire is The PtolemAE Project: http://ptolemybronze.com/

The best online resource for coins with "man-faced bull" iconography is https://manfacedbulls.wordpress.com/.

 

That's what I like about this forum the most - always helpful people and (almost) nobody judges someone for his questions and gets support! A reason why I recommend it! My reply is not regarding the topic directly, but at this point, I just wanna leave a little "thank you" and I hope that this kinda spirit will keep going this way a looooong time, since it is very hard for newcomer to get in and if there is no support like here, this passion for collection will become rare more and more!
Cheers Sarah

 

And maybe pin this one too @Peter T Davis

Thanks!

 

I feel it is time this thread was revived, as we have had a number of posters asking about the authenticity of their coins and just seem to be new to ancients. There are probably a number of great new websites to add as well!

identifying Chinese coins: https://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/chinaid.htm

Seleucid coins online:
http://numismatics.org/sco/

Medieval German coins: http://saurma.info/

Russian Wire coins:
http://silver-copeck.ru/
http://spsearch.ru/discovery/coins.html

 

Just thought I would give this great thread a bump for any new collectors...

 

I started out with David Van Meter's guide to Roman Imperial coins, and it's still available. Sear's Roman coins and their values (5 volumes) are available both in print and pdf, from Spink books.