How do you "categorize" your Ancient Coins?

We all know how we organize them and store them, boxes, flips and slabs.
But how about categorizing?
Are your Ancients organized by date, ruler, theme, province, metal type?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

By date. I start with Greek., followed by the Roman Republic all the way till Byzantine.

And for what I call "Misc/East", they are done by date as well.

Same with Medievals.

For my modern world coins, it's country. I don't fuss about dates with them unless it's by Monarch, then they are by Monarch/denomination.

The U.S. its denomination.

 

By date/ruler and spit between Roman/Greek/Byzantine/Misc. I don't have many so it isn't a difficult task.

 

Chronological for me, but my collection is very small so it isn't a big task to move them along in the tray.

 

Physically they are not stored in any order other than the order in which I catalog them. As far as my catalog I have Greek Kingdoms which is probably more correctly called civic coinage (I'm not sure), Seleucid Kingdom, Ptolemaic Kingdom, Roman Republican, Roman Provincial, Roman Imperial (subdivided to categories like 12 Caesars, Crisis and Decline, Late Empire, etc.), Byzantine, etc.

 

By date starting with Caesar, Marc Antony, Augustus, and so on all the way to the 11th century with Byzantine anonymous folles.

 

For Roman Imperial (my mainstay) new acquisitions are placed in flips with ID details for coin and acquisition then into boxes arranged by imperial family. They stay there until photographed. After recording they are moved in their flips to pages in a series of binders arranged by emperor, then chronologically by series, mint, and officina, following the arrangement in RIC. When a page fills up I transfer the bottom half contents to a new page and insert it behind the original page to keep the sequence. Specialized groupings (such as campgates, city commemoratives, gloria exercitus, Women of Rome, ) get sets of binders of their own, but follow the same pattern of arrangement as the general collection.

I have several hundred Roman Provincials which I tend to associate with the imperial families, but do not yet have a satisfactory pattern for arrangement in binders. For now they languish in boxes mostly unseen.

 

I throw them all in a box, jiggle it, and toss them up in the air. In the order they land it's the order to they get categorized.

Ok, not really. But I'm actually going to be making a new thread on my newest organizational method sometime in the next two to three days, so I'll save the details till I'm ready to share them

 

Since I collect only one dynasty of the Twelve Caesars mine is a simple task: they are organised/categorised by RIC for imperials, RPC for provincials.

 

I organize mine by general category: Greek, Roman Republic and Imperatorial, Roman Provincial, Roman Egypt (they are provincial but I have so many that they warranted a separate category), Roman Imperial, Byzantine, and Miscellaneous.

The Roman Republic and Imperatorials are arranged by Crawford number, the Roman Egypt coins by Emmett number, Roman Imperial by Emperor and RIC number, and Byzantines by Sear number.

Because Greek and Roman Provincial cover a much broader range and are without a single-source reference (RPC not withstanding and it is incomplete), those categories get sorted more or less by Eckhel's order of listing, which is the order of presentation followed by many auction companies, catalogs, and references. I have mixed feelings about this order and might change to an alphabetical sorting based on region, and within the region, alphabetical.

Or you could just add your latest method on to your last big thread about your latest greatest organization system .

Storage and organization are an ever-evolving process for most of us .

 

As I intentionally keep my collection small (a couple hundred for now) they are soft of randomly in Abafil trays. My main love is sestertii, so I just have trays randomly organized often by size. I like it that way, it keeps me looking...

 

Like David my focus is narrow though not quite as narrow as his. For my 3 12 Caesar sets I organize them by ruler from earliest to latest (Julius Ceasar to Domitian). For the ones not in sets I organize them by ruler earliest to latest and within each group they are organized by RIC number. They are all in Abafil trays.

 

Here is my current set up...



European Medevil: Anything from Byzantine to Spain, 450-1500.

Roman Imperial box 1: All silver, AE alphabetical by ruler.
(my R. Republican coins are currently in here also, not sure where to but the few of them yet).
Roman Imperial box 2: AE alphabetical by ruler.

Asia: Anything NOT Indogreek from Asia until about 1500. Not sorted yet.

Indo-Greeks: Not remotely sorted currently.

Roman Provincial: Somewhat sorted by Ruler.

 

I follow Sear Greek Coins and their Values.
For Romans, it is chronological from Republic through Empire.
All US is together. The best UK is together, but other UK is in with World.
The coins fit into this box.

 

In order of dopeness. Dopest coin first, and so on.

 

My Greek is organized into three broad groups The west, Greece, and the east. This only covers the civic coinages. These coins are organized chronologically from oldest to the most recent irrespective of mint. The kingdoms these being the Macedonian, Seleukid, and Ptolemaic, are separated. Some minor kingdoms (for me)Pontic, Parthian etc are kept in one area. The Roman Republic is organized by Crawford number, The Imperial by emperor chronologically, and the Provincial again by emperor from west to east.

 

Crawford overall, Sydenham (which needs to get changed to Campana) for Social War sandwiched in the approximate date range they fall in Crawford order, then Sear CRI for Octavian's not covered by Crawford.

Thank God for Crawford who made collecting Roman Republican an organized joy! I could never collect Greek because I can't figure it out.

 

Mine are largely organized by Crawford but certain subsets are organized by more specialized literature. For example, I have multiple anonymous bronzes that, by Crawford numbers alone, fall into the same slots. In these cases they're organized by McCabe groups, citing the groups in his paper on anonymous bronzes. Similarly my Crawford 44 coins are organized by Brinkman-Debernardi groups, citing groups in their paper on anonymous RR denarii. There are also a few completely unpublished coins that are basically just in the closest spot to where they'd fit in in Crawford if they were in there. My imitations and provincials are a whole other story. Imitations are basically stored grouped by their origin(Eravisci, then Geto-Dacian, then Italian bronzes, then Spanish bronzes) and provincials grouped by location.

The scheme works well for me. I understand how they're organized and can find a single coin out of 115 or so within a few seconds, even when all are in opaque envelopes, because for the most part I have memorized the layout and know where a particular coin is in the overall series and thuse where it ought to be physically and relative to other coins.

 

For me it really depends on which collecting interest it is. My Ladies are all by "ruler". Then I have Greek Silver, Greek Ae, Zoo, Stobi, and Misc. Men.

 

I have them in broad categories and then subdivided based upon which makes most sense for my collection.

Greek not including Roman provincials
- Arranged geographically according to Eckhel's system
- Seleukids and Ptolemies chronologically

Judean
- Arranged by Hendin numbers

Roman, including republican, imperial and provincials
- Republican by BMCRR numbers
- Empire chronologically by ruler, each ruler subdivided as follows:
...- Emperor, Empress, other relatives in the order they appear in BMCRE through Pupienus, or Sear (after Pupienus), each subdivided as follows:
.........- Imperial issues by BMCRE or Sear number (Göbl for Valerian et al).
.........- Provincial issues geographically according to Eckhel's system
..................- Coins of the Balkans by AMNG number
..................- Other provincial coins by BMC number

For example: Antoninus Pius by BMCRE4 number, followed by his provincials, then Faustina I by BMCRE number, followed by her provincials, then Faustina II under Antoninus Pius by BMCRE, then Marcus Aurelius by BMCRE, followed by his provincials, then Faustina II under Aurelius, followed by her provincials, then Lucius Verus by BMCRE, followed by his provincials, then Lucilla by BMCRE, followed by her provincials, then Commodus by BMC, followed by his provincials, then Crispina by BMC, followed by her provincials, etc.

It sounds complicated, but it pretty much follows Sear's arrangement of rulers but with the provincials of each person inserted after their imperial issues.

Byzantine by Sear numbers.