It's like old and stuff, so its worth thousands!

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by Sallent, Jun 24, 2019.

  1. Sallent

    Sallent Live long and prosper

    You've got to love the public perception that all ancient coins are worth a fortune just because they are old. Today I accidentally stumbled across a comment I left two years ago on a Pawn Stars video, and the responses are golden...

    Screenshot_20190624-160724.png

    I'm not surprised. Reminds me of the time I gifted a friend a provincial Gordian III coin. He was terrified to accept it despite being a huge ancient history buff. When I asked him how come he didn't want to accept my gift, he said...."I can't in good conscience accept such an expensive gift." When I told him it was only worth around $50 USD he didn't want to believe me, so I had to show him the auction receipt from when I bought the coin before he was comfortable enough to accept my gift. He was shocked beyond belief that you could buy an ancient coin for less than a few hundred dollars, and somehow assumed the humble Gordian III provincial I was trying to gift him was worth over $700 or $800.

    Have you ever had a similar experience happen to you? Wanna share it below?
     
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  3. Mat

    Mat Ancient Coincoholic

    My mother & step-aunt are always in amazement when I get new ancients in & for how little most cost.

    I think seeing them museums and the lack of the majority of the public not knowing that these are collectable for the average user is what keeps them as a niche collecting area.
     
  4. ancient coin hunter

    ancient coin hunter 3rd Century Usurper

    My mom was surprised how affordable ancients are when I started collecting - even a kid with an income can do it. I've explained more recently that is essence there are two or more markets for ancient coins - one for everyday purchases of reasonably priced coins and another for FDC aurei and the like purchased by well-heeled individuals who need to park money somewhere.
     
  5. Pavlos

    Pavlos You pick out the big men. I'll make them brave!

    When I first started collecting I was entirely shocked how affordable ancient coins could be. My fever for ancient coins started when I was browsing on ebay and I don't remember how but I stumbled on this Alexander the great coin, with a current bid of around 8.50 dollars. I seriously thought this was fake, how can a 2300 year old coin be only 8.50 dollars? The seller had a very good 100% rating so I was like, what can I lose. I put a 15 dollars bid and I won the coin, did some research and that is how my ancient coin collection started.

    This is the coin:
    [​IMG]
    Alexander III the Great Bronze Coin (336 B.C. - 323 B.C) four chalkoi (hemiobol)
    Obverse:
    Head of Herakles, wearing lion skin.
    Reverse: AΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ, thunderbolt and club above, quiver and bow below.
    4.85g; 17mm

    It is actually unbelievable how a piece of history is worth pretty much nothing. I guess this is because ancient coins have no intrinsic value (expect the gold coins), it has no nominal value, but it does have historical value. Therefore the market value of the coin is just based on pretty much nothing more than how much people are willing to spend on this historical value.
     
  6. cwart

    cwart Senior Member Supporter

    It's the low cost or LRBs that took me from thinking ancients had to be expensive to seeing that interesting coins could definitely be found for my budget. I have yet to spend more than $40 something dollars on an ancient but wouldn't trade any of the ones I have so far.
     
  7. Finn235

    Finn235 Well-Known Member

    Man, gotta love the experts in the YouTube comments section. I once shared a photo of one of my better denarii on a non-coin site to prove a point about ancients being affordable, to which the fine experts chimed in "Yeah, because you cleaned it and ruined its value, idiot!"

    I remember as a kid, I wanted an ancient coin SOOOOOOO badly, but until 4 years ago I was convinced that I would never own anything with any identifiable features. My parents took me to a coin show in Atlanta when I was a tween (in about 2001?) And armed with my $20 coin budget, I was convinced that I was going to go and buy a nice Roman crusty slug. My dad stopped me: "You know you can't even buy a genuine coin from the 1800s for that much, so why would you think you could afford a coin that's 1400 years older than that?"

    Based on what I've seen in the archived descriptions on Wildwinds, I could have walked away with a mint state Septimius Severus denarius or two that day, but instead I blew it all on low grade WWI-WWII era coins from a junk bin. Guess it's all just as well, since I probably would have blown that $20 on a crusty low grade FTR anyway.

    I decided to revisit the idea of ancient coins about 4 years ago when I got a raise, paid off my wife's car, and she finished school. I'm glad that I was already on several coin forums, since I was at that time still convinced that anything except a cull LRB would be well beyond my budget.

    Never in my wildest dreams would I have guess that I'd own what I have today!
     
  8. gsimonel

    gsimonel Well-Known Member

    I got into ancient coin collecting as a graduate student because US coins were too expensive! I started off as a kid picking out US coins from circulation and buying an occasional Mercury dime from a dealer, but it wasn't long before my Whitman folders were filled except for two or three holes, and those holes cost dozens or even hundreds of dollars to fill. About that time (late 1990s) I saw an EF campgate of Constantine the Great for auction on eBay. I knew nothing about ancient Roman history, but, being raised Lutheran, I had heard of CtG. I bid $10 on a lark and won it for $8. Seemed a lot cooler than spending $40 on a 1922D penny. I was hooked.
     
  9. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    I can't help thinking I would have been better off had I told everyone lies like "fake", "ruined if cleaned" and "too rare to dream of" back in the day when most here were being driven out of the US hobby by expense and boredom. Many collecting hobbies are dying as old people cut back on buying and young people buy experiences rather than "things". There are still more ancient coins than there are collectors but that will not matter when the only coins in demand are the top 1% to be fought over by the wealthy and museums. To survive, young people need to be let in on the secret that "fake", "ruined if cleaned" and "too rare to dream of" are lies and there are coins in every price bracket, every historical period and every sub-specialty available if they want them when they tire of climbing mountains and jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. When we tell new people the hobby has no place for them, it will be true. The museums will spend more commissioning 'new' art than acquiring 'old'. Fewer schools still offer Latin language. Fewer people know there was history before they were born as schools only teach STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). People seeking degrees in arts and humanities are becoming rare for practical reasons. I'm not worried that the hobby will die before I do. Those among us that are younger might want to consider what they can do to insure there are generations yet unborn who remember and care.
     
  10. Sallent

    Sallent Live long and prosper

    For several political and economic reasons I will not get into (as this is not the place for such talk) my generation, the Millennials, have grown up in a rough climate of few jobs, low income, and massive financial insecurities. Which is why by in large my generation has come to value experiences over the accumulation of physical things. I've noticed the change in myself too.... other than ancient coins, I've cut back or abandoned just about every other hobby I had.

    People of my generation have grown accustomed to living in small places, being highly mobile and open to change, and don't like overly fancy things. Which is why some antiques that would have been worth a few thousand two decades ago, are now practically worth zero and you can't even give them away. As the baby boomer generation dies, there's no massive wave of millennials coming in behind them to buy these "priceless antiques." You can see it with the overpriced Swiss watch industry too....most brands have declined in sales sharply over the last decade as the baby boomers die off and the Millennials have said in overwhelming numbers..."No thanks, we don't need a $5,000 watch to tell us we have self-worth." If it wasn't for the Chinese, some of these would have gone under already.

    As for lack of appreciation of history. Don't blame us. It's not our fault the educational system was so broken that it failed to teach us anything relevant. I would have loved it if I could have learned classical history in Middle School instead of having to teach myself.
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2019
  11. ancient coin hunter

    ancient coin hunter 3rd Century Usurper

    I hope @dougsmit that what you are prognosticating does not happen. But every day you see kids and teens and a fair amount of adults crossing the street and staring at their phones, oblivious to the outside world. The sense of wonder regarding history and culture is suffering a decline as you say. I am one of those who started in the humanities (archaeology and language of ancient Egypt) got my degree and then got an MBA. So there is an alternate path to those who think only STEM matters.
     
  12. gsimonel

    gsimonel Well-Known Member

    Tastes come and go. Enthusiasm for the hobby may wax and wane over the years, but supposedly Augustus collected ancient coins. We know John Quincy Adams did. And now, you and I do. So the hobby must have some staying power.

    If you are worried that the value of your ancient coin collection might go down because of lack of interest, that is certainly possible. When putting together my collection, I always had in the back of my mind "this is a fun way to save for my retirement." So I understand and share the concern. If the value plummets, then it may turn out to not have been a smart way to save, but it was still a fun way. Either way, there will still be people collecting ancient coins into the future. I have spent countless hours pouring over my ancient coins. If I had, instead, spent all that time, say, going to movies, it would have cost me a lot more money, and I'd have less to show for it.
     
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  13. Sallent

    Sallent Live long and prosper

    You should never count on your hobbies to fund your retirement. That's what a 401k or an IRA count is for, or even a stocks/ETFs account.
     
  14. gsimonel

    gsimonel Well-Known Member

    Well, I didn't say it was a smart way to fund it. But it has been fun.
     
  15. gsimonel

    gsimonel Well-Known Member

    . . . and even if nobody collects ancient coins in the future, I'll still have my collection and still enjoy it.

    Nyah, nyah. [winking emoticon]
     
    dougsmit likes this.
  16. Finn235

    Finn235 Well-Known Member

    Piggybacking off of what @Sallent said, it's actually shocking how well coins have held up versus other traditional hobbies and expensive antiques/collectibles. When my wife and I got married, my aunt who loves to blow her doctor husband's money got us two Waterford Crystal picture frames, retail about $150 each. We never used them, and can't even find anyone to buy them at a tiny fraction of retail. When I was a kid she also bought me a designer pencil sharpener (don't ask) that seems to retail for $300 - again, nobody will buy it.

    I collect coins because I love coins. I love the history; I love seeing Greek and Roman coins and seeing the inspiration for the entirety of Western Civilization. I love holding a Gadhaiya and pondering over its secrets that have been irreplaceably lost. That a mint state denarius of Trajan costs significantly less than a mint state Capped Bust dime is just icing on the cake.

    I can justify my purchases because unlike a heavy picture frame or gold-plated pencil sharpener, my collection is liquid - I could sell the whole thing and have my money in a week; hopefully more money than I ever put in to it. I can at least guarantee that it wouldn't sell for pennies on my dollar.

    As for the future of the hobby, I do have some concerns, especially since essentially the entire world has not only abandoned the idea of circulating coins having intrinsic value or even artistic merit, but because the new "collectible" coins now have glow-in-the-dark stickers, holograms, or come in the form of a miniature model of the USS Enterprise:
    https://www.mint.ca/store/coins/pur...seem-ncc-1701---mintage-1000-2017-prod3100011

    Stamp collecting is dead because people burnt out. I'm 29 and don't nor have ever seen the appeal of collecting stamps. Most of the mints are now trying to market these overpriced gimmicks as "investments" despite the fact that most lose 10-50% of their value within a few years of release. If I had blown $1,000 on a silver space ship coin and had to sell it for $200 a couple years later, I can guarantee that I'd probably never consider coins again.
     
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  17. Al Kowsky

    Al Kowsky Well-Known Member

    Many of your comments are so true :(. During the 1980s I taught Con Ed classes at three different locations for about five years on antiques & collectibles. My largest classes were at the Gannet School at the Rochester Museum & Science Center, & averaged about 35 students per class. From a class size of 35 students possibly 3 people were under 40 years of age :eek:. Too many young people have little or no interest in history, art, & numismatics. This phenomena isn't new, it started in the 1970s when good jobs were plentiful that didn't require a college education. Kids leaving high school could get factory jobs or trade jobs & live quite well :). As those factory jobs started going over-seas college became necessary & students focused on science & technologies, not art & history :sour:.
     
  18. Ken Dorney

    Ken Dorney Yea, I'm Cool That Way...

    This is true and good advice. However, keep in mind that our hobby does lead to at least some cash at the end. No matter how low the hobby sinks (and I dont think it will ever be like stamps, not in my lifetime anyway) there will still be a method of disposing of our collection for some money at the end. Some will certainly make profit, some will lose big. There are a lot of factors for that and is worthy of a new thread. But unlike many youngsters who prefer experience over tangible assets, we will still have some cash at the end and they will not (and for me collecting coins is the same as having an experience, so its doubly good for me).

    To me this is just silly and is indicative of how low the modern market has sunk. Such things have no value over melt, really. When silver eagles first came out years ago I bought a lot of them, up to about $50 each for "low" mintages. I see most are now valued at under $20.

    I think this has always been the case, for a large part anyway. When I was in my teens in the 80's I was something of an anomaly (for an ancients collector). I went to shows and noted that everyone there was 'old' (like I am now). Sure, there are less younger people now than then, but honestly I think what matters most is financial ability. When people makes gains in their disposable income that is when they turn to hobbies in a more serious manner.
     
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  19. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    I think of it as collecting stories. Coins are tangible artifacts to those stories. I chose to stick with coins (in contrast to antiquities and newspapers) because coins are much easier to store and move (though knives and spades leave a bit to be desired in this category). They just also conveniently just happen to be a somewhat stable store of value as well.

    This thinking is what sets me apart from most of my generation. I do not like spending my money with no chance of getting some of that money back in the future. I’ve found many coin people to think the same way.
     
  20. Nathan P

    Nathan P Well-Known Member

    One of the things that keeps the hobby a niche is just the information that these ancient coins are even affordable, as the beginning of this post notes. When I've shared my collection, people are shocked when I tell them that these 2,000+ year old objects are relatively affordable. I myself was introduced to the hobby just a few years ago by a friend. Despite the fact that I've always had a huge interest in ancient history and am even a collector (previously, very old baseball cards, many of which I've sold to fund my coin spending), it never occured to me that I could afford such beautiful pieces of history. Even after my friend told me about his interest, I had no idea where to buy the coins (I started on eBay), what coins I should buy, which coins were fake, etc. I have little doubt that this basic information gap has kept the hobby from going more mainstream. And frankly I don't really want it to! The less competition for coins the better, as far as I'm concerned!
     
  21. Sallent

    Sallent Live long and prosper

    Except for gold coins and truly rare silver and bronze coins, there is no money for investors to make with ancients...as the field is far too confusing to them. Which is why most ancient coins have stayed super affordable while American coins have sky rocketed in price.

    You want to know where the real money is in ancients? Bronze heads....and that's also where truly high level forgeries exist. That's also where museums and auction houses have banded together with the forgers to deceive billionaire investors with more money than sense. That's right, museums and major auction houses are all in on the con. :eek:

    *A must watch video for any collector*

     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2019
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