New to ancient coins and looking for tips

Welcome to CT and to ancient coins. Although I started collecting coins almost 70 years ago (really) my interest in ancients increased sharply after joining CT. The guys here are really sharp and friendly. Really nice ancient coins can be costly, so if you are getting ready to lay out some serious bucks on a coin, it's worthwhile to post a picture here and ask opinions. I like e-bay, but BE CAREFUL particularly with expensive coins or expensive coins you have found at a bargain price. Ask here.

 

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It is a classic, published first over 50 years ago as two volumes, Greek and Roman. For decades, it was the standard. Whitman bought the rights and reprinted it as one volume. And it has been surpassed. It's good on its own merits, but allow me to recommend the series by Wayne Sayles. The six volumes cover a fuller spectrum, but you can just get the ones you want. Also, for Romans, the handbook by David Vagi is probably the widely accepted desk reference, but I would query @dougsmit in this forum directly on his recommendations.

If you join the ANA, when they come back online, you will find their library worth every penny of your membership. I have borrowed very many books from them for writing articles on a wide range of topics.

You said that you are a history teacher, so you will do well with this. Good luck.

 

Welcome to Coin Talk a place to see a lot of coins and get honest advice. Beware of Ebay until you become more coin savy. See what catches you eye, find a subject, time period, and even metal that fits your budget and then explore.

Vcoins is a wonderful spot to explore as the variety is off the charts. If you have a chance to attend a major coin show go for it and look at as many coins you can handle without going blind. I also recommend hitting MACoins.

You can also use Google to search and look at many coins. Just type in for example
"Coin Images of the Constantine the Great" and see what happens and remember, this is my hobby, and I do it for Fun. Happy Hunting.

 

@NicholasMaximus
Hello from one Nick to another! Seriously the folks here in the ancient forum are pretty great. If you are earnest and making your own efforts with coins, you can always post here and everyone will chime in to help you get unstuck. I had the hardest time reading the legends at first because my eyes suck and I was unfamiliar with what words I was looking for. If you want to get a really good reference book that will teach you about what to look for when identifying (most come partially identified if you are not dealing with a full time dealer) a Roman coin, spend the $45 on Aorta: A guide for the Roman Coin Collector by Rasiel Suarez. He’s the same guy who runs Tantalus mentioned above. For each emperor and family member that had coins issued in their name, he breaks down IDs by the bust type (learning the difference between “laureate,” “draped,” “cuirassed” and other variants is more important than you know yet), legends, reverses, mint marks and has pictures to help you see what you are looking for.

Wildwinds is another great site that you can explore and see and learn a lot about ancients by clicking around. Become familiar with it, they have reference numbers for coins that would cost $1,000s of dollars to purchase (the references that is).

I also recommend trying out the auctions on Biddr as you get your feet wet. VCoins is also a place where you can shop freely and you will not be buying coins of questionable integrity. A suggestion though is to see if a seller on VCoins has a stand alone online shop as well. You may get a better deal on the same coin purchased through the direct online site.

@Bing is a smart man. Buy a spiral notebook and keep notes on every coin. You’ll figure out a system of records that you like soon enough but you can’t input data into your system if you don’t have it from the get go.

There is so much fun to be had. Ask us questions, we will have your back.

 

I learned everything I know about ID'ing coins after spending $600 on 800 coins. I only made a slight profit from the sales, but the learning experience was invaluable.

 

I did the same thing but with fewer dollars and fewer coins. I bought 100 and sat down with the British Museum Catalog. (My state university had two sets, one in the Reserved shelf, the other circulating.) Some other books helped, also. I got a few things wrong. Taking my work to another dealer who also knows ancients, got my mistakes fixed. (The one I bought from was mail order. My tutor was local.)

But if I had stopped there "everything I know about ID'ing coins" would not be much. I mean, anyone can read an inscription. I learned to read Tibetan that way: a dealer gave me some coins he had been tendered and I went to the state university library and used the books on Tibetan language and literature. (See my blog here: "Sacred Silver from the Roof of the World" )

 

I am honored. I do agree with about half of the ideas posted to this thread but that is not so bad considering the fact that I only agree with myself about that often.

Books are wonderful. I have learned a lot from coin books but there are quite a number that are worthless also. More are good but out of print and not worth the going price on the used market. I have a few thoughts:

1. I agree with buying the books before the coins but I suggest exhausting the online resources before buying the books. Perhaps that way you will be able to decide which books would be good for you and which duplicate the free online material.

I agree. Klawans has been surpassed. Sayles is a bit expensive but probably worth it. Still, looking online you might find my book page
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/book.html
or the much superior pages of literatuure posted by CT regular Valentinian:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/numis/learnmore.html
Still, we differ on a few (particularly ERIC II) but he has a good coverage of most books. There is a problem with prices on out of print books. The Vagi set is worth the $76 price but not the $217 number. Used book prices on Amazon are driven by computer programs designed to be absurd in one direction or another. I stopped updating my pages years ago and some of my recommendations are hard to find for a reasonable price. If you want a bargain for good information, start with what is free and work up to the pricey stuff.

For the record: I do not like online sites that give nothing but RIC or other catalog numbers. Catalog numbers tell you nothing about the coins except that number. If you are a slave to catalog numbers, buy the catalog rather than stealing the numbers from a third party. There is a difference between using catalogs and worshiping them. RIC is a great book with a lot of information that would be worth reading even if all the numbers were deleted. I tend to prefer books that convey information in words rather than numbers.

 

These are some coins that have caught my eye (5 coins front and back). I am a bit concerned about the detail on the face of Constantine on the "Dafne" coin at the end. Just from looking at these coins, do they seem like authentic pieces? I like the designs and figures related to them. Thanks in advance for any opinions/ info you want to share!!

 

I think they look good, and the late Roman empire is a good place to start

 

Everything appears to be authentic to me. I don't see anything that is SUPER valuable and would warrant counterfeiting. They all look like official Imperial issues of the late empire.

 

The Probus antoninianus is probably the most valuable of the bunch. It's in great shape, appears to have intact silvering, and is really quite a lovely coin.

I have yet to obtain a billon Ant with intact silvering - the stuff generally sloughs off over the millenia. I have a Constantine I follis with 99% intact silvering which is one of the highlights of my colleciton.

 

Here's the Constantine silvered I mentioned

 

I forgot one of the coins i'm considering. I really appreciate the feedback, Probus is one of my favorite emperors. So this one and the silver one mentioned are really attractive options to me.

 

That is a beautiful campgate on the reverse side of your Constantine I Follis, the detail on the star is also great.

 

Probus is affordable and has some GREAT designs.

My favorite is the quadriga reverse. This one cost me around $10. You can get one 10x better for around $25; I was being cheap on this one.

 

You won't beleive how much this one cost me -- just $15!!!

 

Probus is one of the emperors that you can spend all of your time looking for different legends, bust types and mintmarks. Each mint had officinae: workshops within the mint. Each officina would use a mark to distinguish the coins produced in their workshop from other workshops in the same mint. Each mint would have a lettering system which would sometimes incorporate Greek letters and symbols. As the empire grew, additional mints were added. Up until around 250AD, provinces would issue coinage in the name of the emperor with their own names, sometimes the names of the magistrate and their own designs for circulation in the area of the issuing city. These mints were eventually replaced by all empirical mints which eventually adopted standardized designs etc. The mintmarks and officinae marks also grew more complicated over time. So originally, you may have a coin marked with an “A” above the exergue (space on the bottom of the reverse, usually below a line where the mintmark is located) and XXI in the exergue. By the time of the late empire, say Valentinian or Theodosius, you may have R over X/F/ANT(Gamma). When you see marks listed in that fashion typically the cataloguer is indicating that the letters and symbols to the left of the first slash are in the reverse left field, the second part in the reverse right field and the last part in the exergue. Constantine and Probus are prime examples of emperors whose coins display a remarkable variety of combinations. Constantine was Emperor for 30 years with 18 mints so you can imagine the combinations. But even Probus who ruled for about 8 years has something like 2,500 possible individual coins. PROBVS.net is a good resource for coins of Probus and you can get a feel for the coinage there. Feel free to write if you have more questions.

 

If our new friend @NicholasMaximus is set for the Roman empire, then the period 250-350 is a good place to start. Lots of emperors and coins that can be had in good quality for a low price.
I would recommend putting the more expensive purchases on the back-burner (not literally!), and pick common, inexpensive coins while you learn grading, your own preferences and your favorite places to shop.
One thing: Al Kowski has a good point when he recommends buying nice coins. Remember that shipping has a cost too, and that you don’t want to spend a lot of money on shipments for coins that you will upgrade in the near future anyway.
Happy collecting!

 

Great point. Too many times I've wanted to cheap out and get a low grade example, only to want to upgrade immediately afterwards. I could try to sell the one I got, but I may not even break even. So in effect, I lose money by upgrading, instead of getting what I wanted to begin with.

 

Actually, upgrading is most often a loss. Do not buy an inferior coin with plans to upgrade it. Hold out and save your money for the coin you really want. You buy retail and sell wholesale. If the coin you want is $200 and you buy a lower grade one now for $100, you will likely sell it for $60. So the $200 coin actually cost you $240. (Yes, people here will offer contrary stories of their own. I get that. The reason that they have those stories to be proud of is that the event is rare.)

(Ah! Hotwheels got there first.)