Given the prevalance of them in auctions recently, I am assuming a large hoard of "middle period" Sasanian pieces were found. There has been just a ton of nice grade coins from about 390-430 mintages for sale. Of course, I couldn't lay off of them. Here is one of the groups I just bought this week: CENTRAL ASIAN. Sasanian & Related. Lot of twenty-five (25) AR Drachms of Yazdgird I & Bahram V. Includes: various mints and dates. Good VF to EF. LOT SOLD AS IS, NO RETURNS. Twenty-five (25) coins in lot. I have bought some of the other group lots the last year as well. If anyone kind of likes Sasanian coins, but hate ugly coins like many of the late Sasanians can be, or bored with Khusro II coins, (the main nice looking late Sassanid coins available), I would highly encourage to buy into this hoard. Bahram V is the famous Bahram Gur of Persian legend. These are truly scarce coins, and I spent years collecting Sasanid pieces to have these only occasionally offered for sale, and rarely at the quality of these. I always preach to buy into hoards. Maybe I am shooting myself in the foot by posting this, but I wish others here on Cointalk to be able to get coins at a price and quality usually not possible. Group lots are not for everyone, but the prices are down and quality up for single pieces as well. Good time to buy one if you don't have them. If not, don't worry. I will just continue Hoovering them up.
Is the strategy here to sell off the duplicates in order to bring down the price per coin of the ones you keep? I do not have much experience with group lots..I've only purchased one small lot and it was a mixed.. so kept them all. The coins looks amazing!
I posted my two a couple months ago. They came from a Pars sale where a good half of the better lots went unsold due to overly high starts. They had many mints so I could see the chance that your group would have several different coins. Mine were low end for the group Pars had. Bahram V Yazdgird I
Um, yeah. My wife would probably like your approach.... No greater strategy, no selling. I tell myself that there are many different mints, many different styles, which is all true, but I don't have much time to do the sorting right now. My rule of thumb is max of 50%. If the value of half the lot or more is what I am paying for the lot, then the rest are "free". I have many lots of like 25 coins I bought for 6 pieces. The other 19 just come along for the ride. In this case, given the quality, they are $100 coins. I paid less than half that, so I bought 11 and got 14 for "free". However, I know from 20+ years collecting ancients that you buy WHAT you can WHEN you can. You used to be able to buy nice Shapur I pieces by the dozens, now they are scarcer again. Older collectors remember those Koson staters were EVERYWHERE, now prices are up and they are scarce again. Right now Athenian owls are everywhere, in a couple of years they will be back down in quantity and prices will go back up. The ancient market simply works that way. Newer collectors get scared of this, worrying "what happens if what I buy they find a hoard of, the price will go down!". Advanced collectors, (or maybe just older), look at it the other way around, "good gosh, great news, I can buy fantastic pieces right now. Better take advantage before the are gone". In the end, they are always "gone". The hoard always disperses and prices go right back to where they were. This is why I eagerly look for signs of new hoards. Best buys are usually associated with them.
