I’m sure most plebs would be illiterate, and couldn’t care for the busts on their coins as long as they have a metal, but what about the ones who could read, like rich merchants and officers, do you think when they come across the coins of Caligula/ Otho/ Gordian I/II or other rare emperors, they’d be like ‘hey look, you don’t see this coin often’.
I don't know about the ancient cultures but I do know the newspaper boys would resell the USA 1909 VDB penny for a nickel. They saw it as rare.
They certainly knew about the debasement of the coinage and held on to coins with higher silver content.
Probably. Whether or not there were collectors back in Roman times is not known. One can imagine that folks would have a reaction to the various new reverse types issued by emperors portraying current events. You could say coins were the newspapers of their day to a certain extent and certainly propaganda tools.
I heard that despite the melting down of mass Caligula and Cladius denarius, Romans in the mid and late 1st century AD hoarded older Augustus and Tiberius denarius.
Some years ago I purchased the book Le Tresor D'Eauze which was a hoard found in the south of France. The last coins in the hoard were from the time of Valerian I, Gallienus as well as Postumus suggesting that the hoard might have been put in the ground sometime shortly after 260 AD. What struck me as being interesting is that while the earliest silver coin in the hoard was from the reign of Septimius Severus, there were a number of aes coins placed in the hoard as well. There was a well worn as of Augustus as well as one of Germanicus. There was an as of Domitian, a Sestertius, and two asses of Trajan as well as a medallion of Marcus Aurelius. What was striking about the third century assemblage is a bronze of Severus Alexander from Caesarea in Cappadocia of roughly 25 mm. The largest group was four asses and one dupondius of Gordian III and the most unusual was an as of Valerian II. Again what was striking is that except in one case there was no duplication of reverses. Was this simply small change? I am not sure, though I would certainly deem it to be extremely reckless to call it a collection. One of my coins that is similar to one found in the hoard Trajan Ae As 98-99 AD Obv Head right laureate Rv. Victory advancing left holding shield. RIC 395var Woytek 61a 12.43 grms 27 mm Photo by W. Hansen Mine is a TR. P COS II I think the Eauze coin is likely to be a COS IIII
I feel that we can easily apply modern-day sentiment to this. The vast majority of common folk do not collect coins. However, even the layfolk will almost always set aside something that they deem unusual - half dollars, dollar coins, 2 dollar bills, etc. Some people, though they aren't collectors, will at least look at the coins. If they happen to get a nickel that has a strange buffalo on the back, I can almost guarantee they would keep it, and acknowledge that it's a rare coin. They probably wouldn't start and go out hunting for old/rare coins, but they would recognize it was unusual. I think that ancients would have done a similar thing. If you're living in Byzantine times and all of a sudden a sestertius or as popped into your till, if you could afford to keep it, you probably would just as a curio.
