Many years ago I didn’t know anything about ancient roman coins. In my house there were already several roman coins in a pottery on a shelf but I wasn’t interested in them. One Sunday in a flea market I purchased my first coin. I really didn’t know what kind of coin I purchased, I liked it and I bought it and today I can say that was overpriced. When arrived at home I turned on my personal computer and searched with Altavista about Roman coins. One of the first results was a website hosted on Geocities named to Doug Smith. I thought “wow” it was for me a treasure of informations and raised in me the interest about ancient roman coinage but I didn’t understood anything about my coin so I wrote a mail to him and after few hours I got a reply with all the informations needed. I will never stop to say thank you to Doug Smith who addicted me, I never told him this little story.( of course my pocket is less happy than me). Even now I always find something to learn about history, mints, emperors, buildings. It is like a wheel that continues to move because everything I see is linked to something else, I never stop to read about facts. Just to share this is the coin, the purchased number one (like Uncle Scrooge), not so beauty but will be always with me. IMP PROBVS AVG, bust radiated and cuirassed right. ADVENTVS AVG, Probus on horse advancing left, captive in front of him, R(thunderbolt)Z in exergue. Die Axis 12, RIC V-II 157, 4,1 grams, 23mm
Although I was already involved in the hobby, Doug Smith's articles taught me how to collect, that there was much MUCH more to this "hobby" than looking for a coin to stick in a slot. I have sent links to these articles to every new collector I come across (most experienced collectors already know). The articles also gave me the "Septimius bug" - the imperial sestertii of the family of Septimius Severus have been the focus of my collecting efforts for a few years now. (and in that regard, assuming it gets here in the mail, I am about to post what I think is an unlisted "IMP X" sestertius type for Septimius Severus, with Victory walking left on the reverse. I have not been this excited about a coin since I was able to afford the "DI PATRII" type which is in one of my threads).
You both may already be aware, but just in case you're not - Doug (Smith) is a long time and very active member of this forum And by the way, I'm moving this thread to Coin Chat as this section is more for the discussion of things not related to coins.
@dougsmit is an extremely knowledgeable and helpful individual. I'm sure he'll be pleased to hear about the impact he's had on your collecting life.
You are most welcome. I had not seen this before today because I rarely read anything not in the Ancients section of Coin Talk. When I started my pages in 1997 there was very little online on ancient coins. It happened by accident that I called my pages "Ancient Greek and Roman Coins" but was not then aware of another new startup page called "Ancient Roman and Greek Coins" by the very active Coin Talk member Valentinian. In 1997, I felt the need for something for beginners in this hobby but I rarely do anything new on those pages now because the 'website' format I used has been made somewhat obsolete by the discussion forum format of which a major example is Coin Talk. The time I spent back then working on new pages, I now spend reading and writing here. Valentinian still adds pages to his: http://augustuscoins.com/ed/ I am always thrilled to hear that my pages were of some use to someone. Thanks for this thread.
Sweet Probus, @Roma Here's my favorite coin of his from my collection. And yeah, @dougsmit taught me a lot when I was a complete newbie to ancient coins. I probably couldn't even tell the difference between a Mickey Mouse token and a Denarius, but his website and his posts here on Cointalk were immensely valuable to me. Sure taught me a hell of a lot about the hobby.
found Doug's website today, http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/ , thanks for the Photographing tips
