What was your first ancient coin?

My first three ancient coins purchased as an adult. All in the early- to mid-1980s when I was still in my 20s, and was already collecting Greek, Roman, and Egyptian antiquities, but for coins was collecting only British -- which I continued to do for the most part for the next 30 years. At the time I finally switched to collecting almost exclusively ancient coins in 2017, I had accumulated only about a dozen.

 

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My first ancient coin, an Alexander III tetradrachm of Salamis, has long departed these shores, as have many other coins acquired in the late 70s and 80s.

The only way I can now identify earlier coins is by the holders they are in. My very early coins, at least the really nice ones, are in Gem Velopes, a long extinct line (from the market) of yellow paper envelopes with cotton liners that were available on a limited basis in the early 1980s. The liners were reportedly made by some nuns - whether there's any truth to that, I'll leave to your imagination.

I have two ancient coins in these envelopes. One, I am pretty sure, is a later purchase that I transferred to a Gem Velope, leaving one, which, for lack of a better memory, is now the earliest ancient purchased back in the early 80s from Harlan Berk.

This coin was actually sold to my local coin dealer when we were buying the house in 1993, but I was able to buy it back from him later. That's his writing on the envelope. My original label was attached on the back with some adhesive tape, long removed. The dealer probably thought that was a weird way to mount a label, and he was right. Envelope to the left, cotton liner to the right.

16.8 grams

 

The first ancient coin I purchased was an M. Sergius Silus denarius. I purchased it from Tom Walker at a GNA show in Atlanta in 1983 for $45. I had recently gotten my drivers license and the show was the first "road trip" I went on by myself, driving the 2 1/2 hours from Birmingham to Atlanta. I sold it back to Tom at another GNA show in 1986 or 1987 for $65. Last September, this exact coin was submitted to NGC by a non-ancient coin dealer. He had purchased it from James Beach. Where the was the intervening 34 years is anyone's guess. I actually tried to buy it, but he wanted about 3 times what it was worth (I would have paid 2x what I thought it was worth, but he had paid more than that himself from James).

Barry Murphy

 

You couldn't add "Ex Murphy Collection" to the NGC description?

 

Sort of a worthless pedigree. LOL.

Barry

 

In March 2003 I purchased this Vespasian denarius from oldromancoins.com (anyone remember Henri Delger?) for $100. 19 years later I still have it.



And yes, that is the original dealer's photo!