I was absent here for several years, and I don't remember so much activity on Coin Talk concerning ancient coins. According to what I just read on the internet the popularity of ancient coins has grown significantly over the last few years, and can be a very good investment. I suppose all coins can be a good investment if you have the right ones. Would the ancient coin collectors here agree with these statements. There must be some type of reference book(s) people use here. What is your opinion on the frequency of ancient coins being found and are not in any reference material, no one knows what it really is?
Investment? Not really. However, a knowledgeable collector or dealer can make money buying and selling the things. Especially if you pick the "right ones." But then are you still a "collector?' Now, if you are a knowledgeable collector with a great eye for quality that forms a collection of ANYTHING, and if you are able to pick the right economic conditions, generally, the fun you had collecting will be rewarded. With anything common or scarce made by hand or nature, there is always THE BEST. That's why a common as dirt, sixty year old postage stamp that can sell for 10% under face value to use as junk postage on mail is different than a sister example that can be worth $$$ because of its quality.
Mostly agree with @Insider . Highest quality seems to be most rewarded but with ancients style is also a huge concern. A fine style coin can easily sell for 5 times more than an average style specimen. Myself, I care more about what the coin is than its condition, so I collect rare items maybe not in the highest grade and am happy. Overall, for any collectible, knowledge is power. However, I find all collectibles to be more hobby worthy, and never an "investment". Too high buy/sell spreads, lower liquidity, costs of insuring for risk of loss, etc. Enjoy a hobby as a hobby, and if your heirs sell it for some money good for them. Short of that, a person needs to be a dealer like @Insider mentioned, with the demands of knowledge there but without the joy of collecting IMHO. Nothing wrong with it, its just not collecting.
I agree with the two previous posters : be cautious with any investment thesis - coins can be fun, an education and do have some intrinsic value. I wrote up a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of ancient coins as an investment: Happiness of the People. Also note the price of Athenian tetradrachms which changed a lot when a large hoard of nice coins was discovered. There are so many reference materials it is hard to know where to start - IMO for pricing the best reference book is an online auction database that often lets you find what someone paid for your coin in the past (all ancients are unique). You can research how prices have gone up (and down) in auctions over the last 20+ years for your coins of interest.
Fun and informative yes, investment grade, not so much except in the case of the rare and valuable coins everyone wants. To give you an example I have a Mars-reverse antoninianus of Gordian III that I obtained in 1980 for $30. Fast forward 42 years and the coin might go for $60. So that is not a very good investment compared to even an index fund like the S&P 500 or Nasdaq. It's a nice coin to be sure but it just hasn't appreciated much. Late Roman bronzes are more of the same for the most part. Rare and valuable stuff like aurei of Brutus and Caesar have appreciated and attracted investor-collectors since there seems to be a great run up in auction prices for such items. You might do better with art and fractional art funds....
...and you know you have the "eye" when you show a new purchase to a group of long-time, experienced, ancient dealers and collectors and they pee their pants!
Ask @panzerman. He has invested big $$$$$ in gold ancient coins. His coins are so amazing and worth a fortune. How deep are your pockets ? Coins can be an investment, but most of the time you will loose money on them. As someone already said "coins are a great hobby". Your best coin investment is the fun you get out of doing it and sharing it with other coin collectors.
As a new ancient coin collector, but someone who has a lot of education and professional experience in investing, I agree with the others that it's not a great investment. Coins should generally hold their value and appreciate slowly (in nominal terms) as inflation occurs over the years. But it is totally unpredictable whether they will outpace inflation. New hoards can be found, old collections sold in estate sales, etc. which can move prices a bit. Some coin types may increase in popularity and become more expensive quickly, while others will not. I'm sure someone with a sharp eye could make profits buying cheaply and selling later, but that's a tough game to succeed at. In my opinion, ancient coins are a fun hobby because generally, whatever $ value you put in should generally be preserved, and you could recoup your money if you needed to. So you can spend a good bit of cash without feeling too guilty. BUT, not a good way to make money imo. To your other point - it does seem like interest in the hobby has picked up a good deal. Like I said, I myself am brand new so I'm exhibit A.
For modern coin collectors, ancients must seem tempting, but they are really two different universes. Modern coins are more static. They have well established grades that are ruled by a handful of grading services. There are also relatively few different coins. One can easily lookup the price for a given coin of a given mint + year + grade. One can even make a chart of prices for it over time, like a stock. Ancients have none of that uniformity. Grades are variable and are just one factor that influences a coin price, such as centering, provenance, patina, etc. More ancient coins are constantly being uncovered in hoards. For modern coins, it's extremely rare that someone's going to pull a high grade rarity out of the dirt. For ancients, the supply always changes. Collecting trends change dramatically over time. Each coin type is more popular in some years vs others as people's moods change. Grading services have dramatically less impact. Indeed, for many collectors, the presence of a coin in a case degrades the value. Many can't stand them. The number of types makes it impossible to "collect them all." Many new types are discovered every year. A large percentage of collectors own a unique type. So, in summary, if you're looking towards ancients as an investment based on your background in modern coins, I recommend running away. Ancients is more the realm for those who love them for their history. As long as you stick with that and don't care about the money, you'll be fine.
Ancient coins being found and no one really knows what they are are quite rare. The vast majority of coins found that aren't in the reference material are small legend variations, small variations in how an emperor's bust is rendered(basically small details like what's on their shoulder), different placements of symbols, small variations in symbols like monograms, etc. There are some areas such as archaic fractions from Asia Minor where there are larger numbers of coins that can't be assigned to a particular city or authority, and there are some small issues from Greece that similarly have no legends and can't be assigned to a specific city or authority. That said, the majority of coins I see in my collecting area described as "unpublished" actually aren't. It's usually just a dealer or collector who doesn't have the right references or doesn't know how to use the references. I would not trust any dealer calling a coin "unpublished" nor assume you can figure out if a coin is unpublished or not unless you have a rather large reference library of recent papers, references and major collection sales and you understand how to use the references and know which papers and auctions actually have unpublished coins in them.
I would say that coins are a poor investment because a lot comes down more to luck than anything. A few examples: 1) Nerva-Antonine denarii are statistically about as common as Severan denarii, but the success of Gladiator pushed public interest in the period of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, and thus demand skyrocketed, and prices followed. 2) A number of years ago, a remarkable series of bronze coins featuring a leaping ram opposite a set of scales emerged, and was sensationally attributed to Nectanebo II, the only Indigenous Egyptian pharaoh to issue coinage: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=463241 Then, a new hoard was found, pushing the attribution to the Roman province of Syria, mid 3rd century. Those handful of $5,000 coins became $150 coins almost overnight. 3) Athens tets have always been highly coveted coins, but maybe 5 years ago a hoard of 10,000+ owls was found and "somehow" came to market - The big dealers are probably sitting on thousands of them, and have been trying to carefully feed them into the market without doing too much damage, but formerly $800-1200 coins still only hammer for $300-500 because there is a functionally endless supply compared to the pool of interested collectors. These were still pricy by my budgetary standards, but would have been unaffordable when I started collecting ancients in 2015 One thing I think hasn't been touched on too much is the potential of demand for certain "backwater" specialties in numismatics to boom as the world economic status quo shifts. India is #2 in world population and about #6 in GDP, but about #160 in terms of GDP per capita - that leaves enormous room for growth should India maintain or accelerate its current IT boom. Most Indians I know (which as an IT professional, is a lot) are intensely interested in their own heritage, and expanding into Indian numismatics would be a logical next step if the country were to become significantly more affluent. We've already seen a surge in demand for top quality Kushan AEs, and other types like Mauryan, Kshatrapa, Gupta, Gadhaiya, or Shahi coinages would be a top contender to see a rise in prices. Ditto with China, although I think the work is less on ensuring individual affluence and more on cracking down on the counterfeiting rings and repairing the international reputation of "Chinese coins are mostly fake".
This was all very interesting to me. I have never really considered actually my coins as an investment except I'm sure my children will do okay, my budget is pretty small. I had not considered new hoards being found, but I can now certainly see that happen. Who knows, I may obtain a few of these in these sometime in the future. I will continue to read posts as they come. For me they make an interesting read for me. I thank each and everyone of you for repling.
In monetary terms, ancient coins are not the best investment due to one key factor: hoards. While hoards or accumulations, if you prefer, of modern coins do occur and large collections hit the market from time to time, ancient coins are far more prone to the hoard factor just by their very nature - they come from a time when it was the norm to stash one's money in a place that offered relative security, be that a jar or within or under a wall, whatever. By far burial was the usual resort, and ancient coin finds of this nature occur on a widespread and frequent basis, from individual coins to small groups to truly staggering groups. Normally when large hoards of a given coin type hits the market there's a drop in that type's value, which actually affords collectors an opportunity to obtain an example at a reduced price. The point is that ancient coins cannot be relied on as a reliable, steady investment. Prices do fluctuate for many types, so the net outcome when it comes time to sell may not necessarily mean a gain. Now I know that slabbed ancients and even some raw ancients have been selling for very high prices, especially since the start of the pandemic, when many collectors and non-collectors were stuck at home with cash to burn. This trend cannot sustain itself over time, in my opinion. There will come a point when prices level off and start to drop, leaving those who bought in the stratospheric price level stuck with the prospect of losing money on a coin when it is put up for sale. Now, there is an investment that one can make with ancient coins that has immediate returns. That is the investment that gives a collector pleasure, knowledge and an appreciation of history. As intangible as this investment is, I think one can argue that these aspects of collecting ancients and other coins for that matter are rewards enough.
This is the "correct" answer to me. I judge all purchases on how much pleasure I consider it giving me. If I am willing to spend X right now to own it, I buy it. To me, I get the satisfaction of ownership immediately and its worth it to me. I then put it in a flip and box, play with it for a few months, then it goes into the SDB. There it sits untouched until I "get around" to going through what I own. If I ever do, (which unfortunately is very rare for me), its like I purchased it all over again, (since I do not remember 90+% of what I have bought), and I get the same value of ownership all over again! Bonus profit! Looking forward to retirement and collecting on a lot more bonus profits when I have time to sit down and revisit old friends again. Maybe by then I will learn to take competent pictures...
That most certainly is a very nice set of Roman Republic denarii, and the photo is top notch. My point is that I think it is a fundamental mistake to view the collecting of ancients as a purely financial form of speculation. True, some coins hold their owl and appreciate, sometimes significantly when held for many years. This is especially true for rare coins, coins that have a low population and have qualities of beauty or historical significance. I guess those coins could be considered "blue chip" coins, and they are almost always the focus of auctions, often adorning catalog covers. But the coins that I have mostly don't qualify for that lofty league, being mostly mid-grade ancients, coins that I have enjoyed owning over the past four decades regardless of monetary value. So ancients are popular. They have so much to offer the collector in so many ways outside the realm of financial speculation.
Putting things a different way, consider this coin of mine. The type is extremely well-known. In fact, it may be the most recognized of all ancient coins. Even non-ancient collectors have been known to grab one. There are tens of thousands of these out there, and I've read web sites that advocate investing in this specific coin. This exact coin was sold in 2005 for $2500. In 2021, I paid $950 for it. To be honest, it was one of the first ancients I purchased (because it's so well-known and comes from Athens during the time we all read about), and had I been more savvy and patient I would have found a similar example for less. As you can see, it was a poor investment for whomever purchased it in 2005. That's because in the meantime tens of thousands were uncovered in hoards. Now, for a completely different angle, I present my ancient coin web site. Consider this: in the one year I was collecting ancient coins before I created this web site, I knew absolutely nothing about any of this history that I present on the page. Granted, some here may add that I still know nothing about either ancient coins or their history, but I'd like to believe I learned something. In fact, I learned a lot of things. To me, owning a part of this history has changed my life. I'm in the process of writing a novel that takes place during this period. I've become boring in creative new ways at parties. My sons make sure not to bring their friends by when the coin albums are out, for fear of the stories. Sure, my wife at times isn't pleased with the drops in our account balances, but I believe ancient coins has made me a different person. In that one year since I've started collecting, I've been promoted twice. This probably has nothing to do with coins, but you can't prove that. I've also made lots of new friends among the members here. At least, I like to think of them as my friends. Perhaps several secretly hate me, but I remain oblivious. In sum, my investment in ancient coins has paid off tremendously, even though I expect to never earn a dime from them.
robinjojo, posted: "...My point is that I think it is a fundamental mistake to view the collecting of ancients as a purely financial form of speculation." I have not read anything to the contrary in this discussion. There are numerous examples of coins flipped for a profit, or held in a collection for a good return; yet coins are bad investments. There are more examples of financial loss - more often by investors not collecting for all the benefits (the "right" reasons?) already mentioned. My point is, for those who can afford it, some coins that they collected for enjoyment (and all the "right" reasons) should provide a financial return. This is probably harder for ancient collectors because of the vast choices to pick a winner. However, just as with popular and scarce American coins, the coins of Julius Caesar or gold coins of the 12 Caesars seem to have appreciated over time. I'm sure there are many additional cases. Additionally, for the rest of us, ancients like many of you have will be in demand and do fine when you sell them because of their seldom seen exceptional quality. I guess I secretly hate the poster above because he owns that Owl.
