3 Roman coins, ID please help!!

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by Mukremin, Jun 10, 2010.

  1. Mukremin

    Mukremin Junior Member

    Hi there i have here 3 roman coins that need to be identified, any expert here :smile
    btw also please a value indication
     

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  3. Ardatirion

    Ardatirion Où est mon poisson

    Constantius II Vota type; Valentinian GLORIA ROMANORVM type, Constantinople mint; Constantinople commemorative, Siscia mint

    You can ID them further using the spreadsheets available here:
    http://www.catbikes.ch/coinstuff/coins-ric.htm
     
  4. Mukremin

    Mukremin Junior Member

    thanks for the info, but i get confused when trying to use the spreadsheet :S anyone can help me?
     
  5. Eyestrain

    Eyestrain Junior Member

    The second coin is actually Valens, Valentinian's brother and co-emperor. They're all quite common coins and in rough condition. I have some similar examples that I only paid about a buck for, so there's not much in the way of monetary value. But hey, they're still over 1600 years old, so that gives them historic value.
     
  6. Mukremin

    Mukremin Junior Member

    so the last coin isnt a real coin?
     
  7. Eyestrain

    Eyestrain Junior Member

    It's a real coin. It was issued to commemorate the founding of Constantinople as the new Roman capital under Constantine I. Instead of having an emperor's bust on the obverse, it features the personification of Constantinopolis. It would have been exchanged as currency worth the same as other similarly sized bronze coins of its day.
     
  8. Mukremin

    Mukremin Junior Member

    have you got any value on that last coin? and possible the other 2? i guess the first coin Constantius II is a widely found coin right? as well as valens.
     
  9. Eyestrain

    Eyestrain Junior Member

    As I said, they're all very common 4th century bronze coins. You may not find them in your pocket change, but you'll find them in any lot of uncleaned, unidentified ancients.

    To give you an example of their value, I once bought three bags of unsorted ancient coins (mostly 4th century bronze) for $60. I found several in the mix that were just like yours and in similar condition. At $60 for the lot I purchased, it came to $0.37 per coin.

    Properly attributed, they're still only worth about a buck or two each. They can be fun to identify, but they won't put your kids through college.
     
  10. Mukremin

    Mukremin Junior Member

    how come that roman coins are not worth so much? i mean some of them are nice, maybe common but still they should be worth more then modern coins? my ottoman collection is worth more.
     
  11. Eyestrain

    Eyestrain Junior Member

    In really nice condition they'd be worth more. Say $50 to $100 for truly exceptional examples. But most of the 4th century bronze coins out there are in pretty shabby shape. And there are millions of them to be had. That's the problem. There are more bronze coins of that era than there are collectors who want them. The Roman economy was beginning its long final plunge down the tubes when your coins were struck, and the mints were mass producing little bronze coins as fast as possible.

    Silver and gold coins from that period are much rarer and therefore worth a lot more. Not only because they contain precious metals, but because they were more carefully crafted. The bronze coins never got the love -- not then, not now.

    If you're interested in valuable Roman coins, you'll have to look earlier in their history or, ironically, later. Some of the last Roman coins to be minted (in the period just before the fall of the western empire) are quite valuable if you can find a well-struck identifiable specimen. Most of the bronze coins minted at that late date were so poorly produced, they weren't identifiable even when they were new. So if you find a rare decent example, that'll actually be worth good money, even though it will likely be an ugly little excuse for a coin.
     
  12. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    This is a fair question that deserves reply (and we hear it all the time). There are Roman coins that sell for $50,000 in average condition (the EID MAR Brutus come to mind). There are Roman coins that sell for whatever the minimum price a dealer charges to get out of his chair and take your money (like 99% of late Roman bronzes). The difference is demand. I collect Roman coins. If these three coins were offered free, I might take the one on the right to give to a new collector but but the fact remains that chipped, broken and corroded coins of common types exist far in excess of people who want them. If being identified raises the value from 37 cents to a dollar (debateable) you would need to find a non-ancient collector who thinks anything that old is worth a dollar. Harder is finding someone who thinks a thousand such coins are worth $1000. Most of us would rather have the same coin in presentable/beautiful condition for $10-50. I'm surprised that it is not also that way with Ottoman coins. Is there are market for the most common coins in corroded and broken condition? There are more common ancient coins in good shape than there are collectors willing to tie up all their cash in many thousands of common coins. Most prefer to have a few hundred selected 'special' coins.

    Being old does not make a coin valuable. Soldiers of the Late Roman period buried their cash reserves in a secret place and went out and died in battle. Farmers buried chests full of cash and left quickly when the barbarians were coming over the hill. Rich people died of disease and forgot to tell anyone where they stashed the cash. If my total 'cash' worth is $1000, at least $900 of that is in the form of entries in a bankbook. A Roman worth 1000 coins had a bag containing 1000 coins. Both of us might have IOU's and other forms of non hard cash assets but few modern folks have money buried in the back yard.

    Later, in the medieval period, there was a smaller use of cash in transactions. In the East, the same type coins stayed in circulation for hundreds of years so many that are found are worn slick. The turmoil of the late Roman period caused regular changes in monetary standards so many of the coins buried would have been hard to spend even if they were found. The combination of millions of coins and a terribly fast change in the economy conspired to make a lot of coins not worth much. Add to that a couple thousand years of burial and we have a million coins in existance with a thousand still in decent shape but only 500 collectors who wouldn't mind having the type. There are well over a million different ancient coins and most collectors do not try to get a complete set so the boring ones sort of fall by the wayside while the collectors dream of owning one of the 'special' ones they could never afford.

    Coin value is not what a dealer charges for a coin but what that dealer will pay a collector to buy that coin back from the collector. As long as the earth continues to cough up thousands of unsearched and uncleaned coins, the market for coins identified as nothing special will remain low. You might find a new collector who would pay $10 for the coin on the right and they might take the other two for free if you threw them in but it might be hard to find a dealer willing to tie up any amount of money to buy a bag of 10,000 broken and ugly coins knowing that there would be nothing special hidden inside. Again I am surprized if it is different in Ottoman. What is the value sight unseen of a bag of 10,000 damaged common bronzes pretty certainly picked over to remove anything special? Similarly, what would be the value of 1000 good looking common coins which are likely to be already in the collection of 99% of the people who are interested in such things? Such nice coins might be worth $10 or $50 'retail' but who is willing to tie up $10,000 while they look for a thousand buyers? Perfect coins are easier to sell but, unlike US coins, I've not known collectors interested in buying mint roll sets.

    This is way too long but I'll ask others to disagree with the points I've made. If you say just any old coin is worth real cash, how many would you like?
     
  13. Mukremin

    Mukremin Junior Member

    that was some very nice detailed explenation, thanks for clearing up the subject. I am new to Roman coins, although i am experienced in ottoman coins i still suffer some times. But to be honest, i am more a historian collector. I give more value to the historical part, but i was still wondering how much it would be worth. :D
     
  14. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    One of my favorite coin dealers has said: "Love your coins for what they are, not what they are worth." We all have to ask if the bottom fell out of the coin market, would we buy twice as many or give up the hobby in disgust.
     
  15. randygeki

    randygeki Coin Collector


    Definately twice as many :goofer: :goofer: :goofer: :goofer: :goofer:
     
  16. Mukremin

    Mukremin Junior Member

    that is some very nice quote, i like it and will remember it from now on. Hopefully pass it on to my kids when they will take over my collection :D
     
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