Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2975566, member: 19463&quot;]I believe this is a reflection of the fact that the subject simply does not lend itself to a one-stop basic resource.&nbsp; There are several people I believe would be qualified to write a &#039;Ancient Coins for Dummies&#039; but most of them are smart enough to know they would be setting themselves up for failure as unable to satisfy the demand for a thousand pages of wisdom in a $25 single volume paperback.&nbsp; I believe the last thing a beginner needs to learn is how to identify ancient coins.&nbsp; I do believe that beginners need to learn &#039;about&#039; the coins but should be buying their coins identified from sellers that specialize in holding the hands of new collectors.&nbsp; That means they don&#039;t need to buy uncleaned coins or great rarities, two areas where exact ID seem more significant.&nbsp; They don&#039;t need to participate in every glossy catalog auction or have a goal of owning 200 different coin issuing authorities in the first 200 days.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>When I was a kid and collected US coins, I had a &#039;type&#039; collection where I went out of my way to have a representative example of coin types with preference shown to common dates which served the purpose as well as would a super rarity.&nbsp; Today, we see people entering ancients intent on having only a few coins but only the most desirable, most rare and most perfect.&nbsp; The concept of beginner coins for beginners suffers from a trend in beginners to believe that only chumps would want the ordinary stuff and they should own first the things that once were considered things to aspire to own.....someday.&nbsp; I suggest an ancient &#039;type&#039; collection with coins that represent others of their genre but make no pretense of being a completeable &#039;set&#039;.&nbsp; Some of us refer to these as &quot;Coins that speak to me.&quot; </p><p><br /></p><p>I agree with the suggestions of VanMeter and Sayles.&nbsp; I also approve of the<u> one volume</u> Sear Roman which served many beginners well but Mr Sear decided to abandon in favor of an vain attempt to list every Roman coin he thought worth mentioning even if it took five volumes and still missed covering more than it included.&nbsp; Used copies of the one volume <b>Roman Coins and their Values </b>are worth buying used when they can be found.&nbsp; </p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0900652985/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&amp;condition=used&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0900652985/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&amp;condition=used&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0900652985/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&amp;condition=used&amp;qid=&amp;sr=</a></p><p>Still these only cover Romans so they omit 90% of ancient coins which we term Greek, Eastern, Provincial, Celtic, Asian and areas which escape my mind at the moment.&nbsp; There are books on each of these which might be advised but most beginners seem to start with Roman. </p><p><br /></p><p>I lived for my coin books when I started fifty years ago but today we have another option for numismatic education.&nbsp; <b>Online resources</b> come in three basic types.&nbsp; First are the groups like Coin Talk where beginners are invited to bounce questions off of people a bit more experienced than they are (or not) and try to determine which answers make sense.&nbsp; Second we have listings of coins for sale or sold in the past which are listed with a great deal of information about the coins in question.&nbsp; You DO NOT have to buy your coins where you read about them.&nbsp; Obviously the dealers who post all these pages hope you will think of them when spending your collecting dollar but your first purchase does not have to follow your first Google search.&nbsp; Read about a thousand and buy one.&nbsp; Third are web pages posted as information sources by great and small &#039;authorities&#039; from places like the British Museum down to people who just want to show their collections to those who will look.&nbsp; Somewhere in the lower-middle region of these I count my non commercial site with my opinions on what you might want to know.&nbsp; If you hang around Coin Talk, others will point out other resources the collector (new or old) would benefit from knowing.&nbsp; Books are wonderful and I have a few hundred (large and small) on ancient coins.&nbsp; I have spent thousands on my library but mine is small by some standards.&nbsp; Much of the online material is free for the looking (there are some that want money but they are not needed to keep a beginner busy for a few lifetimes).&nbsp; I invite you to visit my pages:</p><p><a href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/</a></p><p><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/banner.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in