Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Drusus, post: 263520, member: 6370&quot;]You might think while looking at peoples collection of late to middle Roman or Persian bronze, silver coins in their collection or Geek, Byzantine, or middle ages coins...are they real? how is it that these ancient coins dont cost a fortune? I am afraid they might all be fake!!</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Well, first off...anyone who collects these coins know that many DO cost a fortune, they know the difference between common and rare...that is why you dont see a lot of coins of Nero, Augustus, Otho and the like in great condition posted on a regular basis. Although even some of these, while much more expensive on the whole, can be bought in decent shape for surprisingly cheap at times...</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>What you see most commonly are mid to late bronze and silver coins...and indeed, most of these are real. These are found in large numbers in buried hoards, or they are found here and there in small hoards. In places like Bulgaria and Turkey there are some places where you can literally walk out of your door with a metal detector and in a days looking find 3 or 4 of these...places that had large encampments and settlements.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The Romans and Persians were notorious for burying hoards of coins...this was pre-banking and if the Romans walked off with thousands of silver Persian coins, they would bury them...maybe they would never make it back...people buried their own money, something happened and the small fortune was never retrieved...Romans buried money.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Buy the mid to late empire the population of the empire had expanded drastically...during the reign of Constantine, there was over a million people living in Rome alone...then you have many other large population centers ALL OVER the empire, in Europe, eastern Europe, turkey, north Africa, etc...</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>for the million in Rome alone there had to be many millions of coins minted...mints had to supply many millions of people with money to spend...and there were many different mints all over the empire doing this...Siscia, Nicomedia, Rome, Antioch, Britain, Serdica, Carthage, Cyzicus, etc...etc... all minting coins...most likely millions each year by the the days of Constantine...</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Think of a coin like this:</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img src="http://www.cachecoins.org/crispus.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>in terms of a modern penny, nickel or dime...made of copper or bronze...at the time, not worth a whole lot but enough to by what you needed if you had enough. How many millions of pennies, nickel or dimes are minted each year in America...or in the last 5 or 10 years. Rome as it lay in geographic terms was much like America...it wasn&#039;t just Italy or the city of Rome...it was all of Europe, much of the middle east, Britain, and north Africa (and sometime more)...each of the regions minted coins, each one had a good size population to keep in money...</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Now of course today we have banks and we dont bury our savings...but just think if we did? how many pennies and how much change gets dropped everyday...then think about how many hoards of coins (if we didnt use bills and we buried them) might end up left in the ground when its owner, for some reason, never made it back to retrieve them...If I had to bury everything I have in the bank right now in coin form...it would be quite a sizable hoard of coins...</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>They had other ways of storing money but it wasnt reliable...would you store your money in the town temple if you knew for a fact that if some group attacked the town...the first place they would go is the temple for loot?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Anyway...the advice you hear is all correct...know who you buy from, know what you are buying...there ARE a lot of fakes out there, mostly of the higher dollar items. People are less likely to spend the time money and effort faking cheap common coins...but they have.[/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