Anyone switch focus from modern to ancient or vice versa?

I at first tried to collect both ancients and moderns but found that per dollar I enjoyed ancients more than moderns, and because of this, my budget was better spent on ancients. I also wasn't a big fan of slabs and didn't see it being possible to seriously collect moderns in my average price range($100-$300) without paying the slab tax, so that was probably what finally drove me over the edge. I ended up selling virtually all my moderns, bullion, etc. and putting the money towards ancients and building out a library for studying ancients. I later did the same thing with many of my ancients so I could focus on the Roman Republic.

I don't really regret it, though the fact that I don't collect moderns means that I have to do most of my shopping online as my local coin stores, coin shows and coin clubs are all focused on moderns. That said, there are plenty of great resources and groups online to study, discuss and purchase ancients, so I don't feel that I'm missing out on too much.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I guess it depends on what one considers modern. I consider modern being 1964 or newer. I consider some newer (bullion) coin designs to be beautiful, at near spot, and near perfect. Do they have history?, no, or not yet anyway. To each their own. I hope to find an ancient that sparks my interest for the history, as well as fitting my tastes for condition/design.

 

19th and early 20th century US coins were my focus, on and off, for 50 years, but nothing after the early 1940s. About 20 years ago, on a whim, I bought a couple ancients at a show. I love my US coins but I'd often pull out those two ancients and stare at them in appreciation of their sheer artistic beauty, particularly Athena and Pegasus on the Anaktorian stater, and think of the times in which they were created.

Late last year, at age 69, I found this forum. The stories and photos of ancients were amazing. I was like a kid in a candy shop. New books to read and "new" coins to pursue!

Now I've acquired a few ancients and put them in the box with my US coins and they're all getting along nicely together! My interest in US coins is undiminished but a whole new exciting numismatic field has been opened to me.

 

For what it's worth, generally the dividing line between "modern" (early modern, at least) and all its predecessor areas is about 1500 AD.

If you're in the US, of course, '64 seems like a rational place to draw a line between eras, but in my mind it's between the last gasp of interest possible for anyone who was not going to be buying NCLT's and then, eventually, slabs; and instead was in it for "the thrill of the chase". As one who lived through it, I can say it very quickly became impossible to collect from actual circulation (I'm not talking about those few who had access to huge amounts of change like the proceeds of parking meters or vending machines) anything earlier than 1964 in any denomination except cents or nickels (where a mintage under a billion is considered "rare"?!?). The "trolleycar" cents (Lincoln Memorial) were already well on the way to driving wheatbacks out of circulation by '64, and the silver content of wartime nickels made them nearly impossible to find after that cutoff date as well.
So I'd have to say it was the "lucky" (perhaps "fortuitous" would be a better term) confluence of Greshams law, the changes (none for the better) in the makeup of US coinage in circulation, the growing feeling as a teenager that I was too cool to (openly) be a coin collector (automatic categorization and social shunning as a "nerd" at the time) and the fact that I'd had some ancients - albeit without any real support or referencing ability - since 1957, sort of ensured that when my interest in coins reignited in the early 70's after a 5-6 year hiatus, it was only months (perhaps weeks) before I decided that ancients were the way to go.
It was really sort of a no-brainer, even then.