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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2489663, member: 19463&quot;]The above is the great fact of specialization and, for that matter, collecting in general.&nbsp; Rare coins are worthless unless they are accompanied by something equally rare --- a buyer willing to pay.&nbsp; To most of us, Valentinian&#039;s coup is just another LRB with Victory and one of the most common emperors.&nbsp; To many, great rarities of RR bronzes are ugly lumps.&nbsp; It is harder to snag a sleeper RR denarius because the number of collectors and the availability of catalogs is much greater for the more popular silver.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>One of my recurring sorrows in life is finding something I consider really neat and not being able to find anyone with whom to share my tidbit be it a coin or piece of information.&nbsp;&nbsp; Anyone who collects a specialty of ancient coin faces this to some degree.&nbsp; My interest in Eastern denarii of Septimius Severus fell off when Roger Bickford-Smith died; my interest in LRB tapered when author Victor Failmezger stopped collecting and moved away from where I lived.&nbsp; Having someone to tell of your finds that can appreciate them is like being far from home and finding someone who speaks your language. </p><p><br /></p><p>Yesterday I found out I won four coins in a sale of which perhaps two might be appreciated by a few people who read Coin Talk.&nbsp; I have found the hobby less frustrating since I broadened my areas of interest to include more things but I refuse to be interested in anything simply because it is EF+.&nbsp; Specialists are interested in rarities within their areas of interest.&nbsp; This rarity probably suffers from lack of demand caused by most of us being ignorant that it existed.&nbsp; Congratulations to Valentinian in finding not only a rarity but one in presentable condition.&nbsp; Not all rare finds are.&nbsp; It must be nice even to have a coin that is covered by the literature even if you disagree with the R number assigned.&nbsp; We all know the RIC numbers are questionable in value and I never know how much significance to assign to those in other books.&nbsp; Most important, however is you found a coin you wanted.&nbsp; That is the name of the game.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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