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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;IdesOfMarch01, post: 1831356, member: 39084&quot;]Recent price history of ancient coins -- Roman and Greek coins sold at published auctions -- doesn&#039;t support this statement.&nbsp; In fact, just the opposite has been true over the past 10 - 15 years, as can be proven by researching prices of the same coins that have been sold and resold at auction.</p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s possible that prices for ancients that are widely available in Good-to-Fine condition may stabilize and not rise as much as better quality or scarcer coins.&nbsp; It&#039;s also possible that discovery of new hoards will impact ancient coin prices negatively, but most recently discovered hoards (of Romans, at least) appear to be from the fourth and fifth centuries AD which doesn&#039;t affect the prices of coins of earlier periods.</p><p><br /></p><p>Consider the following coin:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]302517[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This same coin appeared as #48 in Berk&#039;s <i>100 Greatest Ancient Coins</i> and here&#039;s part of what Berk wrote about it:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;<i>In 1960 an example brought SFr 1,450; in 1975 the price was SFr 8,500; and by 1996 a coin at Sotheby&#039;s went for (British Pounds) 15,400 (about $25,000, although they had been selling for $20,000.&nbsp; More recently the price jumped to $40,000, and now it is at $65,000, but a great specimen, which goes against type, would break $100,000.&nbsp; These aurei are usually poorly struck and somewhat ugly.</i>&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>This was written in 2008.&nbsp; At the February 3, 2013 Goldberg auction, the above coin hammered for $370,000, which, when you add the 15% buyer&#039;s fee, puts it over $425,000.</p><p><br /></p><p>The &quot;logical&quot; arguments about why ancient prices will decline don&#039;t seem to be supported by the facts.&nbsp; Recall that 500 years ago people logically argued that the sun revolved around the earth, and 500 years before that, people logically argued that the earth was flat since you&#039;d fall off if it was round.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is not to say that some overpriced coins won&#039;t decline in the short term, and coins of lesser quality purchased at retail may take a long time to be resold at their purchase price.&nbsp; But the evidence is overwhelming that in the medium-to-long term, ancient coin prices will rise.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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