How Many Are Enough?

No such thing as duplicate ancient coins, as far as I'm concerned. Each one is at least slightly different.

I suspect there are two general types of collectors when it comes to this question:

1. People who collect more for the visual appeal or artistry of a coin-- each coin is different, no such thing as a duplicate.

2. People who collect more for the history or to complete some type of representative set-- duplicates are unnecessary because they don't add to their narrative.

This does not preclude some overlap .

 

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For my Roman collection, I try to acquire just one coin of each type, but will often have many different coins of the same emperor. I have a lot of Hadrian, who is my favourite emperor, for example. Sometimes I have a few duplicates but am hanging onto them for now.

For my two core Messapian and East Frisian collections, I have several of the same types, like @dougsmit. Most of these types are scarce or rare, so I don't mind having several when I can acquire them at decent prices. I try not to get duplicates of more common issues.

 

For Indo Sassanian, I am always trying to discover

1) Are there die matches
2) What % of a typical group will display die matches
3) What coins display unusual or unique features

My favorite type of all are the charmingly stylized 1.3.1 like my avatar. It's a crucial turning point in the series, so there is no such thing as too many. I have something like 100 now, and not a single die link yet

A fairly recent purchase of mostly very late 1.2 and very early 1.3 - the smaller of my two such purchases

 

Sometimes, I'll acquire a "duplicate" of a coin I already have, such as in a group lot. Then, upon further examination, it'll turn out to be somewhat different, such as having a different die-axis or something. And then I'll keep it. These two, for example, have die-axes of 6:00 and 1:00, respectively. Just enough to justify keeping both. Note the slight differences in the way the children are portrayed at Fecunditas' feet, too.

 

I have no interest in collecting more than one of each type. In fact, I don't have much interest in collecting more than one of each ruler UNLESS there is a compelling reason (eg i have an Alexander III tet and and Alexander III gold stater - as both types are MAGNIFICENT). I double up with both sestertii and denarii for some Roman rulers.

Small variations in dies, different officinae, even different mints - i'll leave this to the specialists.

@TIF puts it very well:

I'm more in column 2, very occasionally in column 1.

 

@Aethelred , It depends on what you would call the same type. I collect major varieties of the earliest denarius, which essentially had the same type for more than 40 years after it was initially introduced. All of these are different, but the same type:

 

I've often wondered why so many ancient coins are so bright and shiny.

Have they all been cleaned in ways what would get "Details" grades for modern coins? Or is there some other explanation? Mind you, I do like how attractive they can be.

 

That pretty well sums it up. A few ancients were buyied in sealed jugs that di not leak so all they got was heavy toning but most were lost in soil, spent time under water or were in containers that leaked in corrosive materials so required cleaning beyond what a modern standard for original could accept. 'All ancients have been cleaned. The ones that still have an inch of soil on then used to have a foot.' With ancients, the question usually is how well they were cleaned, not whether they were cleaned. The 'natural' color for a silver coin 200 years old is black.
Caracalla drachm Caesarea shows only glare from the smooth black surfaces. Removing that surface to find silver below would ruin the coin to most collectors.

 

Most have been cleaned. I have a tray of coins from Lyon and Alexandria that have not been cleaned, Some of the Alexandrian coin have impression of other coins stuck to them and I would never clean them.

 

Beautiful tray of coins!

 

I prefer my maxim with collecting "If you can count 'em, you don't hae enough of 'em"