How should I start an ancient coin collection?

I like Mortown on ebay. He is a real collector and has very reasonable priced ancients with the occasional hidden gem.

John

 

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Welcome to the Ancients Forum!

 

Here's a good one, NLL



Also, I'd like to recommend some of my favorite VCoins dealers. @Curtisimo already mentioned two of them: Ancient Imports and L. Alexander Wolfe. An additional favorite of mine is the distinguished Mr. Isadore Goldstein of ZUZIM.

 

I loved that character. The newsreader, Ian McNeice.

 

From your OP, it sounds like you are still trying to determine which area(s) to collect. The Sayles Books are great for this. There are 6 volumes (although not all may be applicable) and are usually less than $25 each (a lot cheaper if you look). You can occasionally find them in a local library. Sayles gives a great overview of the many different collecting areas. That should help you narrow it down.

Once you've set on a collecting area or 2, then you can get recommendations on specific books to that topic.

Or you can do what I did 20 years ago, buy a bunch of uncleaned junk and spend a fortune on some of the RIC volumes. In the days before chat groups and forums, it took me the better part of a year to figure out how to use RIC. Very frustrating but I ended up learning a lot

 

A major decision is just whose approval you are seeking with this collection. You are a lot better off IMHO if you worry about making yourself happy with the way you conduct your hobby activities and not so much about the legion of advisers who will tell you how you should be doing it. Some are only concerned with buying coins that will appreciate in value faster while others never buy a coin that they plan to sell in the rest of their life so what it is 'worth' is of little matter. Some will show their every coin to anyone willing to look while others will die leaving a box in the closet that their children never suspected existed. I would be a lot better off financially if I had never pointed out to certain dealers how you can tell certain rare coins from similar common ones. When I tell someone about an interesting coin and create competition in future sales, I cost myself money. Sharing coins can be a hobby just as much as gathering them. What will be your hobby? You may not know that answer for another 50 years or so. Enjoy the trip.

 

Ask clear and to the point questions. Build a
library of books on the recommendations of
this forum. There are many knowledgeable
members here.

 

One activity that you might find enjoyable is to (1) go to the VCoins site (www.vcoins.com), (2) click "Advanced Search" in the upper right corner, and (3) set the "Price Between" field to have your minimum and maximum budget. Then click Search.

This will turn up thousands of coins, and you can scroll through them to see if any particular ones catch your eye.

 

I can attest to this, the last time I did this 36,000 coins came up.

 

I started out with this book, Roman Coins by J.P.C. Kent and Max and Albert Hirmer. It's a beautiful large-size book with over 1200 photos of coins from the Roman Republic through the decline and fall of the Empire. Not sure it's in print still but I found one on Abe Books for $130.

https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/author/kent-j-p-c-max-and-albert-hirmer/

Other than that you can develop your own strategy for collecting coins, some people try to collect a coin (or two) of each emperor, other people pick and choose high grade coins. It's all up to you.

 

Welcome to the dark side, mwhahaha.

I also highly recommend Brian from Bargain Bin Ancients and Warren from Augustus Coins. Two totally awesome dudes to work with!

Erin

 

It also depends on your budget. Visit coin shows, local coin shops that deal in ancients. Try and handle some.

There are dodgy dealers out there too. If you set your sights on a coin but you are not sure, get a good quality photo with size and weight and post it here for advice.

Don't post a link to a current auction though.

Go for a coin that is the best you can afford, ie don't buy a piece of junk.

 

i can. pm me and i'll give you some i buy from. it would probably be better if someone would post the list of ebay sellers to stay away from... how 'bout it peeps?!

 

I've been watching the Netflix miniseries "Roman Empire: Reign of Blood" and am enjoying finding out a little bit more about Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Faustina (Jr), Lucilla, Bruttia Crispina, etc. Pretty interesting. Making me think about collecting a group around these individuals; the transition from the 5 good emperors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire:_Reign_of_Blood

 

I would suggest starting with Constantine the Great era coins they are cool inexpensive and hard to make a mistake.

 

in that case you have become the occidental salesman..

 

Great advice from everyone and as with any specialist collecting field buy the books before the item. The best thing you have done is to join this forum as there is so much knowledge and generosity in sharing it here. I was "in the wilderness" before I joined and made some bad mistakes being impetuous. Once you have started reading the erudite titles you may also want to read some fictional novels by authors such as Simon Scarrow and Robert Fabbri, great fun, timelines are accurate and they explain some of the machinations of the politics in an easy manner. I still get a buzz out of holding something that might have bought a drink or a meal 2000 years ago and could have been a soldiers daily wage on campaign or used to buy anything essential to everyday life.
Themes are endless, political, military, social, 12 Caesars, Year of the 4 Emperors, Provincial mints, denominations etc. You could spend the rest of your life collecting reverses with animals, Turtles, Horses, Eagles, statues, captives.
It is quite mind blowing.
As suggested some of the later Roman coins are less expensive and you get a lot of coin for your dollar. Google fake roman ebay coin sellers and you will find a couple of lists. There is a lot about this to read in this forum.
Welcome!

 

What I was referring to was if you post something here and a member disparages it, don't get offended. This happened to me early on and did make me feel bad for awhile, but I got over it.

 

Doug is wise. Coin collecting is a hobby of the mind and your collection will please you, or not, depending upon what is in your mind. What is in it depends upon how you fill it. Some of us are old enough (pre-internet) to have collected essentially alone, with very little contact with other collectors. We read books (coins and history) and decided what we liked considering the cost and created collections that pleased ourselves. There was no worry about "Like"s on CoinTalk.

Now, the need for books is much reduced and many CoinTalk members get along with only web resources. Now, we see coins others like every day. But years of CoinTalk posts (you could go back and read old posts; it would be illuminating) show a very wide variety of interests and financial commitments. I am pleased to be able to say that members march to their own drummers.

The are many collector's sites with links to other sites they found interesting and informative. Here is my site of links to other ancient-coin sites.
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/sitelinks.html

 

Collecting ancient coins for me is much more than the coins themselves. These coins have histories. I started by reading about the coins and the time periods they came from. I read for several months before buying my first ancient coin. As others have said, read the posts on this site and try to make connections with trustworthy dealers. There are a number of threads on this site dealing with recommended dealers. Next, do not let anyone tell you what to collect. Find your own area of interest and pursue it. @Kentucky mentioned the sometimes disparaging remarks that some can make about one's coins when they are shown and discussed on this site. Do not let anyone tell you that your direction is wrong or otherwise inappropriate. There are some members here who have done this to me and others in the past. Collect what you want how you want. You are of course free to either follow or ignore any of the above advice.

Most of all, have fun with this amazing hobby.