Is this really Tiberius? Incredibly bad condition

That would be Dyn-o-mite!!!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Dynomite!

 

I had no idea such existed! Do you ever find gems there?

 

I have another unpopular idea. Put your wallet away and learn: "attribution and coin Latin reading" by images all aver the Internet for free.

 

Not really. I purchased over 1500 junk coins from various lots, and the only gem was this rather rare Commodus denarius.


About 1000 of 1500 were complete junked slugs, and I would say the other 499 were attributable.

If you found something like this, you'd be lucky:


At this point, I have sold or gotten rid of just about every one of the "hole filler" coins I found in those junk lots. I consider the time and money solely a learning experience with no coins to last in my collection.


@Insider , I know where you're coming from but I'm personally one of those "kinesthetic" learners, and learn best from actually doing. I learned pretty much everything I know about attribution from trial-by-fire, neck pain, eye strain, and general suffering.
I wouldn't trade that suffering for the world, though, as now I can pretty much identify just about any LRB, no matter the condition, through "tells" that I noticed over the past 1500+ coins.

Is it a waste of money? Sure, but isn't any hobby a waste of money, realistically?

 

Regarding lots - IMO for studying purposes they are good. But it depends how much are you willing to pay/risk for this.
I would recommend, since JJ is a beginner, to focus on learning for free, from the web. And to buy individual coins, checking the market value first...
The coin in this thread is way too expensive.

I bought a total of 3 ancient lots. First - 34 coins - 100 EUR but that was a serious case of beginner's luck as there were very interesting coins there, in decent condition, some of them quite rare, and I think just 2 coins that were bad. I just moved my collection in a different album today and checked them again - their value exceeds the price I paid. By much.
Second, a lot of 13 coins - 100 EUR. Decent. Interesting 1st century Roman Imperial but low grades.
Third, a lot of 12 coins - 30 EUR. But ... let's just say that I would have preferred a 30 EUR denarius.

It is very unlikely to find true gems in a lot. I don't buy from Ebay so I can't give any advice there. But on auctions from houses, if they put a group of coins for sale, they have a reason. Usually the reason is that the coins would not sell individually.
I have seen expensive group lots where all the coins would have been sold individually with no problems (and with high prices) but they were sold as group lots. Why? no idea, perhaps it was the consignor's request?! But anyway the prices were according to the value of the coins.

In my opinion, if you see a lot of 50-100 coins for sale, without any details, 99.99999% they were cherry picked and if a rarity was there, it is not anymore. Many coins would be very worn and hard to identify.

 

Here's a rather comprehensive thread that you may find useful, outlining my entire journey buying junk coins

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/i-spent-1000-on-crummy-coins-heres-what-i-learned.360671/

 

From my 2011 coin show web page:

​

As enjoyable as was seeing my dealer friend's coins, the trip had a sad side, too. Another rider, I'll call him Junior, was what we old guys might term a 'young numismatist'. Usually we reserve that term for kids but in this case he was taller than I am and had been collecting US since he really was a kid. Now, at twenty-one, he wanted to add some ancient coins to his collection. What he showed was over 40 coins he had bought as a group from a U.S. coin dealer at the bargain price of $39. His source claimed to know nothing about them except they had come to him along with a U.S collection which he had purchased. How could he go wrong at under a buck a coin? Surely there would be one coin in the bunch that would be worth the $39 paid. "Right?" In any event the lot would be good practice for learning to identify old coins. "Right?" At first glance, I was able to identify well over half as certainly being coins. At least half of those I could label as 'Roman' or 'Islamic' but only six were clear enough that I could give a relatively full ID. Unfortunately, two of those were well known fakes that seem to find their way into the coin stock of dealers who claim to know nothing about what they sell. All the rest were, as advertised, genuine old pieces of metal and, probably, coins. Were they worth $39? Not to me - but collectors of ancients quickly learn to be a little gentle in pointing out when beginners have acted foolishly - it keeps down the number of times we are called "snobs". Who wants to be accused of lying about the value so we can buy the treasures for a song. As far as using the lot for ID practice goes, my skills after 45 years in the hobby enabled me to identify between 10% and 50% of the coins depending on how complete a listing is required. If Junior develops better skills while working on this bunch, I'll happily admit to being a slow learner. The same $39 spent on four or five individually selected coins from the junk boxes of the lowest end of the ancient dealers would have had a better result in one sense but Junior was proud to have forty coins actually older than he was. (Even the two fakes were older than Junior.) I'm glad Junior really was over 18; taking good money from real "young numismatists" should be illegal. ...and for the record: I did stack the photo to show the better coins - what lies below is worse.

Numis-fiction? Sure. This still reflects my opinion on junk lots. You may get your money's worth from the experience but less likely from the coins.

 

hotwheelsearl, posted:


@Insider , I know where you're coming from but I'm personally one of those "kinesthetic" learners, and learn best from actually doing. I learned pretty much everything I know about attribution from trial-by-fire, neck pain, eye strain, and general suffering.
I wouldn't trade that suffering for the world, though, as now I can pretty much identify just about any LRB, no matter the condition, through "tells" that I noticed over the past 1500+ coins.

Is it a waste of money? Sure, but isn't any hobby a waste of money, realistically?"

It does not sound like you wasted your money as you got the result you wanted. And no, not all hobbies are a waste of money.

A knowledgeable hobbyist in any pursuit has the chance to do very well in addition to probably adding years of enjoyment to their life.

 

This is my perspective. Any hobby could be seen as a poor financial investment. Totally agree on that. However, waste of money very much depends on one's perspective.

I am completely sure that I've overpaid on maybe half of the coins I've bought at this point. However, I've already got my money's worth of enjoyment out of each of them.

My other hobbies are color pencil sketching and Krav Maga. Both of which have sucked a few hundred bucks out of me. But my quality of life is so much better for having spent that money.

 

The other "take" on e-bay is, if you spot a coin you might want to purchase, copy the picture and post it on CT to get people's opinion of it.