I'm enjoying everyone else's threads in this regard, so I thought I'd compose one of my own. I have to break things down into several categories, or deal with apples and oranges --- and raspberries and potatoes for that matter. Here is a representative plate of Romans to start, Imperial and Provincial... I collect more Roman coins than any other, just because so many can be found in high grades for modest sums, and I never tire of the endless variety. I collect these coins along the following principles, in order of frequency: 1) Opportunistic grabs of pieces in VF or better; 2) Cherry-picks of less common LRB's regardless of grade; 3) Retail purchases of common coins with exceptional detail and artistry. Coins 1-4, 6-11, 13, and 16 would all fall in the first category. They were up for auction cheap and I got them for cheap. Coins 15, 17, and 18 belong to the second. I have quite a few more cherry-picks which I haven't posted here, mostly Constantine-era coins that went unnoticed for their scarcity. Some of them aren't pretty, but they are rare. Coins 5, 12, and 14 were bought at a premium because they held great appeal to me for their style, strike, and preservation. I don't expect to change my collecting aesthetics in 2015, when it comes to Romans, but I am engaging in a very thorough study of LRB's, to hopefully hone my cherry-picking skills. I also intend to buy a few more very high-grade common coins, so collecting principles 2 and 3 might balance out more with 1. But there's still a great deal I need to learn about the coins I've already collected, so 2015 will see more research and less buying.
what a great lookin' group. to hard to pick just one coin there...i'll go with the entire 4th row as my favorite.!
Tell me about it. I probably acquired around 50 Romans this year, and I love them all, for one reason or another. Narrowing a representative group down to around 18 was tough enough.
Sweet assortment, JA ... => I really like the snake-coin, the horse-coin and the chicken-coin (I tried clicking on them, but I couldn't get any more info) ... I like you (I hope that you have a great New Year's Eve with the family and a sweet 2015) Coke-cheers!!
May 2015 be as good to you as 2014 was. Nice coins and an impressive montage! Your imaging keeps getting better and better JA.
They are nice coins and make a good group shot but I still prefer individual images to the pseudo tray unless you are showing some relation between the coins. Of the group, I like 8 and 18 best.
Well if you thought that was random, you should see my Greeks. I only bought a dozen over the year, so I can post them all. (This excludes Nabataeans, which get called 'Greek' but are really in a category unto themselves. The line gets quite blurry the further south you go, but that's a separate discussion.) These range from Macedonia to Qataban. Two were on my want list (3 and 11) simply because I liked the designs, and they came up for sale this year at reasonable prices. The Seleucids (10 and 12) were collected for their relationship to early Nabataean coins. As many of you know, I have a keen interest in the coinage of the Southern Levant and Arabia. This year I acquired Hoover's Handbook Volume 10 (published by CNG), and managed to collect three coins from this reference: 6 (Ake-Ptolemias), 7 (Arados), and 8 (Qataban). Probably most of the Greek-influenced coinage I buy in 2015 will come from this area. A coin from every Southern Levantine and Arabian mint would make quite a collection, but unfortunately some are exceedingly rare and expensive.
Pretty sweet, JA ... that's a smooth lookin' grouping you've got there!! (there are some real sweeties in that bunch) There are several cool examples (2, 7, 8, 9, 11) ... and the rest ain't bad either, my friend Cheers
Should have made a separate thread for the Greeks, they deserve their own. j.k I like all coins equally... I think. But I like that snake coin too looks like I have arm wrestle Steve for it.
Well, I have more coming - Nabataeans for one, and a small handful of Indians. I thought one thread would be sufficient for everything. But I also collected some modern world and US this year - those certainly don't belong in the ancients forum.
Really like your first group, but the second group are my fav, don't remember seeing the owl and the bee coin.., awesome, working on them this year!!!
