Joining ancient coin gang

Welcome to da club, @EireWeish.

You’re comin’ down to CoinTalk,
gonna have yourself a time.
Friendly faces everywhere.
Humble folks without temptation.

You’re comin’ down to CoinTalk
Gonna leave your woes behind
Ample parking day or night
People spouting "Howdy neighbor!"

Heading on up to CoinTalk
Gonna see if I can't unwind

So come on down to CoinTalk
And meet some friends of mine

Im a lame South Park fan. Lol

Erin

 

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You have the best wishes of everyone here for your longevity and good health!

 

I'm very sorry to hear that you haven't been well, @Pishpash. My thoughts are with you for a return to good health.

 

LOL

 

Pardon the late:


You'll never find a more intelligent group of people willing to share their knowledge... and Macedonian shield coins

Here I am at my initiation! (What an odd right of passage for us, the ancient coin collectors):

Oh. And a coin to keep it legal;

CARIA, Halikarnassos

(reassigned from Kindya)
499-497 BCE
AR hektai, 1.78 gm, 11 mm, Milesian standard
Obv: head of ketos right
Rev: geometric pattern within incuse square
Ref: Konuk

 

Is there a source I can read about the reassignment from Kindya to Halikarnassos? This is one of my favorite coins but I've always seen this attributed to Kindya. Would be great to see the reasoning!

 

Wow! Thanks so much everyone for the replies, seems to be a really nice group of people here.

@Pishpash thank you, I most certainly will message you and I wish the best for your health.

@Curtis Thanks for the reply, defintely gave me some kind of guidance now to choose which way I want to set off on.

So last night before bed I picked my first coin off ma-shops, it's a Nero coin and I have no clue what it says or what it means but I do know a bit about Nero's reign so later on I'm gonna scour the internet and try to find anything in it, if I have no success I'll ask someone here, just wanna see if I can have a look myself.

Here's the sellers pics

http://imgur.com/a/zkdisYu

 

A bit late but welcome to CT!
Terrific first coin to start your collection.

 

Excellent first acquisition! A historically important emperor on a coin struck in a historically important city!

This tetradrachm of Nero from Alexandria was one of my first ancient coin purchases:


Nero and Poppaea Sabina.
Roman provincial billon Tetradrachm; 23.1 mm, 11.55 g.
Egypt, Alexandria, AD 64/65.
Obv: ΝΕΡΩ ΚΛΑV ΚΑΙΣ ΣΕΒ ΓΕΡ ΑV, radiate head of Nero, right.
Rev: ΠΟΠΠΑΙΑ ΣΕΒΑΣΤΗ, draped bust of Poppaea, right, LIA (year 11) before.
Refs: RCV 2002; SGI 664; RPC 5280; Köln 168; BMCG 124; Milne 223; Curtis 138; Cohen 315, 3; Emmett 128.

 

Welcome to the gang!

Several other users have posted some good sites to go and start buying a few coins if you want to get into it right away.

I will admit, I have purchased Uncleaned Lots. I've made several posts on here that show the kind of stuff I have managed to find in said lots. So speaking from experience, they are a fun side project but be aware they can go bad as easily as they go good. Never go in expecting to find some sort of miracle coin, i.e. silver and gold. Can you come across some? Yes. Have I? Yes, but they're rare in these instances. If you want silver or gold youll be better off saving to get those specifics.

I mainly started buying the uncleaned lots as a learning tool for cleaning, attributing and identifying. I wanted to get a hands on experience of this.

 

I'm late to the party as usual, but welcome @EireWeish ! Please forward your membership dues to me, I'll make sure the Treasurer gets them
(That last bit is a joke, there are no dues and you shouldn't send me any money.)

There's lots of good advice already in this thread, I'll just add one thing. We sometimes jokingly refer to the Ancients section of CoinTalk as the "dark side", but there's an even darker part of the dark side: Non-Classical (i.e. non-Roman/Greek) coins. Celts, Phoenicians, Jews, Persians, Arabs, Turks, Huns, Indians, Chinese... all have fascinating histories of their own, and all of them issued their own coins that can be collected. Just a few samples:

Roman coins are cool (I collect some, myself) and definitely a good place to get started. I just want to point out that you have other options, if you so choose.

 

Here you go: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-monsterous-little-coin.274896/#post-2866672
And if you have one please post it!

 

Thanks for that link! Here are my two different ones (that I have yet to dedupe one of - snapped a quick pick today):

 

Welcome to CT @EireWeish !

I'm also a collector of Roman coins in my 20s. I've always been interested in Roman history, and I recently completed my undergraduate in Classics and History.

Roman history is very fascinating subject. I definitely recommend learning more about the subject prior to collecting. There is no one size fits all approach to collecting Roman coins. Let your interests guide your collecting. You will find that many collectors on this forum like to focus on a specific period (i.e. Republic) or dynasty (i.e. Flavian) because it aligns with their personal interests. While my collection covers a broader span of time, I still have particular areas of interest that I intend to focus on (i.e. Julio-Claudian dynasty). Also, I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with standard reference works such as Crawford's Roman Republican Coinage and RIC.

In terms of buying coins, I recommend that you stick to reputable auction houses (CNG, Roma....etc.) and dealers (you can find many dealers on places like vcoins and mashops). This is not to say there are no good sellers on platforms such as ebay, but there is certainly a greater risk of overpaying or buying a fake. I would also advise against buying uncleaned lots of late Roman bronzes. Rather than ending up with a many unidentifiable or crude coins, you could very easily get a few decent examples under $50 each. I think your goal getting your first coin under €70 is very reasonable. For that price, you can probably find a very nice 2-3rd century denarius or 3rd century antoninianus.

Finally, as a beginner myself, I have benefitted immensely from the expertise and advice provided by members of this forum. Don't be afraid to ask questions!

Hope all of this helps!
Rc

Here are some of my current favourites!

M. Herennius denarius

Octavian denarius

Trajan aureus

Honorius solidus

 

@EireWeish - I'm relatively new to Ancients, too, but I'm 71. You will find that the people here are incredibly helpful. Here's one I just bought but do not have in-hand yet.

These are a bit pricey (for me, anyway!) but I've wanted one for years. Enjoy!

 

Good choice on the Nero!

I will let you discover more about it, that is a good part of the fun.

John

 

Joining CT is like a marriage made in heaven

 

This is the correct answer. Don't buy a group of coins that you don't like. Buy one you love.

This is another correct answer. Do it yourself whenever possible. The coin you selected is considerably more scarce than many of that city and ruler. Yours is missing a bit of legend at reverse right and finding a match for the coin will show that. You will find many coins of this city here on Coin Talk over the last few years but I do not recall an exact match. Go to work!

 

Are you absolutely sure OP?


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