My daughter asked me the other day if a few ancient coins would be terribly expensive. I don't collect foreign or ancient coins, but I told her that I know there's a forum here full of people that do. Any recommendations? She doesn't necessarily want anything valuable, just old. Definitely no gold. Can you guys help me out some? Does anyone here own a shop that sells them?
Just depend on what you want. If just for "show and tell" I would look at some Romans or Chinese on Ebay. Late Roman pretty easy to identify as to ruler, (if in decent grade), and there are a couple of good sellers of Chinese who sell interesting lots. Roman coins lay people tend to have more of a connection with, since they may have heard of Constantine the Great or relate to his kids Constantius or Constans, (three cheaper emperors). You can find coins with animals, forts, wolf and twins, "hand of God" all relatively cheaply. For more religious minded, there are sellers who sell widows mites on Ebay as well. I buy a group of these every once in a while and give them to pastors, etc.
Probably your best bet is to go to VCoins and start searching for things in whatever price range you want. If you're going really low (like under $10), you'll probably want to try to look for Constantine, Constantius II, or Valens. If you want to go a higher (like $50), you can get decent coins of famous emperors from the glory days of the Roman empire like Nero and Marcus Aurelius. We can probably help give more specific recommendations if you have any idea about what she'd like and what you're looking to spend. Would she prefer something big? Would she want something silver? Would she like some sort of connection to a historical person, event, or place? Would it matter if she's heard of the person on it or even the civilization that made it? Would she rather have something from like 400 BC that's barely recognizable or something form 300 AD that's much better preserved?
I have some for sale but if you aren't looking for high grade and just lower grade identifiable i may have a few that I could send you for free. PM me with what you want and your details. Richard
If she's not familiar with the names and histories of the many emperors, there are also plenty of options with reverses of all the big-name Greek/Roman gods and demi-gods. She and her friends may be more impressed holding a coin from antiquity that depicts the likes of Hercules or Venus, even if the emperor on the obverse is obscure. It's all a question of budget, but nice coins are well within most people's reach. You can narrow your Vcoin search further by setting the price range and typing in the name of a favourite god or mythological beast. I would also point you at coins of the Gallienus "Zoo" series, which tend to be quite inexpensive and sport a wide variety of animals real and imagined. A winged horse always plays well to the kids even if, strictly speaking, it's not meant to be Pegasus himself.
If you want some silver, you can find pretty nice looking coins of Gordian III for fairly inexpensive prices.
The answer to this question depends on your definition of 'terribly expensive'. For 'dirt cheap' about all you get are ugly coins with dirt still on them. They can be 4th century AD Roman or BC Greek bronzes but they won't be the kind of thing that make modern collectors think the ancients were makes of fine coins. Since this class late Romans are commonly given to beginners, I wrote a page showing the 12 most common dirt cheap coins. I originally called the page the 'Dirty Dozen' but that tripped some overprotective parent filters and prevented the page from being used in some conservative schools so I changed it to '12 common types'. http://dougsmith.ancients.info/uncleaned.html More reasonably defined, my 7 page overview of ancients shows only one coin over $500 with most under $100 and some down to $5. (BTW the gold aureus that is way over $500 is not my coin.) This page was written for adult collectors who might want to know what sort of thing is out there. Since there are literally a million different ancient coins, what you find at any given time will vary but the series shows the options and might help prepare you to talk to a coin dealer without sounding too foolish. http://dougsmith.ancients.info/voc.html Seriously, a good idea for a beginner is to hang around this forum and see what comes up as our resident staff of beginners (that is: all of us) discovers new and neat things about old and raggedy coins. Recommend us to your daughter.
