Mixed Lot of 300 coins - results

Yet again, I bought a bunch of ancient coins. This time, average cost was around $0.81 each.

This lot included the following types of coins:
Roman Imperial - 261 or so
Roman Provincial - 8
Greek - up to 4
Seleucid - 1 or 2
Byzantine - 19 to 24
Celtic or Middle Eastern - up to 5
Roman Republican - 1

Of which, out of the 261 Imperials:
31 were "very low grade/cull"
48 were "low grade" (just enough detail to id as Roman, but not much more)
80 were "medium grade" (enough detail to id an obverse and/or reverse type, but no confident id)
102 were "better grade" (enough detail to either fully id, or reasonably fully id)

24 Emperors represented include:
Anastasius I
Arcadius
Augustus
Aurelian
Claudius II Gothicus
Constans
Constantine I
Constantine II
Constantius II
Constantius Gallus
Diocletian
Divus Constantine I
Gallienus
Gratian
Honorius
Julian II Apostate
Justin I
Licinius I
Theodosius I
Theodosius II
Valens
Valentinian I
Valentinian II
Valentinian III
Vrbs Roma commemorative

Of which I did not have 4 of them (Anastasius, Diocletian, Justin I, Valentinian III)

Highlights of this hoard included:
Elagabalus x1
Gordian III x3
Julia Domna x1
Augustus x1
Barbarous Constantine x1
Justin I pentanummium x1
Diocletian x1


Seleucid w/Athena Promachos reverse


Barbarous Constantine I with two victories sharing a pint


Justin I pentanummium

Roman republican


Anastasius I


Diocletian with nice sand patina.


Constans with a very striking portrait.


Julia Domna


Gordian III w/moesia reverse

I do believe this will be my last purchase. There's plenty of fun, but it's sort of a money sink if I only put about 4 coins out of every hundred into my collection.

Next post will be a full financial breakdown and investigation of the viability of buying uncleaned hoards.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

..not a bad haul...

 

Just to show how much 300 coins really is.


And this shows just how much of the lot is Constantius II

 

Aren't you afraid of scratching them by piling them up?
I don't collect ancients, so I really have no idea what is good or...?
However, those w/pics look cool.

 

I'm not going to lie, that looks cool.

 

Great question! In response, not really.
The way I see it - these coins have been in the ground, in the sea, or otherwise been abused for the past couple thousand years.

And at this grade, there's not too much worry about lowering values with scuffs and bag marks.

If I had a hoard of silver denarii, then I'd definitely think differently! But there's a precious few with any major value.

 

I kind of wish I had taken a group shot of all 800 total coins I've bought. That would have been epic! haha

 

What did you do with the others, lot them out?

 

Those are some pretty fun finds! All I got was basically garbage when I bought uncleaned lots. I enjoyed cleaning them and the discovery. But there was more discovering that it was a junk slug than that there was anything interesting underneath

 

Yup. I sell them in lots of about 20 per for Very Low, Low and Medium grade lots. About $0.50 to $1.00 each.

For the Better grade ones, I do lots of 4 for $2.50 to $4 each, and always accept offers.

I'll have to review the finances to see what kind of profit, if any, I end up making. I think not, but I'll make a another post soon with a final overview of the entire experience.

 

Uncleaneds have never worked out for me! Mostly trash - these coins I bought were already pre-cleaned, and saved me probably weeks of worth.

The best uncleaneds I ever got:
1. a Byzantine coin of some kind. I traded it for a $13 meal.
2. a Hadrian As. It was pretty rough though, and so I lotted it out and exactly broke even.

The rest were scrap metal.

 

I've got a couple (pounds) of low grade bronzes.

 

There looks to still be some identifiable ones in there. Much better than what I got lol.

 

This was my best uncleaned find.

 

Be looking for it, If you break even, I would call that a win.

 

@hotwheelsearl you interested?

 

Very nice and HARD to find with silvering intact!

 

Oh boy I don't know if my neck and eyes can stand it, but I'm so tempted...

 

Oh boyo that makes me salivate

 

Here's some of mine. I actually gifted a portion of the better ones to a CT member a few months back....