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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 661155, member: 19463&quot;]Most collectors of ancients know well that age has nothing to do with price but a few still labor under the mistaken idea that rarity has more importance than it does.&nbsp; There are at least a million different varieties of ancient coins.&nbsp; Of these several are known from only one surviving example but there is nothing like the accurate count of mintage and surviving percentage seen with modern coins so it is always possible that another example of the type will turn up.&nbsp; Every time a shovel hits dirt in some parts of the world we risk the existing supply of some rare coin going up.&nbsp; Since no one person has a complete set of ancient coins and no serious collector is trying to form one, it is quite possible for a very rare item to sell for the nuisance value or lowest price a dealer sells any coin for (varies from a dollar to several hundred depending on the dealer).&nbsp; The old joke tells of a minor coin variety known to exist in only three examples failing to sell because there were only two people who cared and they each had one.&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The coins sold for $20 to $40 hyped as rare and valuable by mass marketers tend to be those available by the bucket for one to a few dollars.&nbsp; If you decide to collect ancients, I suggest buying them from a specialty dealer (I&#039;m not a dealer of any kind) who knows the difference between a $1 coin and a $40 one.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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