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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;medoraman, post: 1221886, member: 26302&quot;]Winged, as a basic primer to ancients, (glad to see you here), Romans are the most common ancients you will probably find overall. &quot;Greek&quot; has varied meanings, with many calling any ancient mediterranean area coin &quot;greek&quot;. Many of the coins called &quot;greek&quot; would have gotten you punched in the mouth by the issuer if you dared to call him greek, (carthaginians, celts, etc etc), but &quot;Greek&quot; is mainly used by collectors to mean simply &quot;ancient, Mediterranean area, non-Roman&quot;. A ton more cities issued these, but in total they are scarcer than Roman. You also have Chinese and Indian ancient coins, but those are usually collected separately.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, for Romans, you have Republican coins like yours, &quot;Classical Imperial&quot;, (my term), and late Roman. Republicans are very collectible, varied designs, and popular. Yours is nice especially because the reverse is very sought after. &quot;Classic Imperial&quot; to me, (its my term I can define it), is Roman from Augustus to Diocletian&#039;s reforms. These are also highly collected, varied, and can be very interesting. Late Romans are the most common Roman and ancient coins, though in high grade are very collectible and scarce. Another type of Roman coin is &quot;Roman Provincial&quot; which is, (mainly in the east), cities while under Rome were allowed to strike their own coinage. Roman procurator coins, (like Pontius Pilate), in Judea are an example.</p><p><br /></p><p>We don&#039;t like slabs for a number of reasons, one we cannot research the coin because its in a coffin, two it adds costs, and three we disagree with US grading system. Grading like in the US is not of paramount concern in valuing an ancient, and adding slabbing just adds costs, imposes a foreign grading system, and prevents us from doing what we like as collectors. I do not begrudge a beginner a slab, its like training wheels, but we all hope collectors move beyond them.</p><p><br /></p><p>Regarding toning, I know you like toned coins, so ancients should be a wonderful place for you. Since we assume all coins are cleaned, and there are no premiums for toning, (your type of toning), you can collect them to your hearts content. There are many types of toning in ancients, the one that does command a premium is called &quot;hard green&quot; patina. It forms rarely on copper, cannot be AT, and really makes a beautiful coin with the patina highlighting any relief. Some large early Roman bronzes with the patina can bring 5 figures.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, that is a start. We are always here to help if you have more questions. Please make sure you visit Doug&#039;s website as it is very helpful.</p><p><br /></p><p>Chris[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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