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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 842955, member: 19463&quot;]Where to start? I&#039;m prejudiced. I&#039;d start with this page and the 6 that link from it giving what I considered to be a primer in ancient coins:</p><p><a href="http://dougsmith.ancients.info/voc.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://dougsmith.ancients.info/voc.html" rel="nofollow">http://dougsmith.ancients.info/voc.html</a></p><p>I called this series &#039;Vocabulary&#039; and included bold faced words along the way that I believe you need to understand before you get comfortable in ancient numismatics. If you still have interest in the subject after reading (understanding???) those pages, I&#039;d be happy for you to read any of my 100+ other pages which I posted between 1997 and 2003 before I wore out and decided there were plenty of other places online for beginners to go. This was not the case in 1997 so that&#039;s why I started the series.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I spend very little time telling you what to collect. There are thousands of options when it comes to specialities and there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying a little bit of this and a little bit of that as the mood strikes you. My favorite answer for what I collect is &#039;coins I like at prices I can afford&#039;. That brings up the matter of money. Ancient coins &#039;worth owning&#039; sell for roughly $5 to $500,000. There are many very nice ones in the $50 to $500 range. Above that, I really believe you need first to get some experience even if you have the checkbook of Bill Gates. You need to learn where and from whom to buy what you want and never buy something because you think you should unless you also can say you like that coin. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Someone will tell you to buy the book before the coin. I&#039;m OK with that and have about 30 feet of bookshelf space devoted to coin references and have spent several hundred dollars on books this year even though I have been doing this for decades. If I were you, however, I&#039;d start by digesting all the free stuff available online. Where to go depends on what you decide to collect. One &#039;given&#039; is that you should join and read forums online like Coin Talk and Forvm Ancient Coins discussions (like Coin Talk but nothing on modern coins). There are Yahoo lists on general collecting and for speciality interests. I just found a posting online that lists and transliterates everything I wanted to know about ancient Indian coin legends. You may not be into learning Devanagari yet but its out there just in case.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>You mentioned Byzantine. I barely collect Byzantine but still have a couple dozen or so that appealed to me over the years. Others here will tell you what they collect. I do suggest picking something in your price bracket. If you can spend $500 to $5000 per coin, you may be interested in Greek tetradrachms. Over that you can collect dekadrachms. Under that, you can play with the rest of us who can only afford bronzes and minor silver. Most beginners start with Romans. I did. Many start with Late Romans because they are cheaper. I started long enough ago that most people began with silver denarii of the earlier period so I know more about the third century than the fourth. Figure out where your interests and checkbook overlap. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Feel blessed to have a wife that can understand the appeal. I agree with her about the business of filling a set different only by dates and flyspecks. There are flyspeck collectors in ancients and even a few coins that can be collected by date series. I wish you the best in finding a part of the hobby that fits you best. Whatever it is, don&#039;t be afraid to ask for opinions here. We all share opinions (not always in agreement).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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