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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;stlnats, post: 25907143, member: 41066&quot;]+1 to Alegandron I&#039;ve followed a similar path.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yes, Suetonius is the basis for the set which nicely covers most of the 1st Century. Sort of a &quot;one stop shop&quot; but one needs to remember that (1) he and other ancient authors wrote with their own biases sometimes which were extremely positive or negative and (2) the work of many/most ancient authors, perhaps with very different views did not survive. Tempering Suetonius with something like the very accessible &quot;The Roman Emperors&quot; by Michael Grant will provide a more balanced view of the period and the personalities.</p><p><br /></p><p>There really is no &quot;right way&quot; to collect this set - it comes down to personal preference. The topic has been discussed several times and links to a couple of the more recent that I recall are attached. In my case, altho I&#039;ve collected ancients for years with varying intensity, I&#039;d never focused on this period and moved primarily into US National Banknotes some time ago. As the supply of NBNs of interest to me became fewer and fewer I revisited several of my &quot;inactive&quot; collections including Morgan $ date/mint set and the Dansco 7070.&nbsp; Since I already had about half of the Caesars, it was an obvious one to also pursue.&nbsp; But, I wanted to have coins that had decent portraits, preferably with the title of the emperor legible AND coins that provided some insight into the personality of the emperor, or significant events during their reign. To guide me I used Clive Foss&#039; &quot;Roman Historical Coins,&quot; which I highly recommend if you&#039;re interested in building a basic library (and it and the Grant book are still available on eBay and Amazon reasonably). I didn&#039;t focus on making it only denarii - I really like the sometimes more affordable large silvers of the east - and it didn&#039;t take too long to get a basic set filled. Sure, there are several I&#039;d like to replace if/when the right coin comes along, but even if I don&#039;t buy another coin for the set, I wouldn&#039;t be disappointed with it as it is.</p><p><br /></p><p>In addition to the other suggestions, I would recommend taking your time initially to get familiar with the period, what&#039;s available, and some sense of what might be of interest to you personally. Most of all have fun with the set and buy what really appeals to you. Pretty much the same advice for a new collector or one interested in a new area. Frankly most of the set could be relatively easy to assemble at many larger regional coin shows, especially if one were not concerned by cost or condition.&nbsp; But being so popular the set&nbsp; can be pricy. My out of pocket for the 13 coins (I also did the baker&#039;s dozen and separated Octavian from Augustus since it made more sense to me and just because I wanted to) which has several better pieces is probably less than $5k spread over the years.&nbsp; I did get lucky in a few cases. In perspective, that&#039;s about what my last significant NBN cost. I think with a bit of time, care and effort one could put together a meaningful set for less than that, but a few years ago CNG offered a lovely set of higher-grade denarii for around 100k. Pretty big range that lets everyone play.</p><p><br /></p><p>What fun!</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/what-coins-would-you-consider-to-be.413197/#post-25458469" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/what-coins-would-you-consider-to-be.413197/#post-25458469">What coins would you consider to be..... | Coin Talk</a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/caligula-down-now-just-two-left-to-finish-the-twelve-caesars.412377/page-2#google_vignette" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/caligula-down-now-just-two-left-to-finish-the-twelve-caesars.412377/page-2#google_vignette">Caligula down! Now just two left to finish the Twelve Caesars! | Page 2 | Coin Talk</a></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://www.cointalk.com/attachments/upload_2024-5-29_14-49-51-png.1624284/" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://www.cointalk.com/attachments/upload_2024-5-29_14-50-26-png.1624285/" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://www.cointalk.com/attachments/upload_2024-5-29_14-51-15-png.1624286/" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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