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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Valentinian, post: 2010332, member: 44316&quot;]A good fraction of the questions on this forum raise issues which are philosophical about collecting. They give us all a chance to think about what we find interesting and how we judge value. Rarity is a fascinating and never-ending issue. </p><p><br /></p><p>The value of the very common (not &quot;rare&quot;) coin at the top of this thread is in its lovely patina and high grade, diminished by the legend being crowded and not increased at all by the fact that this precise mintmark is unusual. When there are hundreds of mintmark varieties some of them are rarer than others, but almost no one cares, and those very few who think they do soon find &quot;rare&quot; varieties exist in vast numbers in very many different series of ancient coins. Then they realize that they can&#039;t be the British Museum and collect every minor variety. Besides, it takes two to drive auction prices up, and that second fanatic is not out there. The result is there is virtually no premium for such varieties.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Rarity of <b>types</b> is much different than rarity of <b>varieties</b>. If there are enough collectors who think &quot;I&#039;d like one of those&quot; the price will go up. I&#039;d bet our readers who want a coin like the Gratian are thinking the surface and little wear make a very attractive coin, but if they already had one with those qualities they would not consider adding this mintmark to their collection. </p><p><br /></p><p>For an article about rarity and collecting, see</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://esty.ancients.info/numis/rarity.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://esty.ancients.info/numis/rarity.html" rel="nofollow">http://esty.ancients.info/numis/rarity.html</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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