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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 935414, member: 19463&quot;]A posting in another venue pointed out to me that some beginners are confused regarding a few points on the rarity of ancient coins:</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>1. Several books but particularly the standard 10 volume work <b>Roman Imperial Coinage</b> or<b> RIC</b> assign rarity ratings to coins.&nbsp; Some RIC volumes even define these ratings including R5 as &#039;one known&#039;.&nbsp; Collectors in 2010 need to understand a couple points to make fair use of these ratings.&nbsp; The authors made survey of the holdings of a very specific and limited group of museums.&nbsp; If almost every one of the museums had a specific coin, it was termed &#039;Common&#039;; if only a few had it the term &#039;Rare&#039; was applied with numbers following to define just how rare the coin was with R1 being sort-of rare and R5 being as rare as it could be.&nbsp; In no way does this mean that only one example of a coin is known but simply that only one of the target group collections had that coin.&nbsp; The coin dealer located across the street from the museum might have a bag full (unlikely but possible) and it would not show up in the survey.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>2. Modern coins often come with data on exactly how many coins were made by the mint.&nbsp; Ancients never do; we have not a single record for <u>any</u> coin stating the mintage figures.&nbsp; What matters is how many have been found.&nbsp; Every day more coins turn up in European fields and points East where trade carried the coins.&nbsp; Roman coins have been found in Scandinavia and India (the few found in North America are another story).&nbsp; There is record of one hoard (frrom France in 1936) of 5000 denarii all of a relatively scarce emperor Clodius Albinus.&nbsp; It most likely was a military pay chest of newly minted coins.&nbsp; A similar find made tomorrow could turn your &#039;one known&#039; coin into a common variety.&nbsp; This happend a few years back when the US Treasury released some old bags of silver dollars and a few were found to contain dates previously thought to be rare.&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>3.&nbsp; Red Books come out every year.&nbsp; Standard references on many ancient series are reworked every 50 to 100 years.&nbsp; A lot has happened since some of these books were compiled saying a coin was rare.&nbsp; Metal detectors and the normalization of relations with countries of eastern Europe have made many coins available in the West that were unknown in 1950 (let alone 1900).&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>4. Rarity figures for ancients refer to coins matching exactly.&nbsp; In many Late Roman issues, several (up to 15 at one mint) workshops issued the same coin distinguished by a letter added to the mintmark.&nbsp; In&nbsp; a few cases, most of a certain type are known from shop A while B semed to make mostly another type but sometimes we find coins that show they ocassionally struck the opposite type making a &#039;rare&#039; variation.&nbsp; US collectors pay a big difference to get a 1909s coin with the VDB but realatively few ancient collectors collect by minor variety even though there are many available if they chose to collect them.&nbsp; The price on these rarities is surprisingly low simply because very, very few people are seeking completeness and they realize that they can often pick up the rarities for the common price.&nbsp; Interested collectors are in no hurry to grab every variation at some inflated price knowing well how few people care.&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Moral:&nbsp; Don&#039;t pay big money for a coin you don&#039;t want just because somebody quotes it as &#039;R5&#039;.&nbsp; If you want to specialize in coins rated &#039;R5&#039;, feel free but understand what the term means and what it does not.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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