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Message:: [QUOTE="dougsmit, post: 3767472, member: 19463"]When I was a young collector even more impoverished than today, it was common to see dealers with boxes of low end sestertii mostly worn but easily identifiable.  In the 1960's these might be fifty cents to $2 in pickout pots.  Perhaps the seller thought selling them would be a gateway drug to hook me on the $50 stuff.  Today the $50 stuff may be $500 but I rarely see the $5 to $20 sestertii.  When I do see pick groups, the coins tend to be tiny, late and corroded rather than sestertii.  The market supply or demand for gateway drugs has changed.  I sold off all my early pickout bronzes long ago but I can show a few lesser sestertii that I still appreciate.  To my current standards, these are collectible.  I no longer buy very worn common reverses of common emperors but they exist somewhere unless they were melted for the copper.  I wonder where they are.  Nero[ATTACH=full]1008215[/ATTACH] Trajan[ATTACH=full]1008217[/ATTACH] Septimius Severus[ATTACH=full]1008223[/ATTACH] Julia Domna[ATTACH=full]1008226[/ATTACH] another Julia Domna but later and nearly one sided due to striking  -  If the reverse were as nice as the obverse, I could not have bought the coin.[ATTACH=full]1008227[/ATTACH] Tolerating little problems like nails can even make a high grade Gordian III sestertius quite reasonable.[ATTACH=full]1008228[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]