ROLL CALL: What is Your Primary Collecting Interest?

The Roman Republic and the associated provincial, colonial and imitative types from the earliest periods(i.e. the aes rude coinage) down to Actium, in silver and bronze(and one day hopefully gold as well). I really enjoy the mainline Roman Republic coinage but IMHO the provincial, colonial and imitative types are necessary to paint the whole picture which is essentially my goal.

 

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Which, I suppose would attract more people to open this thread without knowing the true intent of the OP. Of course, if you had created an appropriate title such as "Ancients: What is your primary collecting interest?" I never would have hassled you at all.

Chris

 

Well, we are on the ancients section, I guess !

Q

 

1 - Roman (Republic and Empire) on a generalist approach: what appeals to me for aesthetics reasons
2 - Dombes (french feudal) as a specialzed theme : trying to put together every type, every year of issue, main varieties. A book someday ?
3 - British coinage fro the same reasons as @Mat : when there is not enough cash for the previous too and I still need a fix...

Q

 

Since this thread is in the ancients section i will only list my interests in ancients:

I'am a collector from the Netherlands and like so many others i started with collecting 1 example of every Roman emperor. Soon i found out that i would never own a complete collection because there are so many rare emperors whose coins i can not afford. From that moment on my interest in Roman coins went various ways. I started collecting coins of the Gallic empire and also started to favour coins of Claudius II (Gothicus). Because of the history of the Gallic empire i started to collect coins of the emperors Valerian and Gallienus also, mainly the military types. Lately i'am interested in the coins from Viminaciun and bronze coins of Augustus and i like the early imperial bronzes with countermarks also.

Kees

 

Thank you for taking the time to clarify your thought process, for a minute I was afraid it might have been me.

 

Roman denarii and antoninianii 3rd Century Imperial silver issues (ie. S. Severus through around the time of Postumus)





* HOWEVER, that being said, I will collect anything ancient or medieval given the opportunity.

 

Roman Empire: All emperors,
Mexican coins: coins up to 1990
Modern European: Belarusian
Modern Mongolian: Wildlife series

 

Roman Republican coins (in Crawford's Roman Republican Coinage) like -

cast bronze from central Italy (in Italian Cast Coins by Vecchi) -

something that strikes me as neat / different -

 

1. 12 Caesars
2. Coins of Imperatorial Rome
3. Historical figures on coins (This one spans a couple of millennia and so is not limited to ancients)

 

Yes, but nobody knows that until they open the thread. I'm glad you noticed that!

Chris

 

My main interests, in roughly descending order of time/cash invested:

1. Parthian, including their vassals (Persis, Elymais, Characene).
2. Sasanian. (I've been getting more into this in the last year as I've wound down my Parthian collection.)
3. Roman, mainly Twelve Caesars and Five Good Emperors (especially reverse types referencing specific historical events)
4. Other ancients, medieval and modern world (especially Italy), older (colonial and early federal) US coins.

I was collecting Chinese and other cash coins for a little while but eventually lost interest. I've also kind of stumbled into a few sub-collections. I have about half a dozen commemorative 50 tenge coins from Kazakhstan; these often have interesting designs (wildlife, space exploration, etc.) and are cheap, so why not?

 

We are in the Ancients Forum... looks like YOU made the mistake.

 

Major Focus: Constantine and his age, both for the fact that LRB’s are budget-friendly and because I have an interest in Christian history. Constantine the man was fascinating and full of contradictions, and his coinage is vast, with a little something for everyone and every pocketbook.

Minor Focus: Coins related to the Bible (Shekel of Tyre, “Tribute Penny,” prutot, etc.).

Minor Focus: Coins related to texts that I teach. This means that the logic of my modest collection might only be apparent to me. Everything from a Julius Caesar “Aeneas” denarius (for the Aeneid) to a Khusro II Sassanid drachm because it shows fire altar attendants on the reverse, which are mentioned in an early biography of Muhammad. (Salman the Persian was a Zoroastrian who was the first non-Arab convert to Islam.)

 

When I go onto CoinTalk, I first look at "Recent Topics" to see anything interesting. There is no indication of which Forum the post is being made under. Back before there was no Ancients Forum and it was just under the World Coins Forum, the suggestion was made to start ancient posts with "Ancient" or some such disclaimer so that World collectors would know they were getting into an ancient topic. Chris is a nice guy, but plays a little rougher than ancients people do. Some replies to him would have been better suited to the "Bullion Investing" Forum. I actually thought he had a good suggestion.

 

I focus on an historical approach to Ancients, with interest in pivotal junctures in Human History:

Focus:
1) Roman Republic
2) Those states, Empires, and entities that interacted with the Roman Republic
ie: Carthage, Makedon, Mamertines, Italia, etc.
3) Alexandrine

Other Ancients interests:
1) Ancient China
2) Ancient India
3) Egyptian Royal Scarabs

Areas of emerging Interest:
1) Celtic BCE
2) Sicily BCE
3) Fun issues

 

Perhaps a suggestion would be to have "Modern US Coins", or "Bullion Coins" for every post.

 

Ancient coin collectors are a minority on the forum as a whole. There would be very few ancient coin collectors checking a "Uncirculated 3-cent Silver" posting or "How To Buy Bulk Silver". Also the ancients forum mostly seems to attract polite posters.

 

I don't think it's any secret that my collecting niche is Flavian silver, both imperial and provincial.

I also have an interest in coins struck during the Year of the Four Emperors and Elagabalus, neither of which I'm actively collecting (yet).

 

True, I do find many of the "Moderns" posters as quite rude. I would not talk to people face to face, or in my everyday business as many of the "Moderns" people in those threads. That approach is needless and condescending. I would challenge if they would truly behave in that manner if they were face-to-face with an individual.