Disclaimer: i'm not a coin collector, i know nothing about it a while back i see "Ancient Roman coins" on Ebay. i'm not really a coin collector but this caught my interest because they come packed in dirt and the sellers claim they don't know what they are. i never believed the whole story. i had some extra cash and i decided to buy some at $1 per coin to see what i would get. i was cleaning coins and i was pretty happy with my purchase...i was thinking of buying more, ... until i cleaned a coin that was made in Germany in 1812...and to make matters worse...i got a coin made in Yugoslavia in 1973! questions come to mind. 1) why would i receive newer coins in a batch of "Ancient Roman coins" that "came directly form the excavators"? 2) if the dealer threw them in, or they got mixed in , why would the newer coins be encrusted with dirt? i sent these questions to the dealer and he acts like he doesn't know what i'm talking about. the guy is a "reputable" Ebay dealer with over 30,000 positive feedback and a 99% positive rating. i read some of the negatives and not one person accused him of selling fake coins. so the story goes, people are digging up tons of these Roman coins from everywhere and only the ones that are silver ,gold, or super rare have any value. "Roman soldiers buried their coins, went off to war, and many didn't return" ...sounds like a believable story. the reasons why i think these coins are fake... again,1) why would i receive newer coins in a batch of "Ancient Roman coins" that "came directly form the excavators"? again, 2) if the dealer threw them in, or they got mixed in , why would the newer coins be encrusted with dirt? 3) i'm not an expert on how metal deteriorates, but some of my "Roman" coins have a perfect patina and badly worn features. if the features rotted off, why would the patina be thick? 4) i received a 1973 coin from Yugoslavia, which just-so-happens to be near the region where Roman coins are faked 5) over 3 days i saw 4 similar coins to mine on Ebay, but when i went to website that posted fake coins, i instantly found at least 3 matches. (although the backs were different) 6) it's my understanding, that at least at some point during the Roman empire, Roman soldiers weren't paid in coins but were paid with salt. everyone had bags of coins they had to hide? 7) I've heard of stories of English people finding Roman coins on their property, and the government is all over them like white on rice. if Roman coins were so common, wouldn't the English government pick out the good stuff, or take photos and give the rest of the junk to the farmer? no doubt the dealers believe they are real. let's just face this possibility things are worth what ever people think they're worth. i didn't post this to start any pointless argument i just would like to hear some logical answers
There's allot of reasons modern coins might show up in a lot of Roman coins. Coins can "migrate" in the soil, or maybe the excavator pooled everything he found into one group, or they got mixed in (purposely or accidentally ) between from being dug to being sold to the dealer to being sold on ebay. I don't think its uncommon for dealers to mix up different groups, this can give you a good variety of coins and the dealer can get rid of culls and slugs (crappy coins) at the same time. If a modern coin is caked in dirt than, then its hard to tell the difference between it, and one allot older. Under the right condition, modern coins can easily get encrusted. Someone, as a joke, gave me a handfull of pennies, from an old fountain, that looked like ancient coins because of the corrosion. Some places even sell uncleaned coin from the 17th-20th century. Some sellers have sold a mixture of real and fake ancients Weather they did this accidentally or purposely, I can't say. Can you post pics or scans of your coins?
Ok, I will try: 1. Excavators dig up everything they find. They pull out anything that looks worthwhile and sell the dregs who sell to dealers on Ebay. Any Ebay uncleaned coin has been looked at probably 10 times for anything of value. 2. He didn't throw them in, they were already there from the fields, he just didn't pick them out. Of course they have dirt on them, they were buried. 3. The features were worn from circulation before they were lost. Think of them as a VG coin from circulation before it got buried. 4. Makes sense, if they dug the coins up in Yugoslavia, were you expecting South African coins to be mixed in??? 5. If you are not an expert, how do you know those website matches were exact? Post any coin you think is fake here and we can help. 6. You are wrong. Even "salt money" was coins paid to soldiers so they themselves could buy salt. 7. Roman coins are common, most musuems have more than they want. The government in England will keep rare coins, but pay the finder. Every month people come here posting how "they couldn't possibly be real". To say so is really an insult to antiquity. These things were made by the BILLIONS. They are not all little unique hand crafted treasures, they were mass produced on an industrial scale. Sorry, but it reminds me of those who try to say the ancient Egyptians did not build the pyramids.
You remind me of my aunt who didn't believe anything could be more than 300 years old. Her theory was that nothing would last that long and would rot within a couple of hundred years. She couldn't be swayed in her thinking.:goofer:
You could always show her the Tower of London. That has been added to over the years but the original part was built over 900 years ago. Or there is the Great Wall of China which is 2000 years old
This is how I first thought about ancients. That was a few years ago and I was worried about getting fake coins but after you handle a few of the real ones you will change your mind. I used to collect 1800's US and world coins but now I only collect ancient greek, roman and byzantine coins.
Boy Jess being in Bismark it must be really lonely being an ancient collector. I was the only one in the Des Moines coin club, I couldn't imagine how it would be being the only one in an even less populated state.
People read in the press about finds of thousands of Roman coins found in pots and the interest these hoards raise in scholarly circles. What we don't hear so often is the finds of thousands of metal detectorists who spent Saturday finding lumps of dirty metal and sorted them into old coins, new coins, artifacts and scrap metal. If a group of uncleaned coins is really unsearched, you should expect to get an occasional new coin or button. Detectorists can sell their finds to wholesale buyers who should sort out the errors but some of them are not beyond salting the groups with modern fakes and even real ancients that have been cleaned and redirtied (because they were junk and worth more as an unknown). If you see a bag of 1000 ancients for sale, you can not assume that they were found together. Much more likely is that they were gathered together and sorted by size and someone's opinion on whether they were likely to clean up into a nice coin with individual value or something that will sell cleaned for half what it brought dirty. To those who don't believe in ancient coins I'll just ask why bother reading this forum? I generally suspect such posts come from those who subscribe to the cultural heritage elitists who can not cope with the fact that they made a million of the things and then went home for the day only to do it again the next. Aunt was right, 99% of the output rotted or was melted down to make whatever was current. That is why we only have a few million of the things left to collect.
I think I am the only one here that collects ancients. I went to one coin shop and they dont have any ancients either. I recently moved from seattle and the Washington Numismatic Gallery had a good selection of them. Here I dont know anybody who even collects coins period.
Fifty years ago a small town might have a shop with a few ancients. I was from Indiana but I suspect it is not all that different from other states. For a treat, my mother would take me to Indianapolis (big city) where there were three or four shops with a better selection. Usually I had to walk up a few flights of stairs and was greeted by an old man who would sell me coins in the 50 cent to $5 range. The old men died and their grandsons either left the business altogether or converted to selling proof silver eagles. Now I live a similar distance from Richmond VA where I know one shop that has a part time visiting dealer with a few ancients (about the same as the Indianapolis ones) with one small case over in the corner on Friday and Saturday only. In 50 years we seem to have dropped from three dealers six days a week to one dealer two days and I suspect I have it better than most. In trade we now have eBay, the Internet and CoinTalk. Instead of a friendly old man who would talk to you all day and sell you nice coins for a small price, now you get a bunch of overpriced junk on eBay and opinions from Randy, Chris and I (not a complete list). The difference I see is that in the 1950's I was the only person I knew who collected the coins and I had no way to contact people in Arizona, Minnesota or North Dakota. Actually I prefer 2012 to the good old days except for the part about overpriced junk.
In person, I've met a couple people that have a few ancients, but I've only talk with a serious collector once. I think I saw a couple too at the local shop lol. But I guess we are all just used to not talking about ancients. After all, the first rule of Ancients Club is we dont talk about Ancients club, but only because theres not many people to talk with about them. The local shop has a slow supply of cheaper ancients, but not to many customers that want ancients. Though a couple times they had gotten quite a bit of nicer one, which sold pretty fast. If not for the internet, I wouldnt have met other collectors as Doug said, but more so than that, I dont know if I'd even have any ancient coins with out the internet.
The second rule of ancients club is dont talk about ancients club, I agree the internet is good and there is alot of overpriced junk out there. All my coins I bought are from an old dealer in the UK and they where at a fair price and I would of never met this dealer if it wasnt for the internet or anybody else to talk about ancients.
