So, ... who are you?

Archeocultura is in fact the name of my enterprise as an archaeologist and as a person understanding landscapes. In Holland, where I was born and bred, nearly all the land was shaped by men since prehistoric times; so land(scape) and archaeology go hand in hand. This has not always been my profession, but my passion since childhood. My father was a teacher and I followed in his footsteps and remained there for 38 years. By then I had my gut full of the modern way of educating and started my own business. In 1973 I married Frances, whom I had known since kindergarten and we had two children; my son still a bachelor at 40 and my daughter (36) mother of my two grandsons. Unfortunately Frances died last year and I now live with my black Labrador Raffles.
In the early sixties the old silver coins were disappearing from the currency and I started a rescue operation with the aid of the baker and the milkman who always had a lot of small change in their big leather pouches. When I started to earn money of my own, I extended to older Dutch coins, going back to the founding of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands in 1578.
In 1974 I decided to sell the lot and bought my first thirty Roman coins. I bought them randomly and at a certain moment decided that it woiuld be fun to own a coin from each emperor that had ever lived. Then I wanted every denomination of each emperor and not much later I concluded that my funds would never suffice to reach that goal. Since then I specialize in coins of Antoninus Pius and family and of coins minted in Arles, France, from the moment the mint was moved there from Ostia (313 AD). The death of Constantine 24 years thereafter marks the terminus ad quem of my collection. My pius collection encompasses more than a thousand pieces and is far from complete and the copper coins of Arles still give me a lot of choice in their endless small varieties.
As an archaeologist I study prehistoric indigenous pottery and as I am one of a handfull of experts in the field, I am always sorting out, cataloguing, drawing and writing. In Holland we have a saying:"Scherven brengen geluk" which means ' Sherds bring luck' and I can't disagree.

The picture is my Pius number one (one as in: first)
Frans Diederik

 

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A lot of interesting life stories, some very moving.

As far as I know, I'm the only very active french guy here at CT, being a member since 2005. I thank you folks for giving me the opportunity to improving my english, either at reading and writing it. I feel here at ease just like you would in a club or a pub, where people like to share things that passionate them.

I will be 60 next week.
My only real ambition in life is to have my wife laughing, and she's been kind enough to laugh with me for the last 42 years. I've been a GP during all my adulthood, we travel as much as possible, like to go to the pictures, and have fun with friends and our kids and grand daughter.

I've been collecting coins since I was 5 or so and started with ancient when my grand father gave me the Commodus sestertius he found during WWI (you all know the story and the coin). Living not far from Lyon (Lugdunum) in a little town situated east of this city, lead me to investigate about local coinage, and I discovered la Dombes a bit more than 20 years ago. I'm trying to build as complete a collection as possible, and why not write something about them when I retire.

Apart from coins, I collect health issues, the last one being a cornea degeneration, and although I'm slowly becoming blind (I'm due to cornea transplant next september) I always see the bright side of life (call me Brian) !!

I'm the optimistic guy in the story :
Pessimistic : It couldn't be worse !
Optimistic : Oh yes, it could very well be !!

Q

PS : @lordmarcovan : From the first time I read a post of yours Sir, I've admired your style, humour, taste and knowledge. No one is in your place to decide whether you like the person you are or not, but I know for sure, quite a lot of people like you, man !

 

Very nice to see so many of these introductions. I’m 37 years old, and I live in Brooklyn, New York with my wife and 2-year old son. Here’s a picture of me and wife, and one of me and my baby boy.





For work, I’m a lawyer and I’ve been practicing in NYC for the past 12 years. Between work and taking care of the little guy, I’m very happy to have some extra time for a hobby.

I’ve been collecting ancient coins for about 4 years now. I’ve always had the collecting gene, I was a little bit obsessed with my baseball card collection growing up. I would have absolutely LOVED collecting ancient coins as a kid, but I just didn’t know that owning ancient coins was even possible. I had thought that ancient Roman and Greek artifacts were something for museums, it hadn’t even occurred to me that regular people could own these (and to be honest, it still amazes me). After a vacation to Italy and Greece a few years ago, I was looking up some of the things I saw in museums, and got some targeted ads for coins. I started with a budget As of Claudius, and I’ve been hooked ever since. It’s so great to have a community of people to learn from and to share my coins with, such a wonderful group of people on this site.

 

Same here!

 

Hi there, fellow New York lawyer!

 

Wow, almost completely similar lives, but on a different continent. Thanks for sharing your story

 

When I was a child my grandfather gave me some (a hundred?) common low-denomination "world" coins from numerous countries. I sorted them by country and learned where the countries were, but I didn't even realize that the three coins he had labeled as from "Rome" were much much older than the others from "France" and "Germany" etc. I think I was in in my mid-20s before I realized that Roman coins could be collected. Ah! My coins from "Rome" were from that famous old ancient Rome. I sold my US coins and never looked back.


Sestertius of Gordian III. 28-30 mm. 17.32 grams.
AEQVITAS AVG
RIC 286a.
Ex my paternal grandfather.

 

So nice to see the number of responses still growing! A few fellow Nederlanders (hoi!), MD's and even someone aspiring to get a doctorate in Epidemiology (@Magnus Maximus: you'll find out soon: that's where all the cool kids hang out).

I also enjoy looking at the photo's some have posted ... though I'm a bit hesitant to post a photo of myself on the internets, COVID19 have given me a nice opportunity to post a photo I'm comfortable enough to post

This was just before a very dystopian evening shift on the COVID19 ward. Stay safe!

 

Nice outfit! You be styling to the max! To relieve boredom during the plague, I have been reorganizing my computer files, including coin pictures and spread sheets.
How droll.
I tried a beta version which a CT member shared with me. I have more to learn about it, and I do like the utility which crops out the background and makes the picture into a side by side pair.
(24-124 Nahapan)

 

Love it. NAILED it!

 

My name is pretty obvious to anyone who had read my posts. It is Terence Cheesman and I live in Alberta Canada. I have just celebrated ?? my 69th birthday and have been collecting ancient coins seriously for about 38 years. I spent 30 years working at the Post Office as a letter carrier. I guess one of my more notable achievements is that I had two careers crater before I was 25 years old. I had two rather short careers the first in the military as well as being a teacher (high school). I am single never married.
My collecting has changed over the last 38 years. Currently I own about 640 coins but at one point had owned over 3500. Right now I like to buy coins that appeal to me and that I can incorporate into seminars on ancient coins which I try to conduct both here in Alberta and in Saskatchewan. Experience has taught me that bringing too many coins simply overwhelms the audience as well as creating a logistical nightmare so I try to keep the numbers within reason. Thus my collecting focus is more towards coins that I deem to be important rather than coins that are simply a rare variety. Oddly enough I am currently on the hunt for what should be three relatively common inexpensive coins but have not been able to find ones that I like.
I do like to travel and I have been to a number of coin shows in Canada the U.S. and Europe. My biggest problem is that I am trying to wean myself from simply travelling to a show just to buy coins into one where I go and look around to see the sites and then buy some coins. A couple of pics. The first is a pic taken a few years ago at the coin show in Paris. Yes I am in a good mood. The second is of a recent purchase Rhodes Ar Stater 340-320 B.C. Obv. head of Helios three quarters facing to the right Rv. Rose. Ashton 98 HGC 1433 6.88 grms 20 mm Photo by W. Hansen

 

Okay, I guess I'm going to be the only one here who DOESN'T collect ancients! But I will some day, and it's good to know there are many here to help me.

I turned 68 in April, married some 43 years, and have one son who is 30 and single. And it's because of him that my interest in coins was revived.

I was still in grade school when my dad showed me his albums filled with cents and nickels. I helped him look for coins and bought a couple of my own albums to fill. Later I came across a small book made especially for recording the coins I had.

But it never really caught on with me then. I was too busy reading everything (even cereal boxes while eating my Cocoa Krispies) and writing stories with my friends as characters. The space race in the late fifties made me want to go (and a teacher of mine had a relative working on the Dyna-Soar -- look it up) but being weak in math made me focus on the computers they had. So when I went to college as an electrical engineer major, my plan was to become a computer repairman on the moon!

But once again math tripped me up. Plus during high school I had discovered chess, and became a chess fanatic. Never was much good at it, but going to tournaments got me out and about, plus I made lots of friends.

After a rather bad year in college, I went back home, switched majors to computer science, but never got the degree. Worked in computer operations for over 20 years, then retired from being an airport security screener after 13 years. Still doing chess online now and collecting coins again. My son, as I've mentioned before, inherited the coin collection from his grandfather, and I manage it for him. He lives in another town and allows me to add and classify his collection.

So that's me, maybe not what you expected, but I like it!

 

I'm a Mint Error collector of US and Foreign coins..
Love my coffee!.. Love my wife!
But I do own about 10 Ancient Coins.
Just a few..

 

You need more Ancients, my friend.

 

I believe this is a forum not Mister Roger's neighborhood. I have many buddies, less than five friends, with one of those five being my best friend. Lets just call ourselves computer buddies, garbage in-garbage out, and leave it at that... Thanks to all of you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom.

 

Hello, my name is Hermann and I am 68 years old and a retired procurement manager of one of the leading fertilizer companies. I am mainly collecting roman coins from Augustus til the end of the Roman Empire. I started collecting during my years at the University of Bochum/Germany where I studied History and Sports.
My wife and me are living in the north of Germany around 100 km north of Hamburg. Lucky as we are, the Corona virus is not very strong in our aerea, no more than 60 infected in total out of around 135000 people.

 

Hi all. I'm a computer ID thief and just collected a bunch of useful information. Thanks. Just kidding of course, but I guard my personal information, having been a detective on the Sheriff's Department. I don't collect ancients but have a couple and enjoy reading CT for additional information. I'm 75, retired from teaching and law enforcement. Single and live so far off the grid that no one can find me, which is the way I like it. My main focus of collecting is Buffalo Nickels but I have a little of a lot of other coins. Love CT and read it daily. What else is one to do during this pandemic?

 

I love that shirt.....Awesome

 

Although I have “semi-retired” from CT (I need to renew my Supporter status) I still visit every day and enjoy the posts immensely.

I spend most of my days now rendering calligraphy, reading historical and biographical references (Ancient Rome, the English Civil War, The Napoleonic wars and “All Creatures Great and Small”) plus (naturally) admiring, fondling and researching my Roman Imperial (Julio-Claudian and London mint Tetrarchic) coins.

I haven’t changed in appearance much since my 90th birthday party last year - I will be 91 in August.