Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;IdesOfMarch01, post: 2878656, member: 39084&quot;]Question: When you&#039;re browsing ancient coins online, or looking through a printed catalog, or at a coin show looking through a dealer&#039;s stock, what&#039;s the first thing you look at? </p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, the coin itself.&nbsp; What&#039;s on the obverse?&nbsp; Is it of the type I collect or would like to collect?&nbsp; What does the reverse look like?&nbsp; You&#039;re examining all aspects of the coin itself.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, what&#039;s the second thing you look at?&nbsp; Most likely, the written description (if there is one) that describes the coin.&nbsp; Maybe you&#039;ve overlooked some aspect of the coin that&#039;s included in its description.&nbsp; Does it correlate with what I know about these coins?&nbsp; Is there information that&#039;s missing, etc.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, at best, the third thing you look at is the coin&#039;s price.&nbsp; If you&#039;re interested in the coin, you want to know the asking price.&nbsp; If not interested, you may be curious about the price but it doesn&#039;t really matter since, well, you&#039;re not interested in it.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I wonder... have you ever really bought a coin about which you don&#039;t care, solely for investment purposes -- i.e., because it will keep escalating in price?&nbsp; If so how many?&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>My impression from those who post on this site is that they buy coins that interest them and they think they&#039;ll enjoy owning.&nbsp; This does <i>not</i> conflict with the advice to &quot;buy the best quality coin you can afford within your budget&quot; because you&#039;ll probably be happier with it.&nbsp; Price is a consideration only to the extent that the coin you want is within your budget.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>For example, if you want a Sikyon Chimaera stater that has the lion&#039;s serpent tail completely shown on the obverse, you&#039;ll pay a premium.&nbsp; If you&#039;re not going to enjoy this coin without the serpent tail completely shown, then you shouldn&#039;t buy it. Does this mean it&#039;s a better investment than such coins that are less complete?&nbsp; Of course, but so what?&nbsp; Does this mean you&#039;ll enjoy the coin more because it cost more?&nbsp; Of course not -- it cost more because of its condition and lower availability; you&#039;ll enjoy it more because completeness matters to you.</p><p><br /></p><p>From my perspective, the issues continually raised about expensive vs. less expensive coins, investment quality vs. non-investment quality, are pretty much irrelevant and even a bit forced, at least as it applies to the types of collectors who post here.&nbsp; While I personally might have some disdain for collectors solely interested in ancient coins as an investment, I really don&#039;t see those collectors here.</p><p><br /></p><p>If other collectors enjoy seeing ancient coins in the $10K+ category (in this thread), then I&#039;m all for continuing it.&nbsp; If not, this thread will fade out and not be useful as a reference or simply for enjoyment in the future.&nbsp; But let&#039;s get past the seemingly endless back-and-forth intimations that collectors who buy and post such coins on this site are &quot;really&quot; just investors and not genuine collectors.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in