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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ed Snible, post: 2907264, member: 82322&quot;]Coins that are rare today probably did not get much use in ancient times outside of a small geographic area.&nbsp; Coins with just a few examples known contributed very little to economics or art.&nbsp; A common coin like an Alex tet is part of a larger story and the super-rare coins usually aren&#039;t.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, if you are a specialist in some city or mythological story you can work hard to acquire extremely rare coins in your area.&nbsp; But there is little point in collecting <b>only</b> for rarity unless you are planning on donating the coins to a museum.</p><p><br /></p><p>Extremely rare coins outside of popular series have near random &quot;values.&quot;&nbsp; Here is an example from my collection:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]701451[/ATTACH] </p><p>Mysia, Parion. AE12 1.5g</p><p>Obv: Head of Gorgon (?) facing.</p><p>Rev: ΠARI. Grape bunch on vine.</p><p>ex-Pecunum, auction 14, March 2014, lot 224.</p><p><br /></p><p>Competition was fierce on this item.&nbsp; I ended up having to pay 5.6x the estimate.&nbsp; I believe it was described as unpublished however I know it appeared as a line drawing in Imhoof-Blumer&#039;s <i>Choix de monnaies grecques de la collection de F. Imhoff-Blumer</i> (1883), pl. 3 #90.&nbsp; I knew that because the American Numismatic Society in New York has a better library than CNG and it has open stacks except for the rarest items.</p><p><br /></p><p>My treasure is in AG-3 or G-4 condition.&nbsp; Imhoof-Blumer&#039;s was not much better.&nbsp; For three years I considered mine the second known of two examples.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yesterday a much better example, I&#039;d grade it as VG-8, was sold in an online auction.&nbsp; It went for only one tick past the opening price and I was the under-bidder.&nbsp; Perhaps I could have gotten it cheaply and upgraded my example... but as they are from different dies I probably wouldn&#039;t have been able to part with mine.&nbsp; It didn&#039;t seem right for me to own all of the examples sold in the last century.&nbsp; That is the other problem with really rare coins.&nbsp; There is no one to have a friendly rivalry with.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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