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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 4243760, member: 110350&quot;]As far as I can determine, both from memory and from records I&#039;ve kept, the very first ancient coin I ever bought as an adult was this one, from Harmer Rooke in New York City (which was primarily an antiquities dealer) on Feb. 21, 1986:</p><p><br /></p><p>Macedon, Alexander III (under&nbsp; Philip III Arrhidaeus), AR Drachm, Miletos mint, 323-319 BCE. Obv. Head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress/ Rev. Zeus seated left on throne, holding long scepter in left hand and eagle standing right with closed wings in his right hand.&nbsp; Price 2121, Mueller 847 (KH monogram in left field). 16 mm., 4.21 g. <i>Purchased from Harmer Rooke Numismatists, Ltd., Feb. 21, 1986.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>[ATTACH=full]1083467[/ATTACH] </i></p><p><i>[ATTACH=full]1083468[/ATTACH] </i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p>I was there to look at antiquities -- which I had already been collecting for five years or so -- but this coin caught my eye, and wasn&#039;t particularly expensive, so I bought it. (I bought others on occasion over the years, but 30 years later, I still had a total of less than 10 ancient coins; I didn&#039;t really start focusing on collecting them until about three years ago, after I had to sell the vast majority of my collection of British coins and historical medals.&nbsp; To be honest, the main reason I switched subject-matters, even after I was in a financial position to start buying again, was that it felt too painful to start collecting British coins and medals again:&nbsp; I knew that even if I lived to be 100, I would never be able to recreate anything like the collection I&#039;d put together since the early 1980s.&nbsp; And I&#039;d always enjoyed looking at ancient coins, so it felt like a good alternative.)</p><p><br /></p><p>But 1986 wasn&#039;t actually the first time in my life I&#039;d ever bought an ancient coin. I started collecting British and other world coins when I was 8 or 9 years old, around 1963 or 1964, mostly at a small coin shop on Lexington Avenue only a couple of blocks from where I lived -- close enough that I was allowed to go there by myself.&nbsp; (I never had a great interest in collecting U.S. coins as a child, although I did occasionally used to go to the nearest bank, give the teller a $5 bill, and ask for five silver dollars in exchange!&nbsp; I think the main reason for my interest in British coins was a summer vacation I&#039;d taken in the Bahamas with my family; the coinage fascinated me and I saved all the change I could.)</p><p><br /></p><p>As I recall, this store had boxes and boxes of inexpensive coins (certainly less than a dollar each); I used to go through them and buy a few with my allowance every time I went.&nbsp; I&#039;m sure I still have a lot of them somewhere!&nbsp; And on one occasion, I found and bought this rather miserable specimen of an ancient Roman coin -- which, as bad as it looks, I managed to identify in the 1980s by using the then-current edition of Seaby&#039;s:</p><p><br /></p><p>Constantine I, City Commemorative. AE 3 or 4. Trier. 332-333 AD. CONSTAN-TINOPOLIS, helmeted bust of Constantinopolis left, sceptre over shoulder / Victory standing facing on prow, head left, holding sceptre and resting hand on shield. [Mintmark TRS star. RIC VII Trier 548, Sear 16445; OR Mintmark TRP dot. RIC VII Trier 530, Sear 16444.&nbsp; 17 mm, 1.0 g.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1083489[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1083490[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>When I was 8 or 9 years old, this coin didn&#039;t look &quot;miserable&quot; at all to me.&nbsp; I thought it was completely amazing to hold in my hands a coin made more than 1,700 years earlier!</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve kept this coin all these years for sentimental reasons, even though I don&#039;t really consider it part of my &quot;collection.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Did anyone else buy their first ancient coin as a child, and do you still have it?&nbsp; Or, do you remember what the first ancient coin was that you bought as an adult?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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