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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Terence Cheesman, post: 8281448, member: 86498&quot;]To me the value of a coin is rather subjective. I have been both a buyer and a seller of coins. Recently I was asked to place an insurance value on a group of coins I was sending to auction. I did so and i was curious as to how close my estimations would be to the final hammer price. All I can say is in most cases I wasn&#039;t even close. The coins appeared to either go beyond all my expectations or crash and burn. Less than half were anywhere near what I thought they might bring. This brings up an interesting point. I based my evaluations on the prices realized of similar coins from previous auctions. In most cases (but not always) I agreed with those evaluations and I use the same technique when attempting to ascertain what I should pay for a coin that I find interesting. </p><p>&nbsp; However what would make a coin valuable to me? The simple answer would be how well does it fit in my immediate or long term collecting goals. My collection is not large, I currently have slightly more than six hundred ancient coins. One of my aims is to create a collection that can be used to explain Greek and Roman coinages to students who are not collectors. So I tend to look for coins that are important either Politically, economically or as a milestone in the history of numismatic art. This means I tend to concentrate on certain types of coins. I am more likely to pic up a coin from the mint of Taras, a city with a long history of coinage and one that I already have a number of examples of than a coin of a city that is more obscure. Last January I purchased&nbsp; two sestertii of Trajan an emperor that is already well represented in my collection.&nbsp; I would rather buy yet more coins of someone like Trajan than I would an Emperor whom I believe to be more obscure. </p><p>A coin Seleukos I Nikator Ar Tetradrachm Seleukia in Pieria 200-281 BC. inspired by the types of Alexander the Great Obv. Head of beardless Herakles in lions skin headdress. Rv Zeus Nikphoros seated left holding Nike SC 29 1b HGC 16d Le Rider 27 A4/P13 This coin illustrated. 16.96 grms 25 mm Photo by W. Hansen[ATTACH=full]1462660[/ATTACH]So why did I purchase this coin? This coin was minted at a pivotal point in history as the various generals of Alexander&#039;s army are fighting each other for control of all or parts of his vast empire. It is interesting that at this time there was a reluctance to part with legacy of the coin types created during the reign of Alexander. Some like Antipater and Kassander changed almost nothing. Others like Ptolemy adopted new types. This coin of Seleukos on the whole resembles those minted for Alexander. The obverse is all but indistinguishable. The crossed legged image of Zeus has already been seen on the coins minted at Sidon in 325 BC and later at Tyre (323 BC). However this coin does exhibit some novel; features. For one the name of Alexander has been replaced with that of Seleukos, Furthermore the eagle seen held by Zeus on all the previous issues has been replaced by Nike. When the Seleukid kings began minting their own types, this image of Zeus was replaced by an image of a seated Apollo. However by the middle of the second century BC the image Zeus Nikphoros was restored and remained one of the standard reverse types even after the kingdom was dissolved becoming the Roman Province of Syria.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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