Unpopular opinions- Ancient edition.

Lovely example! I'm more of a bottom feeder (most I've paid is €120) but my first big purchase will definitely be one of those.

 

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Coin listings (VCoins, MA Shops, eBay or other auctions) that feature a picture of just one side of the coin, such that you have to open the listing to see a picture of the other side are... ANNOYING!

With the full realization that I may miss some bargains, I have adopted the habit of skipping over listings with just one side of the coin pictured. I refuse to even click to see the other side. It feels like "click bait". :-( I would hope this is not an un-popular opinion, but judging by how often I see it I have to wonder.

And while I'm at it... Also of great annoyance to me are lots of just 2, 3, or 4 coins which ONLY show one side of the coins. (Yes, I get the cost of time involved, but I'm not thinking in terms of large lots where a pile of coins in one picture is pragmatic.)

 

My unpopular opinion is you don't need the most absolute pristine coins to collect history. In fact, those with some use have been through more.

 

So one shouldn't cite RIC unless one owns a complete set of all the volumes?

 

Roman provincial coinage is far more interesting than Imperial.

 

It would be prudent to consult the catalogue yourself instead of trusting second hand information.

NB: 'At hand' doesn't necessarily equate to personal ownership.

 

Do you consider OCRE sufficiently authoritative as second hand information?

 

I don't know about OCRE but in my opinion CRRO has a lot of the same identification errors that you normally see in auction catalogs and sellers' listings, mostly because of confused museum curators at the museums that provide linked images. Some are much worse than others of course but even the ones that are better don't seem willing to take the time to update things when informed of errors. It's certainly useful but I wouldn't consider it authoritative and most of the confusion would be cleared up if those curators would actually carefully read Crawford and perhaps consult the plates.

 

If I had to choose between the RIC catalogue in hand or a database such as OCRE, I'd choose the catalogue.

I posted my opinion in the spirit of the topic, I'm glad it isn't far off the mark!

 

Since this is a spirited topic in which we can post our own honest opinions without getting into a tit for tat, here are a few more:

Poor coins at high-end auctions often go for too much because the clientele is too used to high prices. That being said, nice coins sometimes go for too much at lower-end auctions because the buyers aren't familiar with the market for such coins.

Coin catalogs are overrated unless you're extremely specialized. Between Academia and JStor, there are a huge number of papers that provide far more detailed information than many of the guides. ACSearch, CoinArchives, Pella, Numista, and Whirlwinds can affirm whether a reference number is correct.

Roman imperial denarii/ants are boring. It's just emperor after emperor, empress after empress. On some of them the engravers didn't even know what the person looked like, so they just guessed.

If you collect ancient coins as an investment, then you shouldn't really be collecting ancient coins.

 

If there actually is such a choice, you're obviously correct. My point is simply that not everyone has access to RIC, either through ownership -- very expensive -- or at a readily accessible library. (Unless one is willing to download the illegally-copied pdfs available online.) At a certain point, I think a refusal to trust anything but one's own eyes becomes a bit unnecessary, especially when a semi-official resource like OCRE (essentially an online derivation of RIC) is readily accessible.

In any event, I do trust certain secondary sources. And any catalog information I write down for my own purposes (see above) is always subject to correction.

 

Ancient coin collectors should send their single very best coin to me, without a second thought. The post office is open until 5:00 (Eastern Time).
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That's probably a pretty unpopular opinion.

 

That's interesting. I may be a culprit of this lol.

I used to list coins like this on eBay, with both sides pictured in the same image


However, now I find I get more sales AND that my coins look better if I just insert one picture at a time (and also on a black background), like this one I've got

Picture 1:


Picture 2:


Picture 3:


Here are the two listings, side by side, as they appear on my eBay store


In my opinion, the second one shows more detail. It's also slightly bigger, as the thumbnail is square.

I think I get more sales because the picture is slightly bigger, more detail on the coin is shown, and the fact that potential buyers may want to click on it to see the other size (and to see if it's a rare type).

However that is unforgivable lol

 

I have come to a similar conclusion. One-sided eBay listings unfortunately work better and tend to sell faster, though I will admit I now always use the best looking side of the coin, but only because I have to choose one. Vcoins thankfully seems to handle wide images better in the list view so there's not as much reason to do it there.

 

- post 1204 Byzantine coinage is vastly more interesting and intriguing than the earlier Byzantines

- late Roman bronzes, although very common, are a great source of aesthetic and historic interest

- medieval billon and silver coinage with its many variations and multitude of interconnected polities minting them at one point or another is probably the greatest numismatic domain

- identifying worn and fragmentary coins is the best training one can get for furthering knowledge and learning to appreciate better quality material

- specialist articles, hoard sequencing, in-depth type analysis articles are vastly superior to any catalog

- understanding multiple languages is essential for access to specialist research and far away numismatists writing in non-English about local coinage will most likely broaden your horizons more than any Sear volume.

 

Tooling should devalue the coin. Sadly, the market on tooled coins is as hot now as ever. People buying a lot of these high end tooled coins like pretty not necessarily authentic.
The Roman empire never completely "fell". It just devolved into the Roman Catholic Church.

 

Personally, I would prefer people quote a listing they had seen rather than a second hand one. What is wrong with quoting OCRE as a source rather than the RIC number? Most are the same but there are errors. I do not own all the RIC volumes but I do own the ones I quote. RIC is not a unified work in ten volumes but a collection of at least 20 books divided up as the authors chose that vary greatly in quality. OCRE at least is edited in a more consistent manner. I have looked at it very little. Do they just ignore the thousands of coins known but not in RIC?

Note: this link shows two coins of which one is correct and one is misread. Nobody is perfect and 'authoritative'. There are sources usually trustworthy but none to be worshiped.
http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.4.ss.633A

There is a good argument for this opinion. I wish Philip had more types.

I could not agree more.

Those sources derived from sales listings that include numerous sellers with questionable professionalism and include errors. Whirlwinds?

 

Unless you're interested in coins that auction and museum catalogers often get wrong, for instance Roman coins from about 212 BC through about 170 BC. That seems like a specialized area but a lot of people here have one or more examples. I've corrected a huge number of attribution issues for members here, often made by major sellers. Most of these are very obviously made by sellers who thought ACSearch was a fine source and copied and pasted the first entry that looked good.

 

On your copy of RIC you can add your own notes, correct errors and/or add variations etc. I do this also with my Duplessy volumes on royal and feudal Frankish coinage.

 

I assume Wildwinds was intended.