As a coin collector, I felt that I should have an ancient coin in my collection. So when the local coin store had: GREECE - LYDIA 521-485BC Silver siglo. Obv Great King running w/spear & bow. One of the oldest known coins . I broke down and bought it. Now I am trying to learn something about ancients, especially this one. A couple of days poking around the Internet and getting a couple of books from the library has not been very informative. So I am looking for references to books that will introduce me to ancient coins and also enlighten me about the history of this particular coin. Suggestions please.
Hi gc1111. Welcome to ancients! You bought one, now you won't be able to stop! I have a couple of suggestions for you. First, you can go to www.vcoins.com and do a search for Lydia AR siglos. That will yield several results that you can look at and probably find some coins similar to yours. You can also find a ton of valuable information on www.wildwinds.com. As for an introduction to ancients, I like to recommend a couple of generalized books. Wayne G. Sayles books Ancient Coin Collecting and Ancient Coin Collecting II would be right up your alley. I would certainly recommend reading the first book first, then the Greek book (II). They are quick reads and you will enjoy them. Once you get through those, there are a lot of directions you can go, but they'll help you figure out what you're interested in. In my opinion, there's no reason to buy expensive reference books unless you get hardcore interested in a specific area or start buying a lot of coins or high dollar coins. There's an abundance of information available on the internet. If you have more specific questions, post them and hopefully some of us will be able to help you out. Have a good weekend and enjoy your new coin!
Always start at Wikipedia, its a good jump-off point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_coinage
