I just received a very nice 1/12 Stater of Miletos, Ionia, it is 12mm and just a bit over 1 gram. I let my wife look at it thru my magnifying glass to see the details of the lion head. She asked me how so many very nice Greek coins survived until now? Well I know that many have been found in hoardes uncovered in recent times, but that can't be how all survived. Were there coin collectors in ancient times? How else could some of the near uncirculated coins still exist? Are there any books that give details of the hoardes that have been found in modern times? I be grateful for any information on the subject. JonySky
Yes there were. Coin collecting is believed to have begun not long after coins themselves were created. But only the very rich and the nobility could afford to collect them. That's why it is known as the Hobby of Kings.
i always thought the one reason we have most (maybe not all) of the ancient coins were due to wars. Soldiers would bury their pay before going into battle, and when they died, the treasure was never dug up
Yes that is true, literally millions and millions of the coins were buried. But as asked, what about the near uncirculated coins that survive ? They weren't buried. Coins that were buried for hundreds or even a thousand years don't come out of the ground AU. And as for the question about discovered hoardes, yes there are many of them. Some can be quite obscure and little known. Others are more well known, but in total they number in the hundreds. And many of them are quite old. As I have noted before, one of the first books ever printed was printed on the Guttenberg press not long after it was invented - and it was about coins and collecting them.
