Is there a website somewhere that lists the Rarity value: R1, R2 and so on for ancient coins, I can get most information from Wildwings however it does not usually list a coins rarity...? Steven
That style of rarity rating is used in Roman Imperial Coinage. Some of those volumes date to the 1920s and so are often wildly outdated in terms of rarity ratings. The volumes surveyed major collections and since then vast numbers of coins have been dug up and dispersed. While most of us will note a high rarity rating from RIC, it is understood that the rating may be meaningless today. A better approach would be survey the type in ACsearch (reflects coins sold at auction) or other sales databases (such as Coryssa) to get a better idea of what is actually in the market. https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=RIC Rarity
You can usually find that information in books or specialist websites but you have to understand how they arrived at whatever number and how things may have changed since that number was calculated. Some publications base it on the number or estimated number of die pairs or how many examples they found in collections they consulted. Some people will base it on, for instance, how many are on ACSearch. Others have different methods yet still. All of these have pros and cons and may be more or less effective based on the type of coin, for instance you won't find certain varieties of the Constantinian dynasty nearly as common if looking at ACSearch as they are in reality because few actually make it to auction because most auction houses won't accept a $20 coin. It's never as simple as R1, R2, etc
There are 10 of these volumes dealing with mainly Greek coins that have rarities assessed to each listing from R3 (1 or 2 examples known to exist) to C (hundreds or thousands of examples known). But as others said not always accurate. I have multiple examples of some claiming to be the highest rarity, while others that are just scarce that I never see for sale.
While far from all-encompassing, the site at http://romancoin.info/ has some great .xls sheets for a few specialty areas, and every coin is given a rarity. One caveat to note - the survival rate of ancient coins as a whole is probably pretty low, and there are thousands upon thousands of "one-off" varieties, nearly all of which are "rare" in an absolute sense. For the vast majority of these, rarity doesn't actually matter to anyone except a specialist. From my experience with Roman coins, rarity matters in roughly this order, from most to least important: 1. Rare ruler (Regalianus, Laelianus, etc) 2. Rare denomination (Gallienus sestertius, Trajan Decius denarius) 3. Rare reverse type (Constantine SPES PVBLIC, Claudius II VICTORIAE GOTHIC) 4. Rare bust type (LRB bust holding horse, Gallienus as Hercules) 5. Rare mint 6. Rare inscription variant 7. Other minor details As I demonstrated in another thread, once you get down into the nitty gritty of it, it is not at all difficult to assemble a wide variety of "unique" coins, few of which would generate much interest solely by virtue of their utmost rarity. Ancients just don't work like wheat pennies and mercury dimes.
