Why are ancient coins so cheap??

From looking they all look real, prices though are hit/miss.

Why not try ebay or http://forumancientcoins.com/ ?

 

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That was nice of you Mat. Middle school guy, where do you live ??? Perhaps we know a dealer near you ?

 

If I were a middle school student and wanted to get into the hobby of ancient coins but knew what I know today, I would try the following:

1. Find an honest dealer who sells coins in your price bracket and might be willing to help you. Don't bother people who only sell coins over $500. They don't have time for you and wouldn't have a coin suitable for an absolute beginner anyway.

2. The best place to buy a coin is at a large coin show that attracts ancient coin sellers. I'm from central Virginia and could suggest some between Baltimore (the big show in my region was last weekend) and Richmond (show in May). I do not know where to suggest for other places.

3. Join a local coin club but only if they have any members that collect ancients. The club in Richmond has about 2% of its members that collect ancients; there is a club in Washington DC solely for ancients.

4. Write to mail order dealers like Frank S. Robinson mentioned above. Be up front/honest about your age and price bracket. Frank, for example has a fixed price section at the end of his auction list which sometimes has things a beginner should consider. Find him using Google or Bing. VCoins has a lot of dealers in all price ranges (I recently saw some beginner types in Connie's Coins stock) so you will have to search the site for ones that might welcome your business. Some are abolutely great people; some are jerks. Don't let the last type bother you. Write them and see if any write back.

5. This is the hard one. Study. This includes working on your writing skills so you can communicate with dealers and make it clear what you want. A dealer is much more likely to respond to a middle schooler who obviously put some effort into learning the terms and writes in complete sentences than they are to one that shows no sign of being interested enough to bother doing the homework required to collect ancients.

6. Everyone will direct you differently. My opinions are posted on my website:
http://dougsmith.ancients.info/
I especially suggest the Vocabulary section (gray box) and some pages in the yellow box site highlights (not the photo section or the 'bride'). Realize that it would take more than one lifetime to learn everything about ancient coins so even experts make mistakes. Honest dealers sometimes get fooled by fakes but they correct their errors (refund your money) and really try to avoid questionable items. Some dealers know a lot while others set up a business when they can hardly tell Greek from Roman. As you educate youself, this will become more clear.

7. Involve your parent/grandparent or whoever will be helping you with the writing of checks or has the Paypal account. Your chance for a good experience is much greater if you work together on a shared interest. I realize that my list of instructions is long and difficult but the subject is not commonly thought of as middle school material. I started collecting in high school. Does your school offer Latin as a language choice? Latin teachers may even be interested already. Ask.

 

Thank You

Hey thanks for the advice that really helped I live in Minneapolis do you know any good dealers around here?

 

Sorry I forgot to say this in my First post there is a seller named Ancient Coin House on amazon and he sells ancient coins for 5 to 10 bucks and he says he haas world famous coin collectors buying from him Can you take a look at him and see if he is honest. If you could that would be great.

 

I live in Minnesota

 

Ripley I live in Mn

 

Darn, I live near San Francisco. I do not know any sellers in Minneapolis. Perhaps you can email Dougsmit, he is more worldly than I. He replied to this thread.

 

I live in the Minneapolis area. To be honest most of us just do mail order and shows. There are a couple of ancient dealers here, but not much. For shows there is a large dealer on Vcoins that shows up to large shows around here.

AncientRomanCoins, you can PM me and I will give you some advice on resources in the Minneapolis area, and invite you to attend the Twin Cities Ancient Coin Club! Also, I have a farily extensive library if you need to look at certain books that you may be considering adding to your own library.

Chris

 

I can understand why there are not many ancient coin dealer Because it's so cold You can just send me a message through this website when ever there is a show

 

also do you know any good shops around the redacted

 

I'd avoid amazon (and ebay)

 

AncientRomeCoin,

It has already been mentioned but http://www.vcoins.com is a good and relatively safe place for a beginner to start.

Because fakes are common on eBay I would avoid eBay until you've gained more experience or unless you know the seller is trustworthy. But if you still want to try eBay here are Blacklists of sellers to avoid. Keep in mind not all of the fake sellers on eBay can possibly be listed on a list. So just because a seller isn't on the list doesn't necessarily mean they are OK. But these are the worst -

FORVM's NOTORIOUS FAKE SELLERS LIST
This list is kept updated.
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=18502.0

CoinForgeryDiscussionList
This list is over a year old. I couldn't find a more recent one.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CoinForgeryDiscussionList/message/28139

So before you buy on eBay at least check to see if the seller is on one of these lists.

Many of these sellers are career fake sellers and sell fake coins every week. So if this post prevents you from buying even one fake I will be happy.


And if you are motivated to really learn about ancients you should regularly read the forums at this link below. You will learn a lot over time. Someone already posted it but I will again. -

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php

And that forum site owner is a trustorthy person to buy coins from -
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp


And some other ancient coin forums on Yahoo Groups -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Moneta-L/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CoinForgeryDiscussionList/messages


And of course there are many books on various areas of ancient coin collecting.

Good Luck!

 

try buying celtic staters from the different tribes, and then say they are cheap!!!!!

one local dealer near to me was selling bags of 10 roman coins for £5 last year, thats how common roman are in the UK