Your Very First Ancient

Thought it would be find to post the very first ancient you bought. Hopefully most of you still have them.

Below is mine. I bought it in late 2009 or so right here on cointalk from a fellow ancient collector who no longer posts on here. Its still one of my favorites in my collection even though its super common.

Once I got it in hand I was surprised how small it was as well as the engraving on something so old. This coin got me hooked on ancients since.

Sure beats a scrappy LRB as a first too.


Septimius Severus (193 - 211 A.D)
AR Denarius
Rome mint, 201 A.D.
O: SEVERVS AVG PART MAX, Laureate head right.
R:RESTITVTOR VRBIS (Restoration of the City), Severus in military attire, spear in left, sacrificing over a tripod altar with right.
RIC 167a RSC 599 BMCRE 202
3.3g

 

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My first.

It was cleaned to the bone, but now getting a patina.

I still think it is a rather interesting portrait of Constantinopolis.

 

Good ol' Valentinian-I ... walkin' his loyal captive (how cute, eh?)

 

Well, I'm embarrassed to say I do not recall my first Ancient purchase; however, I can reasonably say that this MA Legionary Denarius may have been the first or at least close to the first. It is the one coin that set me on track to collect Ancient Roman coins. This would have been around 1981/2.

 

Here is my first official ancient purchase! This was from earlier this year

 

I think this is my first, I'm reasonably sure.
Carus Potin Tetradrachm of Alexandria. Year 1 = 282/283 AD. A K MA KAPOC CEB, laureate, draped & cuirassed bust right / Dikaiosyne standing left holding scales & cornucopiae, LA to left. Geissen 3161, Dattari 5565; Sear5 12197.

 

Note: this my first ancient that acquired, I have yet to actually to buy one.

 

here's mine, an alexandrian arcadius...2 years ago, almost exactly probably.

 

I had twins:

Gallienus


Constantine II as Caesar

 

A tetradrachm of Elagabalus.

 

Heres mine

 

In April of this year I bought a small lot of prutot intending to give one of the Pontius Pilates to a very religious friend. Still haven't done it yet but I plan to. Probably. Maybe.


My first ancient purchase that was 100% for me was this Corinth stater with Silenus control mark. I was thrilled to get such an interesting and beautiful coin and at a lower than expected hammer. Maybe the flan cracks turned off other potential bidders? I don't find them detractive and all devices are fully on the coin and are deeply struck. Got lucky I guess



I think I bought a batch or two of uncleaned coins between these two purchases but I didn't count them... that turned out to be a pretty boring and disappointing endeavor and I quickly stopped buying dirties.

 

... ummm, I'm sure your friend will love the gift. Probably. Maybe.

 

I had quite abit of fun with my first purchase. It was a mixed bag of :

1 quadrans (Trajan)
1 as (Hadrian)
1 denarius (Septimius Severus - coincidentally the same type as the OP coin)
1 fouree denarius (Marcus Aurelius - didn't even know what a fouree was at the time)
2 provincial AEs (Nero and Elagabalus)
2 antoninianii (Gallienus and Claudius II)
1 sesterius (Philip I)
1 AE3 (Valens)

I spent a few days looking through the pages of coins that one dealer had to offer, and then selected 10 coins that appealed to me and that I felt would give me good sample of Roman coinage from the 1st through 4th century. They were all pretty much lower end or common types and on average I paid about $20 per coin, the most expensive being a $50 Antioch AE of Nero and the cheapest being an $8 Valens.

Apart from the sestertius which I posted in the recent Philip I thread, this she-wolf quadrans of Trajan remains a favorite from that first purchase.

 

Collecting modern coin most of my life, i wanted an Athens owl which i have gotten since. a collector of ancients stopped by a coin club meeting, had a lot of over two hundred coins, i bought them and this was the first two i pulled out. These two coins were posted on the CCF a couple year's ago, about this time of year. You have been stuck with me ever since....

Diva Faustina l..
Mother of Antoninus Pius..
Copper AS..
Ob..Diva Fautina l bust right..
Rev.Alter with doors shut, SC in Ex.
29mm x 9.81g..



Nerva...96 - 98..AD..
Dupondius..
Ob.Nerva bust right..
Rev. Fortvna standing, facing left, large S-C
27mm x 11.35g

 

Here is my first ancient coin. I received it in abut 1965 but didn’t learn anything about it until I posted it here on CT a few years ago. I understand that it is a bronze prutah ca. 9-11 AD. It was struck under the Roman procurator in Judaea, Marcus Ambibulus. It was given to me by the woman that raised me as a child.

The first ancient that I ever purchased was this Constantine coin.

 

So, dougsmit, what was your very first ancient coin?

 

Very nice first purchase Collect, good eye.

 

I don't know. I do know that I bought it at a tiny antique shop that was on the groundfloor of the apartment building in which I lived while in Junior High School. At the time I collected US from circulation (I never bought coins but sometimes did trade duplicates at a coin store). That first coin was, to the best of my recollection, an AE of Tetricus and not much to look at. I did not start really getting interested until I took Latin in High School and stopped paying any attention to US coins. I then was buying mostly denarii of the Severan and earlier periods and had few later coins. That first coin and about 50 others were sold to Joel Malter in 1974 so I can't remember much about the ones I did not photograph for a paper I wrote in 1964 for a freshman history class in college except for a few I pressed in aluminum foil before I bought a camera. Most of the foils have gotten damaged over the years but my Caligula sestertius foil is still in reasonably good shape. I got a little over $500 for the ~50. I thought three of the coins were worth more than he offered so I kept them making them my longest term coins. I know at least one was pre 1963 but all probably were.