How many Ancients do YOU have?

[Noah]

Well, it fluctuates.  I see it this way: I have around 43, but could have ten times that amount if I lowered my standards and bought mostly $5 coins.  Likewise, I could have only one if I decided to buy a Gordian I or a nice Julius Caesar portrait denarius.  It is a combination of taste, preferences, and discretionary spending. 

Best, Noah

[Ghengis_Jon]

Lets see.  175 in Core Collection #1 (no duplicates), 300 in Core Collection #2 (40-50%  duplicates), and about 300 misc from uncleaneds that are simply aging gracefully with no particular future in mind.  CC#1 is Greek and Romans purchased individually, CC#2 is Twin Vics w/ Wreaths - combination of purchased individually and acquired via uncleaned.  The misc 300 I use as trade bait, swag for Geo-caching, trinkets for kids, and for donations.

Using them for donation is very gratifying.  Recently, I put 20 flipped LRB into a slide film page and gave it to a local fundraiser raising money for someone's operation.  What cost me less than $35 generated 114 $1 raffle tickets and a whole lot of conversation.  An example of ancient coins benefitting contemporary mankind!

[romeo]

i have about 3000 with only about 300 fully attributed, tell you everything really

[ecoli]

Let me see,

Group 1: Greek silver/Bronze - 70ish both from individual purchase and some from uncleaned
Group 2: Roman Personalities by portrait(both imperial and provincial) - 149 - 1 from uncleaned
Group 3: Roman Provincials - 150ish
Group 4: Other Romans - 600-700ish, some purchased individually some as bulk lots, ided
Group 5: Chinese ancients - around 100 or so.  Still have not got a chance to id them all, mostly iron cash from Sung Dynasty.
Group 6: around 500-600 coins not fully ided.
Group 7: 1000 or so uncleaned soaking at the moment.  I vow not to buy any more uncleaned until i finish the back log.

I also collect some modern coins. 

[byzcoll]

Hi,

late Roman and Byzantine gold coins: about 50
other Byzantines: 20
Vandalic silver coins: 5

byzcoll

[awl]

Group 7: 1000 or so uncleaned soaking at the moment.  I vow not to buy any more uncleaned until i finish the back log.

Take your time there isn't much to look forward to with the uncleaneds these days lol.

[DruMAX]

^^ so true

I dont have a lot, maybe 50 or so that are in good shape and not from uncleaned and maybe another 200-300 uncleaned in various states of preservation.

[commodus]

Since my previous post on this thread at the end of April, I have added 49 Roman, of which a dozen are Republican, and one Greek to my number.

[areich]

You won't learn much without ever holding one in your hand.
Especially learning to spot fakes is VERY hard if you don't know what a genuine coin looks and feels like in hand.
Just pick a reputable dealer and buy a coin.

Start here:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp

An ancient coin is not a big investment, it's important to be cautiuous and use common sense
but don't be afraid to just buy coins. You learn by looking at coins, touching, smelling, even tasting them.  ,
much faster than by just looking at them on the screen or in a book. Especially if you buy cheap, worn and corroded coins.
You will learn what wear corrosion and patina look and feel like which will help you in spotting fakes.
You will learn to recognize which coins are ancient and which are modern, either casts from originals
or made from modern dies.

If you have the chance, go to a coin show. There, stick to dealers, whose names you recognize but even
buying from smaller dealers is no problem if you buy cheap. I wouldn't buy expensive coins from shady dealers
but I will look at their junk boxes. Even if you do buy a fake, it's not the end of the world, it happens to everybody
sooner or later. I bought my first fake 3 years after starting collecting, because I was always cautious.
After that I was paranoid for a few weeks, which is completely normal but that was soon over.
A good coin show is as close to heaven as you can get. 


Andreas

[commodus]

Still learning about ancient coin...
It will be a long way before I own one.
Still don't know how to differentiate between ancient and fake....

Well then, buy some ancient coins! Many are VERY affordable (lots of late Roman bronzes are cheap as dirt). Hold them, study them, feel them,learn all about them. Learn by experience, like Andreas advises above. The best way to know a real coin from a fake is to know real coins and you can't do that without coming into contact with them!

[mihali84]

I would say i have about 45 ancients, Greek and Roman mix, more than half of which i still need to post on my gallery.  I think in some cases it's not the quantity but the quality that counts.  Although picking up a large lot of uncleaned coins does not sound like a bad idea.  I just don't think it would sit well with my girlfriend to have bowls of coins soaking around the house, among my collection of bonsai and other things i hoarded around the house, haha. 

[CzarMike]

About 40 attributed now.

[Brian L]

" How many Ancients do I have?"
Not enough,of course

[Enodia]

......., but one i traded, one i buried, and the rest i gave away.

Without seeking to pry, can I ask why one was buried?  Perhaps to pay the ferryman for a loved one?

browsing through this old thread i found this post from Lloyd T. sorry i missed it the first time around.

in 1999 i group of friends and i started what would turn out to be a long-term project to build a stone circle right here in Oregon. the first part was the erecting of a massive trilithon of columnar basalt uprights with a granite lintel. these weight approximately 17 tons total and stand over ten feet high, and we did the entire project by hand, using no modern tools.
during the preparation, which involved digging deep holes in what was once a riverbed (ie; LOTS of rocks!), we decided to bury a sort of time capsule. many of the people involved added personal items to a specially made box, and my contribution was a bronze coin from Kyzikos..
AE 18, 2nd-1st century BC, Persephone/Monogram.
it was in low grade, but i still found it hard to let go of. still, i wanted my donation to be something important to me, as is the nature of a sacrifice.
it also amused me to think of some future archeologist excavating this bizarre structure sometime in the distant future and concluding that the ancient Greeks might have visited the Pacific Northwest! 

impishly,
~ Peter

[Billy Kingsley]

I only have six, unfortunatly. When your budget for most months is 0 it does not allow you to build a very large collection.

I would love to have more but I have to be contented to just look at photos of other people's collections and on dealer's websites.

I feel that I can discern original, genuine coins against fakes, (at least, I hope!) but my biggest problem is in the attribution of them! That still throws me.

I am debating learning Latin just so I can read coins...I collect all coins, from ancients to modern issues (I will take whatever I can get, I am not picky ) and I think more coins have been written in Latin than any other language.

[Philoromaos]

My collection seems to have been getting smaller overall, since my last post here. I've sold a hell of a lot of my lower grade denarii over the last year, but I've put the money back into higher grade coins, particualy Republican denarii and Greek silver. So while my collections got smaller the amount of coins that I really love and the quality of my collection has gone up. Just got back into buying LRB's again after I sold my entire collection of them to buy two high grade Republicans, so it's probably going to get bigger again now!

[renegade3220]

I started out with uncleaned bronze coins.  I have 49 bronze coins... mostly uncleaned or in the process of cleaning them.  I have since switched to silvers.  I have 3 silver coins now!  I think I will play with these bronze coins for a long time, and quite spending money on bronze coins.  I will save it now for silver coins instead.

I enjoy cleaning coins though, so hopefully these will keep me busy, and I can get a nice collection of silver roman coins.

At this point, I stick away from Greek.  Even though they are very nice, they are a little more expensive I have found, and know absolutely nothing about them at this point! 

[Enodia]

So while my collections got smaller the amount of coins that I really love and the quality of my collection has gone up.

for me personally this is the key.
having a lot of coins which don't really grab me just doesn't seem as satisfying anymore as having a few that i really love. but since i don't buy as many i do get the 'itch' more than before, so i keep telling myself that the money i don't spend on that average piece i don't really crave is that much more towards the gem that i desire. after all, it isn't a race, right?
that approach seems to work well for me... so far!

~ Peter

[Tom Mullally]

I have over 2000 ancient coins identified, flipped, and in my collection.  There's easily another 500 sitting on my desk in bags that are partially ID'd and need further work up.  I gave up on uncleaned coins years ago.  I've been collecting for about 20 years, if that tells you anything.

Tom M

[aragon6]

I have 31 Faustina Sr's 17 AE and 14 silver.  I have been very selective as to what I purchase as I do have a very limited budget so I look for  bargains.  Bargains can be found but patience is truly a virtue.  I also have a mixture of other coins, both bronze and silver, that for one reason or another I do not want to part with.  Not because they are valuable as much as I just plain like them.  Somewhere in a box, that it seems I have hidden on myself, I have a small collection of uncleaned which will be done once I find them

[Eduard]

My Collection of Roman coins:

- 2 Aurei
- 5 Republican denarii
- 50 Sestertii, all from the 1st to 3rd century. 
- 49 Asse/Dupondii/Semis, all 1st-3rd century
- 70 Denarii, all 1st-3rd century
- 2 quinarii

I have restricted myself to 3rd century and prior, as that is the period of history which interests me the most.  On that note, let me say that coins are nice and a passion, BUT to me the driver behind the whole is my love of history, and of people and events long past. Coins are a bridge to that past. 

[ancientone]

Hello,  I currently have:

76 Roman provincials,
19 Greek,
17 Roman imperial,
17 Alexandrian,
1 Etrurian,
1 Iberian and
1 Imperatorial fouree

 all bronze and in my FORVM's members gallery.   I'm hooked on provincials with no end in sight.  My wife thinks I'm crazy.... she dosen't understand.
 

[OldMoney]

This may be borderline obsessive, but I have several collections.
The particular one I want to mention here is the one of the Coins of Ephesus,
of which I have 1312 catalogued, plus many more that are 'duplicates'.
This includes examples of virtually every type of coin from the very beginnings of
Ephesian coinage, right up until the end of the provincial coinage at the city under
Gallienus, and everything in between, including Hellenistic coinages struck there.
There are still a few gaps, but that is part of the joy of collecting.
There are another 1200 or so distributed across the other five main collections,
so about 2500 or so in total (so far!).
I hope to publish at some stage, and am happy to hear advice in this regard
from anyone who has done the same.

Walter Holt