Thanks for the appreciative replies. Some of you may wonder how does one find/buy such coins. So, to be clear, none were
cheap but all except one were not expensive for what they are, but one has to move very fast (instantly) when such coins come up, i.e. make quick judgments on value. Of the three I'll certainly never get a better
quality B den, Q quin or
ROMA sest. I
hope one day to get a clearer
RRC 45 den (it was the relatively expensive one but it was very widely advertised and promoted so one day a better one may appear for reasonable prices: a VF-GVF say). An EF example of
RRC 45 sold for $28,000 at the RBW sale. Not that that means much - EF
Julius Caesar denarii routinely fetch such prices yet can be found for a few hundred dollars in "collector" condition.
The Q quin was on a well-known
auction site but the seller didn't even mark it as
scarce, and those with just
Sear or
Seaby RSC would have no idea that it was very
rare; it sold for a modest
price. If you
had the
RBW collection catalogue where a similar example sold for $700 you would have realised its
rarity.
On the B
denarius and
ROMA sestertius I just moved very quick when I realised I could get them for
fair prices. Very quick and decisively, no debating whether to ask for a haircut. To put my coins in context, a
ROMA sest in merely
fine condition fetched over $3,000 at the RBW sale. I paid significantly less for a VF-GVF example. And two examples of the B
denarius, perhaps slightly nicer than mine, fetched over $7,000 each at RBW. I paid a small fraction for that at retail. In the case of the B and
ROMA, hesitation would certainly have lost me these coins and possibly the only chance of every owning these
rare types. I'll never have the financial resources that allowed a
collection full of EF examples but nimble searches and quick decisions allow for a very reasonable 2nd division
collection!
I may have left some
budget collectors behind with the sort of single-coin prices one could buy a
car for, but bargains are just as relevant in the $1000/$10,000 coin range as they are for $10/$100 coins. I'm an engineer on a salary, minding my pennies as much as the next.