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Author Topic: Complete novice with questions.  (Read 2455 times)

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David T7

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Complete novice with questions.
« on: November 07, 2021, 12:33:12 pm »
Hi folks, as the title says I am an absolute beginner. I have a bit of an interest in ancient history and am considering starting a small coin collection. I have some time on my hands being recently retired and I would appreciate some guidance. Your forum looks like a great place to start so I have been reading through various threads but would appreciate pointers on a few specifics.

1/ My area of interest is ancient Greece. A few forum members recommend as a starting point the book "Greek Coin Types and Their Identification" by Richard Plant. Is that the best starting point or are there other standard works.
2/ I appreciate this is an impossible question to answer accurately but what, very roughly, is the range for ancient Greek coins in terms of value. I may be miles out but I have seen "Owls" for sale in the region £1,000 to £2,000. I may well want to acquire one when I know a lot more but is it possible to pick up interesting coins for a lot less, say a few hundred UK pounds.
3/ In terms of a collecting theme I appreciate I am "jumping the gun" as I need to read up first but my initial thought is that I might try to acquire one coin with "eye appeal" from each of the locations in Greece which my wife and me have visited over the years, about a dozen islands/mainland locations.
4/ What do you guys do about security? Sadly crime is quite prevalent but I can't see the appeal of having coins in a bank vault as the appeal for me would be partly in handling something which was touched by people two thousand years ago plus. When I acquire coins do I keep quiet about it and hide them under the mattress! I'm being flippant but it is a serious point.
Thanks to anyone who has read this far. Thanks in anticipation of any replies.
Dave



   

Offline Joe Sermarini

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2021, 06:06:41 pm »
I suggest starting with this discussion board and Numiswiki.

We do not discuss prices here. If you want to buy an Athens tet, click the shop button. 

I suggest taking your time with developing a theme but I like your idea.

Security depends on you own situation. I live in a place with little crime, have cameras, motion sensors, and a safe that cannot be moved or opened without great expertise and a lot of time. I would recommend a very good safe or a bank safe deposit box.
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Offline SC

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2021, 08:46:58 pm »
Welcome to the forum David.

Best bet is to read, read and read some more.  The message threads and articles on this site as well as books.

Joe's forum website store can give you an idea of prices.  The short answer is you can find Greek coins from $10 to $10,000 or more.  Depends on metal, rarity, condition, etc. 

In terms of books, while Plant's book is great it is really a book for identifying coins from the design on them.  It is not an overall history.  In fact, because Greek coinage was so varied and struck in so many areas over such a wide time - mostly in "independent areas" not a single Empire - there is no one single book that covers it all.

The forum coin shop, run by our host Joe, has a book section and see that they currently have a few good used books:

Dictionary of Ancient Greek Coins, 1986, John Melville Jones - good reference to have, though in dictionary form it is more of a short encyclopedia.

Greek Coins and Their Values, Volume I: Europe and Volume II: Asia and Africa

Personally, when it comes to Greek coins I found that some of the very old books were quite useful to me.  It is not hard to find used copies of:

Barclay V. Head, History Nvmorvm: a manual of greek nusismatics, over 1050 pages, 1911 but the hardcopy 1967 reprint can often be found for cheap.

Charles Seltman, Metheun Handbook of Greek Coins, 370 pages, I got the 1955 hardcover 2nd edition for quite cheap.

But perhaps best of all, though more expensive, is the Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage edited by William E. Metcalf, 2012, almost 700 pages, it contains the latest (as of 2012) scholarship on all Western and mediterranean coinage from its beginning until about 500 AD.

In terms of security.  Yes, I would keep quiet in general and think carefully before displaying any in open view in your home.  Depends on the coins you get, their individual and total values, and the volume of your collection.  A safe is the norm for high value stuff.  Some people use a safety deposit box for extremely valuable stuff but as you say there seems to be greatly diminished fun in that.  It also depends on your home situation - isolated vs. in a condo, dog, people around all the time, etc.

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Offline Mark Fox

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2021, 12:34:02 am »
Dear David, Joe, Shawn, & Board,

There is too much to say in one night, so I will try to keep my remarks brief!

My initial reaction to using Richard Plant's Greek Coin Types and Their Identification (1979) as a beginner's guide for finding one's place in the hobby was similar to Shawn's response.  However, after thinking more deeply on this, I can see the logic in such an approach, based on how the book is arranged.  Attached is a sample page which, in addition to the book's coin attributing qualities, also illustrates its rare potential as a theme finder.       

Like Joe, I am also liking your idea of tying coins into your past travels.  Along this same vein, perhaps you would like to obtain another of Rev. Plant's books, namely A Numismatic Journey Through the Bible (2007).  The way he weaves traveling into the narrative is quite fascinating and entertaining in my opinion, a concept which can be easily applied to a traveler visiting the cities of mainland Greece and be used to help you to decide which coins to collect. 

On a more academic, but no less interesting, level, perhaps this very old numismatic tour of Ancient Greece will give you some ideas and entice you to open the door to the Roman provincial world as well:
 
A Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias (1885–1887) by Friedrich Imhoof-Blumer and Percy Gardner
https://archive.org/details/numismaticcommen00imhoiala/mode/2up

For a far more general read on the history and what kinds of coins the Greek World has to offer, I have to go with Ian Carradice's Greek Coins (1995).  It was one of the very first ancient coin books I read from cover to cover.

By the way, one way to help decide on a collecting theme or pinpoint a certain issue that interests you is to write a short article.  It doesn't have to be for publication.  It can be just for your own amusement or to post here on Forvm.  I know when I do research on a particular numismatic topic, the coins under study can easily become incredibly fascinating to me.  A lot of my enduring interests in this or that group of coins can be linked to such literary efforts.
           
Whatever direction you decide to trek toward, don't forget the bronze issues!  Not only are they more affordable on average as compared to their intrinsically more valuable silver and gold counterparts, but they are the coins most likely to have been used by the citizens of the cities that issued them.  They also can be just as rich in design and beautiful in color and craftsmanship as any silver tetradrachm or gold stater.

Everyone has already adequately addressed the topic of security, but I will add that storing your collection in multiple locations might be something worth considering as well.   

Hope some of this helps and Godspeed on your collecting adventures!


Best regards,

Mark Fox
Michigan

David T7

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2021, 04:36:13 am »
Thank you for those comprehensive and helpful comments folks. Much appreciated.
Dave

Offline Virgil H

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #5 on: November 12, 2021, 12:59:22 am »
Hi Dave,
Welcome to the Forum and to ancient coin collecting. Lots of good advice already, I will hit a few of your points as I am fairly new to seriously collecting versus just an interest in history. Coin collecting for me is a way to hold the history I love in my hands. To your specific points/questions:

1/ I love the Plant book. But I also do a lot of my own identification of coins (with help from here when I need it). I also have the Sear books, both Greek volumes, as well as Greek Imperial and Roman. Plus a couple on Roman coins and I have others I would like to get. All of these (Sear and Plant) are pretty comprehensive and not expensive. No book will do it all. There are also tons of resources online, including on the Numiswiki here and online databases. It takes time to learn where to look. Some of us like attributing unidentified coins and others like coins already identified by a reputable dealer. There are books written 100 years ago online that are still useful. Lots of people recommended the Intro to Ancient Coin Collecting series by Wayne Sayles. I agree they are good, but you outgrow them really quickly. I probably wouldn't buy them again.

2/ On coin costs and budgets, I do not have an owl coin and probably never will. My collection is very modest and my most expensive coin was around $150.00, the cheapest was $2.00 in a lot (average cost per coin). If I had more money, I would buy more expensive coins, but I am quite happy with what I have. The major advice is to be careful where you buy your coins. The Forum Shop is totally reputable, for example. Take a look at the Notorius Fake Sellers List on this site, there are a lot of entries, unfortunately.

3/ I personally think your collecting theme is great and is how I started (and specific historical interests, but those were also very related to my travel). But, as you learn, your interests may shift and you may find yourself concentrating on more specialized areas. My basic theme has stayed the same while also getting into a couple mini-areas of specialization that are based on both historical interest and budget (I buy more Bronze coins than silver and have no gold or electrum and I tend to buy coins that are more common and from less collected areas and are not in pristine condition). Plus, I started with Greek only and have since moved into Roman coins a bit. Part of that is budget and bang for buck, as it allows me to get more coins. And I love Roman history. Lots of both very expensive and very inexpensive Roman coins out there. I buy what I like, too. Hence a couple Byzantine, a Crusader, and a Kabul Shahis.

4/ My collection is pretty modest, but I don't advertise it and I don't leave it out.

Regards,
Virgil

David T7

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #6 on: November 13, 2021, 11:50:30 am »
       

 



For a far more general read on the history and what kinds of coins the Greek World has to offer, I have to go with Ian Carradice's Greek Coins (1995).  It was one of the very first ancient coin books I read from cover to cover.


Mark Fox
Michigan

Hi Mark, following your recommendation I bought and am part way through Carradice's "Greek coins". I'm thoroughly enjoying it, thank you.

Is there a book which includes information on which coins were in circulation in a certain geographic location at a certain period? For example my wife and me enjoyed a trip to area around Pylos in the southern peloponnese a while back. Could I find out what coins were in circulation in that area around the 3rd or 4th century BC?

Thanks again.

David.       

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #7 on: November 13, 2021, 01:30:00 pm »
David,

Now that is a much more complicated subject.

The best bet for an understanding of what was in circulation in a given area at a given time is to look for studies of hoards.

Though there are various compilations of hoard studies the best bet is to start with a google search (for example Pylos coin hoard) as there are lots of articles available on places like academia.edu.

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #8 on: November 13, 2021, 01:40:37 pm »
Click Peloponnesus to see the Peloponnesus page in NumisWiki.  And Click Peloponnesos Coins for Sale to see the FORVM shop's Peloponnesos page.  If you click the link on the shop page to see prior sales, you will see a lot of coins from the Peloponnesos.
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Offline Akropolis

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #9 on: November 13, 2021, 02:20:43 pm »
As to how long ancient coins were in circulation, in one, perhaps unusual, case, a Roman coin was over struck by a Byzantine mint about 400 - 500 years after it was struck. Perhaps the owner, a superb contributor to this Forum, will chip-in later if he sees your post.
In short there is no short answer to your question. Possibly zero years for a newly minted coin that was lost immediately after striking to up to hundreds of years. The advice above to study coin hoards is excellent, but no generalizations can be drawn from any single coin hoard.
PeteB

David T7

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #10 on: November 13, 2021, 02:54:01 pm »
Once again thank you all for valuable help.

Dave

Offline Virgil H

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #11 on: November 13, 2021, 05:31:15 pm »
Another thing that may also help is looking at what coins were minted in that area. Presumably, coins circulated in areas surrounding their mints to a large degree (I am sure there are exceptions, such as military mints and coins minted to be exported to colonies, etc). Here is a link to a site run by a member here that has a page on Greek mints. It is amazing how many there were and how wide a geographical area they cover. There is a section on The Peloponnesus. I looked up Pylos and looks like the only coins minted in that particular city are Roman and Pylos isn't in my Sear Greek Coins Volume 1 (Europe) book. Here is a link to that page: http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/geo.html

Virgil

David T7

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #12 on: November 14, 2021, 05:20:21 am »
Thanks Virgil, it's amazing what is on the internet. Just a quick google and I found "coinhoards.org" which is provided by the American Numismatic Society and has an excellent search/map facility.
I'm starting to realise how much there is to learn and explore.

Dave

Offline Mark Fox

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #13 on: November 14, 2021, 09:31:31 pm »
Dear David and Board,

As Shawn noted, knowing what ancient coins circulated during a particular time and place is a more complicated question, but I admire your boldness!  It is a type of collecting theme that is regularly discussed on the "Colonial Coins" Google Group involving, in their case, what was circulating in the US during its pre-Federal and Confederation periods.  With the proper amount of research, you should indeed be able to feel out what was likely circulating in and around Pylus during the Classical and Hellenistic time periods.  However, just like tracking down the coins themselves, it will take time and patience to know what to chase after.

It has already been suggested that you study up on coin hoards, but as Pete (Akropolis) rightly pointed out, they do not provide the clearest windows to the "slice of life" past when only one is studied.  Going a little further with this metaphor, if each hoard is thought of as a windowpane in a large window, than a lot of panes are needed before a fuller (and hopefully clearer) picture can be put together.  Remember, the majority of ancient coin hoards are not scoops of random pocket change, but are rather consciously or semi-consciously selected groups of coins often lacking certain contemporary types and over representing others! 

Archaeological excavation reports is another approach to getting the information you seek, David, but with a set of problems of its own.  Coins found during excavations will usually be weak on the high denomination types as those are the kinds that ancient users would have been very careful not to lose!  Excavation reports are also often not the easiest kinds of literature to procure---and that's assuming the one(s) for a certain dig have been published!  That said, you may want to pull on the sleeve of The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project (PRAP) for some assistance:

https://classics.uc.edu/prap/

I browsed through their site (which hasn't been updated in eleven years!) and came across a few coins mentioned (in passing) here and there in the documents.  A very few (in mostly poor condition and from different periods) are also illustrated in their online catalog which, I am guessing, is only a sampling of what was found (consider the absence of the Venetian gold ducat mentioned in the 1998 Report to the Directorate of Antiquities [Olympia]). 

https://classics.uc.edu/prap/db/smallfindlist.php?site=&genmat=&specmat=&genform=&specform=Coin

It may be helpful, then, to take advantage of PRAP's willingness to answer inquiries for more information on this or that.  Also, the name of Sebastian Heath rang a numismatic bell

http://numismatics.org/sebastianheath/

He might be a good person to ask about the coin finds! 

Distancing ourselves from Pylos a bit, I think it is fair to say that the general types of coins circulating at that city during a given time were also probably being used by its close neighbors.  Other archaeological reports from across the region of Messenia might be worthwhile considering as well.       

In summary, I think a combination of documented single coin finds and coin hoards found at or near Pylos is probably the way to go to answer your specific questions, David.  For more general observations on the circulation of Greek coinage in the Peloponnese, there might be a volume on that very topic, but nothing exactly comes to mind.

Anyway, I hope some of this helps and gives you some ideas on how to proceed.
     

Best regards,

Mark Fox
Michigan

David T7

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #14 on: November 15, 2021, 11:35:07 am »
Thank you for that further guidance Mark. There is certainly plenty get me started. When I begin acquiring coins as well as reading about them I am sure I will get the same buzz I got when standing at the palace of Nestor at Pylos having previously read about it in Homer.

Thanks again.

David

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #15 on: November 15, 2021, 05:32:45 pm »
David,

You are certainly on the right track to have an enjoyable hobby.  In my own experience the interest in any coin is hugely magnified by studying the place it came from, the time period, the person who issued it, and the items, symbols and messages found on it.

Without a curiosity in those things a coin is effectively just a small piece of metal.

One related track that might help you is to develop a timeline of a place.  That will help you determine which coins would have circulated there over different times. 

I purchased several large lots of uncleaned coins from the Middle East - Jerusalem and Jordan.  At the time I knew little other than Roman coins but I knew that lost of the coins in the lots were not Roman.  So I drew up a timelines from about 600 BC to the present day for those areas.  The fact that parts of this area had been ruled by Judaeans, Nabataeans, the Ptolemies, the Seleucid, etc. helped to give me clues about where to look to identify my coins and explained why certain coins types were found there.

Take your Pylos.  Who did it fall under during the classical Greek era?  Always the same polity or did it vary?  What happened during the Hellenistic era?  Then the Romans took it over, then the Byzantines, the Venetians and the Ottomans.  So for much of its existence it would not have had a mint in town or anywhere nearby yet whatever coinage circulated throughout the Empire of the time would have possibly circulated in Pylos.  Now there are nuances - the circulation of coinage during Roman imperial times did vary slightly from region to region.  I expect it did too for the other Empires.  But it is possible to read up on those things.

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #16 on: November 17, 2021, 05:16:13 am »
As to how long ancient coins were in circulation, in one, perhaps unusual, case, a Roman coin was over struck by a Byzantine mint about 400 - 500 years after it was struck. Perhaps the owner, a superb contributor to this Forum, will chip-in later if he sees your post.
In short there is no short answer to your question. Possibly zero years for a newly minted coin that was lost immediately after striking to up to hundreds of years. The advice above to study coin hoards is excellent, but no generalizations can be drawn from any single coin hoard.
PeteB
While I appreciate the words of my long standing friend Akropolis, The coin in question bears no relation to the question of circulation.  I consider it a fluke where someone at the mint found a coin of the right weight and decided to upgrade it into something spendable.  Whether this was one coin or a large hoard will never be known.  It does point out one significant point about coins back then that we have lost today.  Metal was money, if you had coins of a certain weight, you had money.  Being stamped with the current design certainly made them easier to spend but, just as today we see ads "We Buy Gold", there were moneychangers who could convert old or foreign items.  Today we have the strange situation where a 5 cent coin is worth, in melt value, several times the value of the ten cent coin since 1965. 

The coin, shown here because it was mentioned, did not remain in circulation for 780 years because the undertype (an as of Gordian III (238-244 AD) was hardly worn when overstruck and returned to current cash status with the design of Byzantine Anonymous follis Type A3.  There are other examples of old coins being recycled a few years or a couple centuries later but this one seemed 'special' due to the size of the space between strikings. 

Probably the leader in a coin remaining in circulation would be the denarii struck by Mark Antony to pay his troops before the Battle of Actium ended his bid for power in 31 BC.  He debased his silver coinage which made people more likely to spend them than to save them (preferring coins with better silver weight).  This caused some to be found in hoards buried 200-300 years later and provide us today with a number of very well worn coins.  Most coins circulated a short while before either being saved by burial in a pot or melted down to be converted to the new styleWeight standards changed with some frequency (especially during the Roman Imperial period) so it was as unusual then to find very old coins still in use as it is today for us to find 90% silver in our change. 

While there are many decent books on Greek Coins, I am a fan of books that do not serve as failed attempts to catalog and number what exists but which prefer those that tell the stories of the coins.  A lower priced 'best' buy is Collecting Greek Coins by John Anthony but I also like Ancient Greek Coins (The World of Numismatics) by G. K. Jenkins which varies a lot in terms of price and availability as one might expect from a book published in 1972.  More recent and still not a priced catalog (a genre I simply do not like) are the books by Wayne Sayles (Volume II is on Greek) which are more often found on the used book market.  While books on paper are wonderful, today there is enough interesting material online to keep you busy for decades certainly including the massive back catalog of posts right here on Forvm.  There is misinformation in all formats so critical reading skill are important whether reading books by scholars at the British Museum or posts online by amateurs like me.   Enjoy the hobby.

Offline Virgil H

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #17 on: November 17, 2021, 07:49:49 pm »
Your comment on the coins of Mark Antony made me think that the same thing has often happened, including in the modern world. It certainly happened with US silver coins. I know that I never spent a silver US coin I got in change after the coinage was debased and I learned to look for them. When I was stationed in Germany in the late 1970s, I got an 1875 German 1 Mark coin. I still have that one. In that same time, on the military base I was at, I got a silver quarter in change from a soda machine. It turns out that there were silver coins turning up all over at the PX, bowling alley, etc. It seems some kid had liquidated his father's US coin collection. Wheat pennies still turn up and even Buffalo nickels, but it has been a long time since I got a silver quarter or dime in change. This has to be a long time historical thing. The interesting thing about the coins being discussed here is what was the mint doing with it? How did it get there or had it been hidden away in storage for centuries? Fascinating to think about all of this.

Regards,
Virgil

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #18 on: November 17, 2021, 08:13:44 pm »
It is interesting to speculate about the role played by the speed of propagation of knowledge.

When I was younger (in the early to mid-1970s) we did find Canadian silver coins (pre-1969 coinage) fairly regularly.  At that time there was no internet and so the facts about the silver content and dates was less well known.  Collectors knew, as did the "rumor mill".  Everyone had an uncle Bob who would go on about such things at family reunions.  But not everyone knew and some coins slipped through.

Now almost everyone in the world can get the facts on their phone in a few seconds so the chances of a coin remaining in circulation for long is almost nil - even if some kid dumped one from a collection it would disappear pretty fast.

What must it have been like in Rome?  How did the information travel and did the knowledge come and go?  Some changes in silver content can be seen by eye but others can't easily. 

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Offline Virgil H

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #19 on: November 18, 2021, 12:41:36 am »
I think about things like this a lot. Not to mention thinking about where the ancient coins in my collection have been, who owned them, what have they seen? The German 1 Mark coin I got is pretty worn, although readable, it is obvious it did some circulation. I think we have entered a time when people don't even know there were silver coins or wheat pennies or Buffalo nickels. They aren't looking for them. There was a period when they were. At least more than today. I did retail work for a while a few years ago. Me and the other older guy would look at the coins. No one else even thought about it. The Internet didn't help them. LOL. I found a lot of wheat pennies, a couple Buffalo nickels, a couple Mercury dimes, and I don't recall any quarters. Also Canadian coins and I got one South African rand coin (I think I paid a quarter for it, because if we took out a coin, we paid for it with a replacement).

In ancient times, it had to be more difficult and there also had to be the same clueless folks that don't notice. But, I am willing to bet that the rumor mill had to have contributed to it for some folks that caused them to actually take a closer look. Today, people no longer take that closer look. 30 years ago when there was more silver out there, more people were looking. Anyone who remembers the gold/silver speculative run up of the late 70s learned quickly to look for silver. People of a certain age have no idea about that any more than the average Dutch person remembers when tulip bulbs were crazy expensive.

All these things are just one more reason why I like collecting ancient coins. The cool thing is my wife gets it and also loves those little metal pieces of history and loves to hold them and hear about them and speculate about them. She doesn't care about some of my other hobbies, such as vacuum tube electronics.

All really interesting food for thought.

Virgil

David T7

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #20 on: November 23, 2021, 08:41:05 am »
Thanks once again for your fascinating input everyone. I'm learning as I go and this forum is certainly an excellent resource. I have only bought one book so far (Carradice's "Greek Coins") and have taken onboard the maxim "buy the book before the coin" but must admit that my credit card fingers are twitching!

Please forgive me if this is the wrong place for this post, I have looked through the "fake sellers" area of the forum but I hope you will permit me one question here.

It will be a long time before I have the knowledge to spot a fake coin so I will have to deal with traders I can trust (and I know of course that Joe is above reproach).

I will avoid ebay but my question is this. Is it considered bad form to post the name of a person/firm and ask forum members if they are reputable. It's all very well claiming to be a member of recognised trade associations and to offer buy back guarantees but until these things are put to the test they are pretty worthless.

Thanks again.
Dave
   

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #21 on: November 23, 2021, 08:36:01 pm »

Hi folks, as the title says I am an absolute beginner. I have a bit of an interest in ancient history and am considering starting a small coin collection. I have some time on my hands being recently retired and I would appreciate some guidance. Your forum looks like a great place to start so I have been reading through various threads but would appreciate pointers on a few specifics.

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2/ I appreciate this is an impossible question to answer accurately but what, very roughly, is the range for ancient Greek coins in terms of value. I may be miles out but I have seen "Owls" for sale in the region £1,000 to £2,000. I may well want to acquire one when I know a lot more but is it possible to pick up interesting coins for a lot less, say a few hundred UK pounds.
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4/ What do you guys do about security? ...
Dave


Take your time - look at catalogs online like right here and VCoins which has inventory of many dealers, various auctions are also easy to find using SixBid web site, etc. Watch and see what prices are like but don't worry. Nice 'owls' and other top quality coins, esp. silver and gold, can be costly but there are *lots* of fantastic Greek coins at reasonable prices. Many are plentiful in the market and under-valued imho.

The more you spend the more you may have to attend to risk of loss...

PtolemAE

Offline Virgil H

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #22 on: November 24, 2021, 01:17:27 am »
I think buying the book before the coin is always a good idea. However, I would say that that shouldn't keep you from buying a coin or few. You can dip your hands in on some that you like that are maybe on the more inexpensive level. That way, you get to actually hold it in hand and closely examine it from all angles. That is what I did and as I have learned, I have refined my focus, as well as what I look for in a coin.

I think it is frowned on here to ask about other sellers because Joe provides that forum and Numiswiki to us for free at his cost, and he has a shop that pays the bills here as well as his own personal bills. If you buy from Joe's shop, you know you will get an authentic coin and I have found his prices fair. That said, there are auction houses and other dealers that are reputable, of course, and I think all of us buy from multiple sources. Realize that with most auctions, there are buyers fees added to whatever price you buy a coin at. These can really add up and you have to keep them in mind when bidding. As for that well known auction site, I wouldn't buy any coins there even if the seller is not on the NFSL. Just too risky and many of the prices asked are either insanely high or insanely low (and either could be a fake).

Regards,
Virgil

Offline PMah

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #23 on: November 24, 2021, 10:50:39 pm »
1) Read & Learn, by book, you tube, or web page.
2) go to coin shows or spend same time on real dealer internet sites, such as Forum
3) as to security,  don't buy coins that you have to worry about until you know enough from 1 & 2.
4) as to security,  don't believe the hype that some coin dealers,  mostly US coin sellers, push about coin prices.  Treat your coins like your car, when you buy similar value.  But don't buy a car's worth of coins until you do 1&2...
Be Well, Stay Healthy, Support your Local Numismatic Club

Paul 

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David T7

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Re: Complete novice with questions.
« Reply #24 on: November 28, 2021, 05:45:26 am »
This web page is probably old news to forum members but it appears to assist in identifying which coins were around in what locations when.

https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/i.html

 

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