Greek or Roman

[Dino]

Vote away folks.  As for me, I collect mostly Greek coins with a few Romans thrown in the mix.

[Will Hooton]

I collect mostly roman but rather then collect, accumulate coins from other cultures and periods. I am looking to get into Judean coinage with a very large lot I have coming from Israel. Plus, I wouldnt mind a few Vandalic coins in there too!

[curtislclay]

Roman imperials coins have been collected particularly eagerly, and for good reasons, right from the Renaissance on:  see my translation of Eckhel's appreciation of them, on p. 17 of Classical Numismatics!

[Wolfpack]

Roman Provincial / Greek Imperial are my favorite.  I'm not sure what poll category corresponds with this.

[areich]

Same for me, Provincials with a few Greeks (I especially like the small ones), 1 Roman Imperial, 1 Republic As, 1 Ptolemaic bronze.
Two medieval coins, one from my home town, one from the next town. A few medals and tokens.
I'll get a nice Republican denarius one day but above all I want to collect one coin from each Provincial mint.
Of course that is as hopeless as collecting one from each emperor but the journey is the reward.

Of course if money didn't matter I'd collect everything ancient.

Andreas

[Arminius]

I found out for me every focus sooner or later becomes expensive and boring.

(boring formerly misspelled "boaring" - thanks George, ixcuse mei Inglish, i´m a tschörman).

[slokind]

Since Greek Imperials account for most of the Roman empire, though they often seem Greek, I count them as Roman.  They are what I began with and the coins that have changed my intellectual life: all the things and the whole scope that no one ever taught when and where I was at university.  But Curtis is right (since hardly anyone can collect Greek only), and I also collect Rome mint's and other mints' Imperial coins for all the periods corresponding to my Greek Imperials.  I'd never thought of collecting anything, but study from actual coins makes all the difference to me.  If someone had told me that Saitta, for example, would be real and vivid to me, a decade ago I wouldn't have known what was meant.
Pat L.

[wandigeaux (1940 - 2010)]

Roman Provincial only, because, as Slokind says, they account for most of the coinage of the Empire, and because, to me, they open a direct window onto the mysteries of antiquity.  I do have a few dozens of imperial issues left over from prior enthusiasms, however, and if I had the money the coinages of the Dark Ages would be hard to resist.  I wish Arminius luck with his pig infestation.  (That's quite allright about the pig; I still am wearing my liederhosen.  Noisy and very chilly in the winter)!  George Spradling

[Robert_Brenchley]

Mostly Roman Imperials from the third quarter of the Third Century, but also Judeans, Parthians, Elymais, and a few Nabataeans and Levantine provincials.

[Dino]

Well if we combine the categories a bit, so far, looks like:

16/26 (61.5%)  collect exclusively or mostly Roman coins
4/26 (15.4%) collect exclusively or mostly Greek coins
4/26 (15.4%) collect a mix with no focus
2/26 (7.7%) are in the "other" categories

Yet again, the Romans conquer the Greeks... 

Bummer.

[David Atherton]

Roman Imperial here...with a few Judean coins thrown in.

[slokind]

The year I was a freshman in college there was a popular paperback: "How to Lie with Statistics".  Easy, if you leave out part of the data.
Considering that Roman (Republic and Empire, with legends in Latin) coins were minted much more numerously for a larger population, more fully monetized, and, with inflation increasing as well, in larger numbers per capita, and besides are much more recent, it is no wonder that there are incomparably more of them to be collected.
On the other hand, Roman history has usually been better taught (and, in America, the Republic was held to be the foundation for our own ideals), and Roman Imperial coins are wonderfully well labeled with legends which make them correlate to the written histories (which themselves were printed more widely and earlier, for boys to read in school--where, of course, they learned Latin earlier than Greek) so that the points that Curtis made remain paramount.
Pat L.

[Dino]

For those interested, here's a link to the thread Curtis referred to:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=16102.0

[maik]

I collect mostly  Alexander the great and Diadochi.
But i have  some other Greeks , Roman and few Islamic coins.

Big problem here

[Robert_Brenchley]

I'm not sure the Romans conquered the Greeks in any real sense; they were absorbed by them to the extent that the eastern Empire effectively became Greek.

[Dino]

Really? 

I thought Rome invaded Greece a few times.  I understand that Romans really admired Greek culture and allowed Greek City-States a lot of freedom.  I mean they adopted Greek architecture, coinage (early on), Gods....

But didn't Perseus really tick off Rome leading to another war?  I think it ended with parts of Greece ruled by Roman allies and parts of Greece being annexed and huge chunks of Greece paying Roman taxes.

I'll look it up later.

[Robert_Brenchley]

There's more ways of winning that by conquest. The Mongols conquered China, and became Chinese. In the eastern Empire, I think you could argue that something similar happened.

[JonySky]

I love the Greek coins best of all. The details and incredible designs surpase all other coins for beauty. I have some Roman and other ancients, but when I can afford it, I add a new Greek location. JonySky

[Howard Cole]

I collect a large variety of coins, from modern world coins to ancients.  I have a large collect of Elymais coins (which I would not really consider Greek), Parthian, Sasanian and Figural Islamic Bronze Coins.  I am also interested in coins from Southeast Asia minted before 1800 AD.

[Dino]

That's a pretty broad range of interests there Howard.

Funny, I got my start in this b/c my mother gave me my father's coin collection a couple of years ago.  Mostly American coins, some US colonials, a bunch of Canadians, some gold sovereigns, a few post 1821 Greeks and one Ancient (I thought).  THe ancient was the most intriguing.  I did nothing with it for a year and then started looking through the collection.  I researched to try to figure out what the ancient was and got hooked (and found this site in the process).  Turns out the ancient was a fake alexander stater. 

I've wound up selling the American and Canadian coins as they really don't interest me as pieces of art or history.  I bought a few random Ancients, but now I've decided to focus primarily on coins of the Peloponessos.  (My father is from a small village near Olympia.  My mother is from a resort town near Corinth).

I've bought a few Achaean League hemidrachms (a collection I'm going to expand), a corinth stater (the only slabbed coin I have- and I've decided I dislike slabbed coins - I'm trying to decide how stupid it would be to free the coin of its slab).

But I can't resist what I consider to be attractive coins, hence a republican denarius, a Rhodes hemidrachm (which is obviously nowhere near the Peloponnessos).

We'll see where it goes.  I'm up to about 40 ancients that I consider nice.  A bunch of uncleaneds and worn bronzes I started off with round out the collection. 

I've kept about 8 colonials, the gold sovereigns, and a few older silver American coins.  And that's it.

I can say that my collection is mostly Greek though and that I intend for it to continue in that direction for the time being.

[Howard Cole]

Yes, it is a board range, but an interesting collection.  I have learned a lot assembling it, and that is why I collected in these areas, I wanted to learn. 

I have also found that if I collect on the fringes of what most people collect it is a lot cheaper.  I bought most of my Parthian coins for less than $30US.  Now I see you can't even begin to buy the coins I own for less than $60.  As for the Islamic figural bronzes, I started buying them for less than $50 each, now the ones I have sell for well over $100 or more.  Because of the price increases and interests in these areas, I'll have to start looking for another fringe area of ancient coins to collect that are still reasonably priced and where I can learn new stuff.

[LordBest]

I collect Roman with a few Greek thrown in, theoretically. In practise I collect medals with the odd ancient thrown in, because for the price of one Greek or Roman coin that I find suitable I can purchase many more medals due to the far few numbers of medal collectors.
                                                                      LordBest.    

[Dino]

I like the Napoleonic medal you just posted to your gallery.

[E Pinniger]

Like the majority of people I voted for "mostly Roman with a few other ancients".
One reason of course is that Roman coins of virtually all types and varieties are readily available and, at least in low grades, very affordable. Probably the biggest reason for me is that identifying and attributing the coins, and finding out the history behind the people and places that issued them, as well as the history of the monetary system and coins themselves, is much easier with Roman coins - due to the huge amount of reference material (both printed and online) available on the subject, and the fact that most coins have the portait of the emperor/empress and a readable Latin legend.
Greek and other ancient coins, however, I've found very difficult to identify; with most coins it's hard to even know where to start looking. Roman provincials can be tricky enough, and these at least usually have legends and emperor portraits on them!

Another major reason is that, as I live in Britain, Roman coins have much more local historical relevance - I live not too far from both Silchester and St. Albans, both of which have Roman city sites + many finds on display in local museums. I've even found a couple of Roman coins myself (both late bronzes in very poor condition) with a metal detector. On the other hand, I know very little about most of the states and kingdoms that issued Greek coins, and am not sure where to start finding out!

My other main coin collecting area/focus is British hammered (17th century and earlier) coins. However, these don't really count as "ancients" other than the handful of Celtic coins (mostly Durotriges bronzes and silver quarter-units) in my collection.

[Enodia]

I collect Roman with a few Greek thrown in, theoretically. In practise I collect medals with the odd ancient thrown in, because for the price of one Greek or Roman coin that I find suitable I can purchase many more medals due to the far few numbers of medal collectors.
                                                                      LordBest.    

have you seen the latest Stack's coin catalog?
there is a wonderful selection of Swiss shooting medals that are absolutely stunning, and relatively cheap since, as you say, the market is small. where else can you get a large, beautiful numismatic piece in mint state with a total mintage of only 44 pieces for $150?
when i hit the lottery i may consider collecting these.

until then i collect mostly Greek, because i find the artistictic interpretations to be superior to just about anything i have seen from any era.
but i do pick up the occasional Roman piece if the price is right. they are a lot of fun to attribute, and wear their history on their sleeve, so to speak. however once the attribution is done and they are just sitting in my coin boxes, what really gets to me is the artistic quality, and for my money nothing can touch the classical Greek coins from "the period of finest art".