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Author Topic: The direction of your collection  (Read 7595 times)

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Offline ROMA

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The direction of your collection
« on: December 30, 2007, 11:35:49 am »
I was reading the threads about "how many roman coins do you own" and "what coin would you most like to own" and it got me thinking about a question I've been mulling over lately. The direction of your collection. Currently I'm all over the map, and I get different ideas all the time. One week its roman denarii and the next its medieval pennies. But I figure I cant be the only one thats has this problem!
So besides telling us what your collecting now, what did you focus on in the past and why did you change direction? I bet a lot of people here have switched direction on their collecting habits many times as interest change(I assume that because interests almost always do) I find it fascinating how some people can stay so on track! To collect the coins of only one roman emporer for instance, and ignore all other coinage.
Adversus solem ne loquitor

Offline Sap

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2007, 09:09:29 pm »
My collection is directionless, with no particular theme. I know I' d quickly get bored with a theme if I tried to narrow it down to a specific place, time period, dynasty etc, so I've kept it broad. My ancient and mediaeval coins are really just a logical extension of my entire coin collection, which is similarly unfocussed. "One from every country" is the closest I have to a theme, a goal which carries over to my ancient collection as "one from every Greek and Roman Provincial issuing city, and every Roman mintmark".

Of course, being a generalist, I'm never going to acquire comprehensive, detailed knowledge of any one particular series; a broad, general knowledge about every series is my goal. And I'm content with that.
I'll have to learn Latin someday.

Offline Scotvs Capitis

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #2 on: December 31, 2007, 02:21:08 am »
I often have several loosely defined goals:
1. One of every Roman personality issued on a coin. This is unobtainable on my meager budget, but it is MOSTLY doable. At least it is fun and gives me something to shoot at.

2. Same for Byzantines

3. Whatever is visually appealing, Domna portraits are generally intriguing to me as well.

4. Coins which have a significance to a historical context I am particularly fond of or interested in.

So there's no real specialization here, juts enjoyment.
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Offline commodus

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #3 on: December 31, 2007, 02:44:17 am »
My focus is similar: to obtain one of each personality and to collect coins representing the whole scope of Roman history from its first coinage to the fall of the empire in the west. I also like to pick up pieces I just like, particularly architectural or historical reverses.
Eric Brock (1966 - 2011)

Offline Jeff Clark

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #4 on: December 31, 2007, 09:27:34 am »
In 1967 I bought my first Vota coin and have been collecting them ever since.  The only thing that has changed has been the extent of how many little differences I collect.  Currently, I collect every RIC # and officina...at least in bronze, at least one of each type in silver, and a gold or two when I can get one.  I also have to pick up a few other pieces I like...such as animals.
Jeff Clark

Offline Ecgþeow

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #5 on: December 31, 2007, 01:31:36 pm »
I started out with Roman Denarii, and moved on to Judaean coins, but I never gave up either, and I still will buy both if I see ones I like.  At the moment I am completely directionless, with a smattering of Byzantine, Greek, and Medieval coins along with the Judaean and denarii.  At the moment, I am trying to decide between a penny of Edward I, a Republican denarius, and a prutah of Herod the Great... :)

Offline JonySky

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2007, 11:24:06 pm »
I first did a USA type set, and it was fun finding out about some of the more unusual pieces like the Trime, 3 cent nickel, half cent and such, but after completing (almost completing) a type set, it got boring to me. I just don't get into coins in plastic and the incredible prices for coins minted in the millions. After picking up a $5 grab bag of world coins, I realy got into world coins and currency. I have more than 800 locations going back to 1600. Tracing India coins back in time, I came across an Alexander the Great coin. That got me looking at Ancient Greek Coins. I thought I would buy 1 coin just to represent Ancient Greece in my world coin collection. I bought a Miletos, Ionia 1/2 Stater. When it came I started looking at it, then checking out details with a magnifer, I could not believe the detail on that little 2500 year old coin. So I bought another, read the history a bit, got another, and then I was seriously hooked. So my focus is now ancient Greece, with side trips to the Phoenicians, Carthage and other countrys, or City States from that era. I can't afford to buy the really expensive coins, but I buy the best I can, even if I have to save a few weeks to get 1. That gives me time to do my homework, which gets me wanting another coin from other places that I read about. I'm 55 and I'm learning more and enjoying it more than I ever did. Life is good.  HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL. JonySky
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Offline ROMA

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #7 on: January 01, 2008, 07:16:09 am »
I think coin collecting evolves for a lot of us. As we learn more our interests change. When I began to look over coins to collect for the first time i was immediatly attracted to the Roman coinage. Since then I've branched out to learn about other types but I always come back to the Roman coins. While I enjoy the artistic beauty of the Greek coins, I am for the most part priced out of collecting the greek coins i like. I find Roman coins to have their own charm, and a uniformity with the Emporer portraits on the obverse which you dont get with the Greek coins. I have always enjoyed the idea of being able to acquire realistic portrait images of each Emporer(a goal I can achieve at some point in my life perhaps) I will say that when I first started collecting I was much more attracted to the denarii. I didnt understand the provincial issues due to their greek lettering, and i couldnt afford to collect large bronzes in nice condition. I now am as much or more interested in provincial bronze issues I am denarii, I have definitely grown to appreciate those issues and their artistic merit. I hope to build an impressive collection of roman provincial someday
Adversus solem ne loquitor

Offline AdonisRock

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #8 on: January 01, 2008, 11:24:07 pm »
Being a very new collector, I'm having a hard time finding what I want to focus on.  At the moment, I am trying to get 1 large AE of each personality of the Julio-Claudian's.  Then a denarius for each from Galba - Julia Mamaea.  At the moment I have 14 coins of the 62 I need +  8 denarii (4 Septimius Severus, mind you) and 20 large uncleaneds in the mail.  I just look for what I can get cheap in small lots, sell what I don't want and buy another lot etc, replacing stuff I already have if something better comes along. 

Surprisingly, I managed to knock the Galba denarius off the list this week for $40,  although the reverse looks to have been hit with a shovel, the obverse looks about Fine,  and the chances of me finding an affordable VF or better Galba are probably Nil, so thats one less of the more difficult ones I have to worry about.

Other than this I don't really know where to focus.  Tetradrachms are something I'll probably look into, though I don't own any as of yet.

Offline Jay GT4

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #9 on: January 02, 2008, 07:32:46 pm »
I'm interested in the Roman Republic coinage up to and including the "12 Caesars."  My first goal is to get at least one decent portrait of each Emperor.  Galba and Vitellus will be the toughest I think on my budget!  But lately I've been focusing on Imperator denarii and in particular MarK Antony.  I'm trying to get one of each legion from the Legionary series including the Cohorts and the illusive Octavia and Fulvia coins.  I think Mark Antony was a fascinating man and poorly portrayed as a "fool in love" which of course is the furthest thing from the truth.  Lepidus will probably be my holy grail coin. That whole era from Sulla to Octavian is full of great history and larger then life individuals, the more I learn the more I want to collect the coins of these great men of History.

Offline Jerome Holderman

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #10 on: January 02, 2008, 08:58:58 pm »
Well... I was dabbling in modern US Coinage when I stumbled into Ancients hmmm, I guess about 6 years ago now.

I collected aimlessly whatever I liked or could afford, for about a year and a half or two years, then chose Victory / Nike as my collection focus.

I have pretty much held fast to that focus since, though it has been revised slightly from time to time, Antything with Victory / Nike, to only Victory / Nike as a central figure on the coin, yes I will collect imperial silver, no I won't, yes, I will collect Republican Silver, No I won't, Collecting Late Romans with Victory by RIC number, By Mint, and now just to one or two nice examples of any particular type. Etc. But the main focus has always remained Nike / Victory.

It is a focus that is not to hard to stick to though as there is such a wide array of coins, I can always find something of interest.

Offline AdonisRock

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #11 on: January 02, 2008, 10:58:05 pm »
I find myself, almost daily, slightly switching the focus (or trying to find it?) of my collection, which is very easy to do with so few coins.  I wanted to purely collect 12 Caesars/Adoptive Emperors, but have somehow ended up with about 1/4 of the coins i own being Sep. Severus.

The upside being, that 2 months ago, I had 100+ LRB with nothing in common at all.  Now having sold most of them, I am starting to get a small collection that I really enjoy, so I know I can usually at least make my money back on any decent coin i buy.  Now If I could just get my hands on a decent Claudius, I could move on...

Speaking of which, The story of Claudius is something I'm very interested in,  So that's probably another thing I'll look into in the future.

Nero & Caligula also, but generally their coins are a bit out of my price range,  I will get at least one of each though someday!


BAH Jeez i can ramble.

Donny Rock

Offline fordicus

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2008, 10:33:07 am »
I started with no direction at all, only ordering uncleaned coins and seeing what I liked. I then moved on to collecting coinage of Augustus. After being yelled at by the fiance about the price of some of the coins I was getting, I moved back to uncleaned coins, but uncleaned coins from Spain (both roman and pre-roman). Now I'm back at square one with over 500 uncleaned coins yet to work through  :o

Offline dafnis

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #13 on: January 06, 2008, 06:45:09 am »
I started collecting coins nearly 20 years ago, and being quite young (= not much economic power) at the time I started with what I had closer to me, and being Spanish and in Spain that's what I chose, Spanish coins from 1868 (when the "peseta" issues started) on.
I have now a great collection there and eventually it grew boring, since now it's only about getting the latest yearly issue, so not really old stuff, isn't it? :-)

Having grown up in Rome when I was a kid I've always loved everything Roman, including its coins (especially denarii, to me the coin that built the empire, which is the same to say that built Europe), but I never made myself into them until a couple of years ago my wife got me for Christmas a beautiful Nero quadrans.. I was immediately hooked, and I now exclusively collect Roman denarii. My main interest is the Republic, but I do collect also Empire up to and including the last of the Severans.
I quite enjoy ancient numismatics since for each coin I prepare a quite extensive research into it with a complete numismatic-historical file for each of them.

Offline AdonisRock

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #14 on: January 12, 2008, 11:03:38 pm »
Well... It wasn't long ago that in this very thread I posted something about never being able to collect just ONE ruler.  My, how things can change in a couple of weeks.   ;D

When I first typed roman coins in google 6 months ago and found this site, there was one person in the catalogue who's beautiful portraits struck me immediately.  So in trying to actually find some sort of method to collecting I've decided to go with the Denarii of this person.  For the long term I'm going for all denarii by RIC number, but initially trying to get one of each reverse type, as listed in Van Meter's book.  I've sold, and am in the process of selling alot of coins, which should leave me about $500-700 (if I'm lucky) to spend on them.

So without further ado, Rome's most beautiful woman...

Offline ROMA

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2008, 11:37:25 am »
I really do enjoy reading about the ancient women of rome. I think we tend to focus on the leading men for obvious reasons, but the womens stories are just as fascinating. Thats a wonderful bust of Faustina the Younger you posted Adonis. And don't forget Faustina the elder, who along with being beautiful, was the most moral, stable and respected empresses in the history of the Roman Empire, and with some very lovely coins!

Since u posted one, here's one of my favorite busts of the beatiful of Sabina...
Adversus solem ne loquitor

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #16 on: January 16, 2008, 10:23:07 pm »
I've been unable to narrow my collecting so far. I know I like collecting silver denarii with really nice portraits of emperors famed for their military prowess. Narrowing further, I like those silver denarii with really nice portraits of military emperors to come with attractive military-themed reverses, such as legionary standards, captives, or the various "capta" series. However, this has been a difficult area to restrict myself to. That's because I also buy according to what really makes a powerful emotional impression on me. Ancient coin collecting, in my opinion, is an intensely personal experience and sometimes what strikes me at the moment as a really historical and worthy piece of art has nothing whatsoever to do with military themes.

That said, I've also joined the ranks of the many Roman coin collectors who have set the almost unreachable goal of obtaining at least one coin from every canonical Augustus and Caesar. I've expanded this impossible goal to, in addition, acquiring a coin from anyone who controlled a mint and issues coinage in the Roman Empire. I can dream, right...?  :)

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #17 on: January 17, 2008, 10:46:22 am »
Well, I'm currently working on collecting one larger bronze coin (sestertius, dupondius or as), with portrait, of each emporer from Augustus to Commodus.  Of course, I just bought a Pantikapaion Tetrachalkon last week...... I get easily sidetracked. ;) ;D

Offline Raymond

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #18 on: January 17, 2008, 11:25:03 am »
At the moment I am completely directionless, with a smattering of Byzantine, Greek, ...  along with the Judaean and denarii.
My feelings exactly.  It all started with a beat-up LCB for my son, then some uncleaned.  Now I have to chose between galleys, (and mind you I want to see the oars!), prutahs, potins, wedding-cake denarii (recently snatched away!), Zeus, trophies...
 :-\ Raymond
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Offline arizonarobin

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #19 on: January 17, 2008, 12:31:36 pm »
I keep trying to do one focus but I think now I have a tree.  My trunk is the ladies of course.  :)  But then there is a branch for architecture, one for animals, one for Stobi, one for greek coinage, one for coins I just fell in love with...   ;D

Offline Jochen

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #20 on: January 17, 2008, 12:51:58 pm »
The 'tree' is a beautiful figure! My collection looks more like an impenetrable jungle full of trees (some cut down) and bushes!

Best regards

Offline Bacchus

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #21 on: January 17, 2008, 01:22:47 pm »
Mine would be an Italian Cypress - fairly well focused and single minded but with a bit of padding round the edges   ;D

4to2CentBCphilia

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #22 on: January 18, 2008, 01:13:59 pm »
Quote from: ROMA on December 30, 2007, 11:35:49 am
I was reading the threads about "how many roman coins do you own" and "what coin would you most like to own" and it got me thinking about a question I've been mulling over lately. The direction of your collection. Currently I'm all over the map, and I get different ideas all the time. One week its roman denarii and the next its medieval pennies. But I figure I cant be the only one thats has this problem!
So besides telling us what your collecting now, what did you focus on in the past and why did you change direction? I bet a lot of people here have switched direction on their collecting habits many times as interest change(I assume that because interests almost always do) I find it fascinating how some people can stay so on track! To collect the coins of only one roman emporer for instance, and ignore all other coinage.

Started with Coins related to Alexander the Great. I thought they would have a great historical aura abouth them. So I picked up an ATG tet, then a Philip II tet (ATG's papa) and then  Lysimachus tet (ATG's general)...................then I ran into a problem when I could not find a really great Ptolemy I satrap tet.

While searching, I stumbled on the Sicilian coins. I thought.........wow, what artistry. So I started collecting them also, but the prices skyrocketed and I have had to be patient................so while being patient I stumbled upon Magna Graeca incuse coins.  How could I pass on those archaic beauties.....so I grabbed a special one.

Then suddenly I saw an Augustus Cistophoric Tet with Capricorn reverse.....................hmmmm like that too.....and it has great tie to an important historic figure (plus I am a Capricorn)......................it's now on my list. Tried for one at Triton...but it went at over 4x estimate.

Hmmm. some of those Julius Caesar coins look neat. Need to get one of those some day.

Gee...........don't some of those AV Solidus with 3/4 facing portraits look great..........yup need one of those.....on my list.

I have no interest in Roman Republics............until Phil Davis shows me a beauty at Gemini...................hmmmm.....like that also. Probably take a run at one of those some day.

Love those Byblus staters (hippocamp and hoplites).........absolutely have to have one of those

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.............


So.......................now my "focus" is very high quality coins of either historic interest or appealing artistry. That limits me to two to four coins a year, but it should ensure me a few decades of collecting.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.............coin collecting.

BR

Mark

Offline cmcdon0923

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #23 on: January 18, 2008, 03:32:20 pm »
My primary collecting passion isn’t even in the realm of ancients…it’s the Pre-Confederation copper coinages of the states of Vermont and Connecticut, by die variety….usually referred to as “US Colonials”.  I’ve collected those for almost 25 years now.

But I’ve always loved things having to do with ancient times….coins, artifacts, etc…. 

This is actually my second go-round with ancients.  I had a collection of Roman denarii a few years ago, but sold them to concentrate on my US colonials.  But as my collection there grows more advanced, adding new coins has become increasingly expensive.  So a few years ago I started collecting ancients again so as not to become completely discouraged with coin collecting due to inactivity. 

My first direction was to acquire one Greek coin from each of the major city states or kingdoms.  My plan was to display of a map of the ancient world, with each coin sitting next to its “home”.  I still pick up a piece from time to time.

But my main interest for ancients is in Biblical coins, primarily those of ancient Judea.  And as a close tie-in, I also collect the Roman Emperors who ruled up through the end of the 1st century AD., in bronze.   

I also collect Byzantine anonymous folles.

But like most of the collectors who have responded so far, I can become “easily distracted” from time to time by other neat things that I see for sale.

(There are  links to my Forum galleries listed below.  The “anonymous” gallery is under construction.)

Offline helvetica

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Re: The direction of your collection
« Reply #24 on: January 20, 2008, 12:06:18 pm »
I don't think anyone needs to look for a direction to follow - it'll find you... and from then on, you'll be hooked. Even on something as humble as Fel Temp fallen horsemen types (2,200+ varieties and counting...)
Here is about a quarter of the possibles:
http://homepage.bluewin.ch/Helvetica-Coins/

 

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