New Collector Question - Large vs Small?

[Don H2]

Hello everyone!

I am a brand new collector! Literally haven't even received the coins I bought yet! Just joined the site. I've been reading and soaking up the info on here for days to become knowledgeable about the aspects of ancient coins. It appears to be a thrilling experience to me and the history and story these coins can tell is endless. I am so glad I found this website! It looks like a fantastic resource!

I am hoping to start a new hobby with my 11 year old daughter. She has recently shown a level of complex thinking that tells me she may be ready for a collection like this. She is very analytical like I am when it comes to things she is really interested in. I can see her really diving into this with me and being eager to research all the things there are to learn and collect about ancient coins.

I decided to make part of her Christmas gifts this year an introduction to this hobby. I am SO excited (as you can surely tell lol) to give her these gifts and hope she finds it exhilarating to clean the coins and discover what is underneath!

After doing some low-level research, I got her an ancient coin book to use as a reference - Ancient Coin Collecting 2nd Edition by Wayne Gayles. Is this a good choice for a couple of novice collectors such as ourselves? If there is a better one, suggestions would be welcome.

Secondly, I bought three roman coins that have already been cleaned to show the possibilities of what we may find. Around Nero's reign. I also got some ancient chinese coins but our focus will likely be roman/greek I imagine.

Finally, although I have read on here that ebay and uncleaned coins are not recommended for new collectors, I went and got us about 70 coins - 40 from near serbia and about 30 from a different location/seller in Europe. I made sure they were not low quality or cull coins so that we would stand a better chance of revealing visible things on the coins. They are dirt "crustys" and not Spain or desert coins which seemed different and less exciting to clean. I also checked the NFSL before buying anything.

My second and main question is this -

Most of the coins I purchased look rather small. But I was going for quantity to start this off. Would it be better to focus more on larger coins because they were higher denominations and are likely to be more intricate? Or are the smaller coins capable of being just as detailed as the larger ones?

I will be sure to read all the beginner topics on here before we get started. Since everything is already paid for I hope I made the right decision and we will see what we find!

Sorry for writing an essay! Just looking forward to seeing her reaction when I tell her what she's holding in her hand is 2000 years old! If she loves it like I think she will, I'll be posting many more (and much shorter!) messages in the future!

Thank you for any advice in advance!

Don and Hailey

[Jay GT4]

Welcome to Forum Don and Hailey!

I think many of us started with uncleaned coins.  It's a great way to get into the ancient coin hobby for relatively little expense.  That being said, you're not likely to find any treasures in uncleaned lots.  They've been picked over by too many people before they make it to you.  But, you should be able to identify at least some of them. They will likely be Late Roman Bronzes (LRB's) from the time of Constantine and later.  Yes they will be on the smaller size, probably the size of a dime or nickel and they will be bronze.  Most people move on from uncleaned coins and "graduate" to already clean and identifiable coins because they want to focus their collection.  They also grow tired of the slugs and low grade.  Buying attributed coins right here from Forum is a great place to start when you decide to move on from uncleaned.

I think an inquisitive 11 year old will have a blast trying to attribute the uncleaned coins.  Sounds like she has the patience and the brains to work it out.  Congrats on starting down this path, you never know where it takes you!

[Stkp]

Welcome to the Forum!

I dabbled in uncleaned coins many years ago and soon discovered that I lacked the patience for the cleaning process. Moreover, given the cost per uncleaned coin and the low number of true "keepers," this is actually a more expensive entry into the hobby than many beginners realize. Another option to explore would be to buy lots of already cleaned but unattributed LRB coins. For example, Forum is currently offering lots of 5 unidentified bronze coins for $25.20, discounted from $28.00 (SP84700). At $5.04 or $5.60 per coin, the cost is comparable if not better than would be the cost per "keeper" from the uncleaned coin lots.

If you can find a copy, I would recommend the Handbook of Roman Imperial Coins by David Van Meter as the best one-volume beginner's book for Roman imperial coins.

There are, of course, many fascinating aspects of collecting other than Roman, and indeed, other than ancients. My own focus is more on medieval, for example, although I do have ancient Roman and Greek, as well as oriental cash coins, in my collection. My collection, and those of many other participants on this forum, is on-line here in the personal gallery section of the site. Your daughter may enjoy starting a gallery and watching her collection grow, and receiving feedback from other collectors about her coins.

Enjoy the new hobby with your daughter!

Stkp

[SC]

Welcome to both of you.

The Wayne Sales book is a good intro to the hobby, but not an identification guide.  The internet is now one of the best ID guides out there so you don't necessarily need another book at this time, but I agree with Stkp that van Meter's book is a good and inexpensive overall ID guide.  A great guide for identifying late Romans is the English translation of Bruck - "Late Roman Bronze Coinage: An attribution guide for poorly preserved coins", Guido Bruck, translated by Alisdair Menzies. 

For Chinese coins, which are great and relatively inexpensive, a good start is David Hartill's Cast Chinese Coins, 2ne ed.

While large Roman coins can be beautiful, small ones can have just as much detail.  Plus they are way cheaper in any nice condition.  You can get larger coins - asses and sestertii - for not too much money but they will be very worn.  When these coins are in "near-mint" condition they often cost thousands of dollars.  By contrast many smaller late Roman bronze coins can be found in "near-mint" condition for only a few dozen dollars and more worn ones for a lot less than that.

Uncleaned can be very fun.  That's is what I started with and still sometimes dabble in.  You just have to assume that you are not finding treasures and that part of what you are paying for is the enjoyment of the process - cleaning and identification.  Nevertheless you can build up a nice collection that way.

I strongly recommend that you guys try to do all of the identification yourselves.  It is too easy to post a coin here and get an instant answer with full identification.  It is much more rewarding - and really the only way to truly learn - to do it yourselves - checking online if you feel the need to confirm your work or when you run into a real problem.

Looking forward to hearing an update after Christmas.

SC

[Don H2]

Thank you to all 3 of you for the responses and recommendations!!

I will look into those books, especially the identification ones!

Yes, my/our expectations of what we will find with the uncleaned lots is very low. I fully realize that we may not find much of any quality. The goal of the gift is to tap into her wonder and excitement of history! And to get our hands dirty doing it, just without a shovel!

I'll let you all know how it goes!

Thanks again!

Don and Hailey

[Don H2]

Oh and yes, we will be doing ALL of the attributions ourselves unless we get stuck! That's part of the intrigue! To research where and when what he have in our hands came from!

[Molinari]

A warm welcome to you both!

[Don H2]

UPDATE!

So my 11yr old daughter, Hailey, is absolutely enthralled with the hobby! She LOVES cleaning the coins! I have bought her a cleaning kit including proper tools, the 4 pk of chemicals from england - Valpex, Prelim, Metal De-corroder, and Renaissance Wax. We are now seeking out a digital microscope for her to fine tune her new craft for the final stages of cleaning to perfection. She is a perfectionist for sure so this is a must I feel. Need to pick up some more bamboo toothpicks as well. Other than those things, we are set, I believe.

I never thought she would be THIS interested in the hobby! It's an incredibly good feeling to have taken the chance on this! She can't get enough of cleaning the coins! All we currently have are about 60-70 very small coins to start out with. So I am also looking for some uncleaned lots of coins that are 20mm+ so we can work on larger coins once we get through all the small ones. Lots of 20 or more and carefully choosing one that I can tell are coins with detail and not a group of coins that are low grade quality.

It's also amazing to see the incredible amount of patience she is showing when realizing that this hobby takes TIME. Considerable time. There is no instant gratification involved. That fact right there is EXACTLY what she needs in her young life. A process where the final results take time, work, and effort to be able to appreciate the final product!

We need to look up proper cleaning technique, the order things are best done in, and the amount of time each step should require for a proper cleaning of a coin. Right now, we are just cleaning, rinsing, soaking, scraping, etc in no exact order. Just going with the flow.

Finally, once we get a bit further into it, I need to purchase some Volumes of the RIC that cover bronze coinage so we can do proper research and attribution. To my surprise, she is also VERY excited to do the work in identifying what we have just cleaned!

I couldn't be happier on my choice to introduce her to this hobby!

Thanks to all,

Don and Hailey

[Don H2]

I have seriously created a monster here lol

[Jay GT4]

Fantastic!

[CoinMinion]

I have seriously created a monster here lol

Coin monster- the best type!  Sounds like you and your daughter are going to have a lot of fun- congrats!

[Ken W2]

Don and Hailey:  Apologies for the belated welcome and response.  As to size of uncleaned coins, when they can be found I prefer AE2s (21-25 mm) because they are still affordable and, all other things being equal, easier to clean.  There is simply more room to work between letters and in the devices.  However, it’s getting hard to find lots of uncleaned AE2s, although you can pick up a few to several mixed in with a lot of mostly AE3s. On the other hand, one must marvel at the Roman’s ability to produce the very small AE4s with incredibly intricate designs. Also, while many LRB issues will overlap at least two AE sizes, in my experience some issues will almost exclusively be found in only one size range. Take for example one of my favorite designs— the posthumously issued  Constantine I Hand of God coin. It will almost exclusively be found as an AE4. So if you avoid AE4s completely you may never have the pleasure of finding and cleaning one of those little devils, pun intended because there is a lot of action on the reverse of that little coin.

As to books, I like ERIC II as a beginners plus book. It’s an affordable and comprehensive resource for attribution, and has a fair amount of general discussion and nice summary write ups about emperors and empresses, and the designs of coins.  It also has thousands of glossy plates which are entertaining and helpful which Hailey in particular may find appealing. My sense is it is not viewed as a conventional attribution resource, but for around $100 it’s a great value imho. The one draw back is that it is massive in weight.

Welcome again to the hobby and FORVM. You have landed at a good spot here. I can speak from experience that the members here have a wealth of varied knowledge and are eager to help us less experienced collectors.

Ken