Were rare coin issues prized by the ancients?

[Optimo Principi]

A question that I have been pondering for a while; one which I acknowledge likely only has a conjectural answer.

Were rare coin issues prized and valued in any way by the ancients that used them?

Granted, what is rare today may not have been 2000 years ago but for the sake of argument: do we think that ancients would have been intrigued if they got an EID MAR Brutus denarius in their change one day ..would that Colosseum Sestertius have been a talking point? Or would they have had the same lack of interest in their contempory coinage as the masses today.

Obviously, coins were a news source to many and a great way to spread propaganda; an issue fresh of the mint depicting a newly acquired province for example, would surely have been something to show off and discuss at the market - but would people have cared or even noticed the rarity of an issue.

Moreover, is there any evidence of ancient coin collectors???

Kained

[cliff_marsland]

I've read that Augustus was an avid numismatist.  Does anyone know the source of that info?

[Syltorian]

Some people were aware of at least some devices on coins. Cassius Dio, writing under the Severan dynasty, describes the EID MAR denarius. Beyond that, there's two references I know of that might describe instances of collection, although they are open to be read in different ways.

1) "On the Saturnalia, and at any other time when he [Augustus] took it into his head, he would now give gifts of clothing or gold and silver; again coins of every device, including old pieces of the kings and foreign money; another time nothing but hair cloth, sponges, pokers and tongs, and other such things under misleading names of double meaning." (Suetonius, Life of the Divine Augustus, 75).

I'm not sure whether this shows that the ancients were collecting coins for anything beyond their value, unless they also collected clothing - but then again, since Suetonius does mention "old pieces" and "foreign money", there might be something of an attraction towards the rare and exotic.

2) Pliny the Elder mentions people apparently collected fourrés. Or at least, bought them as an object of study: "it is astonishing that in this art [coinage] alone one studies the defects and a sample of false denarii is examined, with the adulterated coin bought for manifold the value of the real one"(Pliny, NH. 33.134).

Beyond that, the only similar collection I have come across in ancient authors is Pliny, NH.37.11, where he speaks of the first dactyliothecas, or collections of gemstones/intaglios. Not sure whether we can infer from the existence of such collections (by Sulla Scaurus, Pompeius, Mithridates...) that coins were likewise collected for their motifs, though.

[areich]

They probably collected coins in the same way that many people collect their vacation change or pick the occasional interesting coin out of their wallet to keep. And there probably were some 'serious collectors'.

[Will Hooton]

I would imagine that most Romans, being a patriotic lot, for whom the solitary denarius was not particularly required for the expense of everyday life, would have collected coins.
We know Republican denarii for instance, were in circulation long after the death of the Republic. Suppose a reasonably well off Roman merchant living in Trajans time chanced upon an legionary denarius of Marc Antony in his pocket change. It is reasonable to assume he knew his history, and this coin would have provoked such interest in him as it does with us today. Perhaps the ancients did not make a science of it as we have today, but they did not live in the modern era. They simply didn't have the time.

[Randygeki(h2)]

I'm not sure whether this shows that the ancients were collecting coins for anything beyond their value, unless they also collected clothing - but then again, since Suetonius does mention "old pieces" and "foreign money", there might be something of an attraction towards the rare and exotic.

I think you hit the nail on the head, at least for rare coins and the upper classes.

[ecoli]

I think human behavior does not change through time...there were, are and always will be collectors of one thing or the other.

[Syltorian]

We know Republican denarii for instance, were in circulation long after the death of the Republic.

Would that not actually be an indication that coin-collecting was not all that well known, if it existed at all? If the value of coins increased with type and age, their remaining in circulation and being hoarded with other, more up-to-date coins (rather than with other antiquities and gems, which the Romans did collect) sounds strange to me. Paying under Claudius or Trajan with a two-hundred year old coin in a society where collecting exists would be like inserting a Vatican euro into the vending machine; it gets you a drink, but you better enjoy it for the price!

Of course, that doesn't speak against the possibility that a few rare people may have collected coins, but it might suggest that the idea hadn't caught on enough for people to be more wary of their change. Of course, it's quite possible someone somewhere has already managed to use just such a euro (or whatever the equivalent in other parts of the world is) as face-value currency, considering people don't look too closely at their everyday change, and comparatively few would recognize it as something to be sold. So maybe this just goes to show that many hoarders were simply unobservant...

Perhaps the ancients did not make a science of it as we have today, but they did not live in the modern era. They simply didn't have the time.

It's possible a study existed - pure speculation, of course - considering the antiquarian interest shown by some Romans (Varro, the emperor Claudius, etc...), and that the work simply did not survive; probably over 90% of Roman works didn't. As said, the EID MAR coin was known to Cassius Dio, over two hundred years after its minting. So, either he had seen such a coin, or read about it, and he understood the significance. It's a pity he doesn't mention where he found out about the coin, but Roman authors were not held to the same standards of meticulously referencing as modern historians are.

[Optimo Principi]

Fascinating. What did Dio have to say about the EID MAR denarius?

[Syltorian]

Not much really: "In addition to these activities Brutus stamped upon the coins which were being minted his own likeness and a cap and two daggers, indicating by this and by the inscription that he and Cassius had liberated the fatherland." (Cassius Dio, 47.25.3). Another coin he mentions is a Pater-Patriae one of Caesar: "In addition to these remarkable privileges they named him [Caesar] father of his country, stamped this title on the coinage (...)" (Cassius Dio, 44.4.4).

So the references to coins are very brief.

I assume he might have gotten the information from a source contemporary to Brutus, too: Livy, Pollio, Augustus' autobiography, etc., but the awareness that coins were used for politics and connected to important events in history is there. 

[Andrew McCabe]

We know Republican denarii for instance, were in circulation long after the death of the Republic. Suppose a reasonably well off Roman merchant living in Trajans time chanced upon an legionary denarius of Marc Antony in his pocket change. It is reasonable to assume he knew his history, and this coin would have provoked such interest in him as it does with us today.

There is a huge amount of evidence that the Romans knew very well what was on their coin types even hundreds of years after issue - for example the many cases of restoration coins that occurred during the Roman Republic and well into the Empire. There are also numerous cases of puns on coin types and trick coins such as double headed types or other coins which in some other manner look like what they are not supposed to be. I showed an example a few weeks ago here of bronze that appears designed to look like a fourree core when it was not! NB: the exceptional new British regular coin types, which form a jigsaw when assembled in a certain design, are something the Romans would have loved (I love them too). A couple of days ago on this list I explained the complex trickery used in the later coins of Octavian, full of riddles and logic. Awareness of other coins starts at a very early stage  - some of the very earliest Roman didrachms copied control devices from Ptolemaic Egypt. There is also pretty strong evidence that very small denominations (unciae) were routinely made in much higher quality and overweight during the 200 - 100BC period which is strongly indicative of their being used as gift items, perhaps akin to the coin in the bottom of a Christmas stocking today. And of games entrance tokens that copies specific coin types. And a range of coin series that have associations with games. I have multiple different examples of all these cases. It would require a small book to show examples of all these, they are so pervasive.

One has to conclude that coins were rather more important than they are today and that they probably were collected and given as gifts or prizes.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I think the Gospel story of the woman who lost a drachm, searched her whole house for it, then threw a party when she found it, shows just how important they could be! It may be a little exaggerated, but the whole point of the parables is that they were believable scenarios in that culture.

[curtislclay]

Yes, but presumably that drachm was important to her for its monetary value, not the interest or rarity of its types?

[Robert_Brenchley]

True, but when a coin become so important, for whatever reason, aren't people likely to look at what's on it a bit more closely than we do? The types weren't just put there for the benefit of rich people who could afford to collect them!