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Getting started with ancient coins - periodic post



 
 
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Old July 14th 04, 01:14 AM
Reid Goldsborough
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Default Getting started with ancient coins - periodic post

What follows is a distillation of many people's opinions and
observations, including my own. Additions and corrections are
welcomed. A different version of this document has previously been
published in a coin magazine, and posting this here, now and in the
future, is an attempt to provide useful, educational information to
collectors. This document is copyrighted -- please don't republish
elsewhere. HMTL version available he

http://rg.ancients.info/guide


Getting started with ancient coins - periodic post

- - -
IN A NUTSHELL: Ancient coins can be intimidating at first. They almost
require that you read, study, learn. But this can open up a
fascinating world -- the past -- which can shed marvelous insights
about the present and perhaps the future as well.
- - -

In the minds of those who collect ancients, for one thing, there's
more history. An early U.S. coin may have been touched by Washington
or Jefferson, but an ancient coin may have been touched by Socrates,
Plato, or Aristotle, whose thinking formed the very basis of Western
civilization.

There's also more beauty, particularly with the coins of ancient
Greece. U.S. coins often considered the most attractive, Saints,
Walkers, and Standing Libs, for instance, imitate the timeless designs
of ancient coins.

Despite their history and beauty, ancient coins are typically not more
costly than modern coins but less. A Maximian follis is a bronze coin
just about exactly the same size and weight as a U.S. large cent. But
this 1,800-year-old Roman coin in extra fine condition typically costs
just $25, about half of what a common-date large cent costs in the
same condition.

The reason for pricing like this is supply and demand. On the supply
side, billions of ancient Greek and Roman coins were minted over more
than a millennium, and unlike with modern coins, availability
increases as numerous ancient coins are dug up from the ground each
year in source countries such as Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and
Israel. On the demand side, there are fewer collectors of ancient
coins than modern coins.

In a nutshell, though modern coins have their considerable
attractions, you can't beat ancient coins for their awe/cost ratio, at
least according to ancient coin collectors. Of course, all this is
subjective, as is all collecting. To each his own.

To new non-collectors and new collectors alike, ancient coins can be
intimidating, at first. They almost demand that you be a numismatist,
that you study and learn. There are no albums you can buy and fill
with neat, orderly acquisitions. Similar looking coins can be minted
in entirely different countries. Counterfeits are a reality, greater
than with modern coins because ancient coins were struck by hand and
are much more varied in style, thus easier to fake.

Because of all this, the maxim "Read the book before you buy the coin"
applies even more to ancient coins than to modern ones.

But today, you can surf the Net first, to dip your toe in the water.
Then, if you're still drawn to these magical totems from times long
gone, you can dive in further. Here's one way to go:

1. Read these Web sites

Out of their love for ancient coins and as a service to others, a
number of ancient coin collectors have put up informational Web sites,
usually lavishly illustrated with coin images. A number of dealers
include useful instructional information at their Web sites as well.

Doug Smith's Ancient Greek & Roman Coins
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dougsmit

This is the most comprehensive collector site about ancient coins on
the Web. Doug has written and illustrated more than 100 pages of
information, including pages on coins of various Roman emperors and
Greek city-states, coins of the "barbarians," judging the
attractiveness of ancient coin styles, ancient coin glossaries, plated
and countermarked coins, coin photography, and stereo microscopes.

Warren Esty's Ancient Roman and Greek Coins
http://esty.ancients.info

You'll find good advice here about buying and selling ancient coins,
various collecting strategies, women on ancient coins, grading, and
fakes.

Brad's Introduction to Ancient Coins
http://www.blarg.net/~brad/coins.htm

This site deals mostly with Roman coins, but this is where a lot of
people get started, as ancient Roman coins are on average are about
one-third the cost of ancient Greek coins. You can read about buying
and storing, identifying and attributing, grading, and fakes.

Dennis Rider's Ancient Cash
http://www.ancientcash.com

Using a clever image map of a real map of the ancient world, you
navigate to Rome, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Egypt, and elsewhere.
Once there, you see and read about examples of the coins that were
minted in these locales, and you also read background historical
information about the places themselves.

Tom Buggey's Ancient Coins: In Praise of the Celators
http://www.people.memphis.edu/~tjbuggey/coin.html

Here you'll find a complete list of Roman emperors, a list of Roman
mints and mint marks, a list of Roman coin denominations, common
abbreviations, maps of ancient Rome and Greece, astronomical symbols
on ancient coins, nominations for the most beautiful ancient coins,
and tips for new collectors with a limited coin budget.

The Money Museum
http://www.moneymuseum.com/index_english.html

An offering from Germany with an English version, this site has lots
of information about money in general, including coins. There's
material about ancient, medieval, and modern coins, coin production,
how the eagle got on coins, lions on coins, women on coins, and more.

Bearers of Meaning
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/art/bue.../contents.html

This scholarly site hasn't been added to in a while, but the
information is still useful. You'll find essays about ancient coin
production, portraiture, and other subjects as well as a catalog of
ancient coins with detailed descriptions.

Joe Sermarini's FORVM Ancient Coins
http://www.forumancientcoins.com

You find tools to help you identify Roman coins and decipher Greek
letters, articles on various topics, active discussion forums, maps of
the ancient world, and a searchable forgeries database.

Barry & Darling Ancient Coins
http://www.bitsofhistory.com/index_info.html

One of the best ancient coin informational sites from a dealer, this
site provides a plethora of information covering coin hoards, cleaning
ancient coins, spotting counterfeits, the origins of ancient coins,
deciphering Roman inscriptions, and ancient mythology.

Harlan J. Berk
http://www.harlanjberk.com/departmen...s/articles.htm

You'll find a number of articles here from a well-respected ancient
coin numismatist and dealer. Along with articles about specific coins,
there's also a suggested catalog of your first 25 Greek gold and
electrum coins and your first 25 Greek silver coins.

Pegasi Online
http://www.pegasionline.com/html/archives.cfm

You'll find a whopping 127 articles here about various topics related
to ancient coins, though most are short, introductory pieces. Most of
the articles describe the history and numismatic output of various
regions of the ancient world.

Ancient Impressions
http://aicoins.tripod.com/ai

Here you'll find common Roman coin inscriptions and terms, a list of
Roman emperors, a list of women on Roman coins, imperial titles, and
gods and goddesses on Roman coins.

Indo-European Chronology
http://indoeuro.bizland.com/project/chron/chron.html

Here's a site about history, not about coins, but it provides
excellent background information about the people who minted and used
ancient coins and the places where they lived.


2. Browse these Web sites for pricing, attributions, and pictures

You can also find excellent information on the Web about ancient coin
pricing, attribution, and counterfeits.

Wildwinds
http://www.wildwinds.com/coins

This site provides the descriptions and prices realized of Roman,
Greek, Byzantine, and Celtic coin auctions, primarily from eBay. The
attributions are all provided by sellers, but this is still a good
place to go when you're looking for information about your coins or
for information about what coins you may be interested in have sold
for.

CoinArchives.com
http://www.coinarchives.com

This is a relatively new site that provides the descriptions and
prices realized of ancient coins from European and U.S. auction
houses, which typically are higher end, and higher priced, than those
sold through eBay.

Often the descriptions at CoinArchives.com are in languages other than
English (mostly German), though you can usually make sense of them
with the help of a translation tool such as AltaVista's BabelFish, at
http://world.altavista.com/tr. For converting among different
currencies, xe.com, at http://www.xe.com/ucc, is very useful.

Virtual Catalog of Roman Coins
http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/cml/rcape/vcrc

This site focuses just on Roman coins, but it's a quick and easy way
to view and read about and identify representative Roman Imperial
coins of various emperors and Roman Republic coins of various time
periods.

Jencek's Ancient Coins and Antiques
http://www.ancient-coins.com

This site provides a search engine for obverse legends of Roman coins
along with a list and description of Roman emperors and a handful of
articles on other subjects.

Calgary's Modern Fakes of Ancient Coins
http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/fakes/fakes.htm

Here you'll find excellent information and photos of counterfeits of
ancient coins, including types of modern fakes, how to recognize
forgeries, and recommended books for further study.

Barry & Darling Ancient Coins' Counterfeits and Counterfeiters
http://www.ancient-times.com/newsletters/n13/n13.html

This site also includes good information and photos of fakes of
ancient coins, such as ancient counterfeits, methods of manufacture
for modern counterfeits, ways that counterfeits were detected in
ancient times, and punishment for counterfeiting.


3. If you want more information, buy or borrow a book or several books

Ancient Coin Collecting by Wayne Sayles (six-volume set)
http://ancientcoins.ac/cgi-bin/thatsanorder_LE

The first book is an overview and may be all you want. A seventh book,
about forgeries, is titled Classical Deception.

Roman Coins and Their Values, Greek Coins and Their Values, Byzantine
Coins and Their Values, Greek Imperial Coins and Their Values, etc. by
David Sear
http://www.davidrsear.com

The standard general cataloging works for ancient coins, with each set
providing a representative sampling of the most frequently encountered
coins along with attribution information.

Coinage and History of the Roman Empire by David L. Vagi
http://www.davidvagi.com

Excellent history and background about Roman coins.

Collecting Greek Coins by John Anthony
Engagingly written and organized primer for collectors of Greek coins.


4. If you still want more information

Borrow specialized books about subareas of interest to you from the
American Numismatic Association, provided you're a member, for the
cost of round-trip shipping, or buy them from various book sellers
that specialize in ancient coin books
http://www.money.org

Spend a day (or days) poring through coin journal articles at the
American Numismatic Society -- search through their holdings at their
Web site first -- or have the ANS mail you copies at 25 cents/page
with a $20 minimum
http://www.amnumsoc.org


5. Periodical about ancient coins

The Celator
http://ancientcoins.ac/cws

Excellent monthly magazine with articles from collectors and dealers
about ancient coins and occasionally artifacts as well.


6. Online discussion groups about ancient coins

One of the best ways to learn more about coins, ancient or otherwise,
is to participate in one or more of the many online discussion groups
about them. There's a rough and tumble side of online discussions --
conversation can quickly turn to debate which can in turn quickly turn
to argument. But most people are friendly and eager to answer
questions.

Most of the discussion groups about ancient coins are e-mail based and
take place through Yahoo Groups. You can elect to have all messages
e-mailed to you individually as soon as they're posted or as a group
once a day. Or you can choose to read messages through Yahoo's Web
site, though this is slower.

The purpose of most of the following discussion groups is apparent
from the group's name, and when it's not, the purpose is included in
parentheses.

Moneta-L (ancient coins in general)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Moneta-L

ACM-L (buying and selling ancient coins)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ACM-L

romancoincom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romancoincom

RomanCoins
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RomanCoins

RomanProvincialCoins
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RomanProvincialCoins

CoinsGreek
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CoinsGreek

CelticCoins
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CelticCoins

islamic_coins
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islamic_coins

CoinForgeryDiscussionList
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CoinForgeryDiscussionList

ACFDL (Ancient Coin Fakes and Deceptions List)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ACFDL

Uncleanedcoins
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Uncleanedcoins

UncleanedAncientCoins
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UncleanedAncientCoins

Another e-mail discussion group, not from Yahoo Groups, is Numism-L.
It hasn't been as active lately as it has been in the past, but it
features more scholarly discussion about ancient and medieval coins.
You can join through http://listserv.sc.edu/archives/numism-l.html.

One interesting new Web-based discussion group, about coins in general
but dealing with ancient coins as well, is Coin Talk, at
http://cointalk.org.

The most popular of all online discussion groups, also about coins in
general, is the Usenet discussion group rec.collecting.coins (RCC).
You can access it through a newsreader such as Forte Agent, an e-mail
program with newsreading capabilities such as Microsoft Outlook
Express, or the Web through Google Groups, at
http://groups.google.com.

Debates and arguments are much more prevalent in RCC, as they are in
most Usenet discussion groups, than they are in e-mail based
discussion groups, which are typically more tightly controlled. But
RCC can still be a great way to learn about coins and share your
experiences, and excitement, with others.


7. National organizations in which ancient coins play a part and which
publish periodicals in which ancient coins play a part

American Numismatic Association
http://www.money.org

American Numismatic Society
http://www.amnumsoc.org

Royal Numismatic Society
http://www.rns.dircon.co.uk


8. Local clubs

Ancient Coin Club of Los Angeles
http://mjconnor.home.mindspring.com/accla

Ancient Coin Club of Chicago
http://www.sknapp.net/accc

Pacific Ancient Numismatists
http://www.pnna.org/pan

Twin Cities Ancient Coin Club
http://www.deepfield.com/anoot/twin.html

Classical & Medieval Numismatic Society (Canada)
http://home.cogeco.ca/~tczerned/cmns


9. Coin shows where ancient coins are a major emphasis

New York International Numismatic Convention
January


Chicago International Coin Fair
April


Ancient coins have a smaller but still significant presence at the
major U.S. coin shows, including the two ANA shows, the two Baltimore
shows, the three Long Beach shows, and the F.U.N. show. Depending on
the specific show, ancient coins may or may not have a presence at
local coins shows. Sometimes a small number of dealers collaborate on
putting together a local ancient coin "bourse" in a hotel or similar
meeting place to sell their wares.


10. Woefully incomplete list of recommended dealers

Occasionally expensive but world-renowned:

Classical Numismatic Group (CNG)
http://www.cngcoins.com

Harlan J. Berk
Curtis Clay
http://www.harlanjberk.com

Jonathan K. Kern
http://www.jkerncoins.com

Trustworthy, lower-cost dealers and eBay auctioneers:

Dimitre Genov
Ancient Auction House
http://www.ancientauctionhouse.com
ancientauctionhouse.com

Perry Siegel
Herakles Numismatics
http://www.herakles-inc.com


Ilian Lalev
Ancient Caesar
http://www.ancientcaesar.com
ancientcaesar

Francesca Serofilli
Mediterranean Coins
http://www.nomismaweb.com
mediterraneancoins

Clark Smith
Coin Vault
http://www.coinvault.com
clarksmith

Elia Demetrious
Quality Ancient Coins
q.a.coins

Trustworthy value-priced auctioneer:

Frank Robinson
http://www.albany.net/~fr

Good guys/good deals:

Barry P. Murphy
http://www.bpmurphy.com

Marc Breitsprecher
Ancient Imports
http://www.ancientimports.com

John C. Lavender
Atlantis
http://www.vcoins.com/atlantis

Robert Kokotailo
Calgary Coin & Antique
http://www.calgarycoin.com/hub.htm

Matt Kreuzer
Old Roman Coins-Classical Cash
http://www.oldromancoins.com

John J. Jencek
Jencek's Ancient Coins & Antiques
http://www.ancient-coins.com

Value-priced mail-order catalog dealers:

Kirk Davis


Wayne C. Phillips
909-629-0757


11. Ancient coin mall

VCoins
http://www.vcoins.com


12. European auction houses

Gorny & Mosch
http://www.gmcoinart.de

Kuenker
http://www.kuenker.de

Numismatik Lanz
http://www.lanz.com

Baldwin's
http://www.baldwins.sh

Tkalec
http://www.coinstkalec.ch

Argenor Numismatique
http://www.argenor.com

Numismatica Ars Classica
http://www.arsclassicacoins.com

Dr. Busso Peus Nachfolger
http://www.bussopeus.de

CGB-CGF
http://www.cgb.fr

Jean Elsen
http://www.elsen.be

Leu Numismatics
http://www.leu-numismatik.com

Münzen & Medaillen


13. Ancient coin auction mall

SixBid
http://www.sixbid.com


14. Translating the German, French, etc., with mostly understandable
results

AltaVista BabelFish Translation
http://world.altavista.com/tr


15. Currency conversion

XE.com
http://www.xe.com/ucc


16. Ancient coin search engine

Ancient Coins.net
http://www.ancientcoins.net


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  #2  
Old August 8th 04, 12:15 PM
Alan Williams
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Reid Goldsborough wrote:

Thought I'd post this given some of the recent questions here.

What follows is a distillation of many people's opinions and
observations, including my own.


I cannot tell which are which. Would it possible for you to label the
parts that are your opinions and observations and which are the opinions
and observations of others?

Thanks so much.

Alan
'likes knowing who is speaking'
  #3  
Old August 9th 04, 07:40 PM
Reid Goldsborough
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On Sun, 08 Aug 2004 21:11:41 -0400, Reid Goldsborough
wrote:

Not a "direct" copy. An indirect copy. Saints, Walkers, and Standing
Libs in their overall designs were influenced by classical Greek and
Roman coinage. None was a direct copy of any specific ancient Greek or
Roman coin, and the Liberty on none of them was a direct copy of any
specific ancient Greek or Roman goddess.


I should correct myself here. Harlan Berk has theorized that the Saint
Liberty was modeled after the work of Paionios of Mende, a Greek
sculptor of the 5th century BC. Paionios' sculpture of Nike, goddess
of victory, was excavated in Greece in 1875, an event that Augustus
Saint-Gaudens, being a classicist, must have been aware of. Like the
Saint-Gaudens Liberty, the Paionios Nike features a buxom, partially
draped female form striding forward, left arm raised, left leg leading
the right. You can view pictures of it at the Ancient Greek Cities
Web site:

http://www.sikyon.com/Olympia/Art/olymp_eg08.html

There are other connections, with other coins. The Liberty that
appears on Trade dollars is similar in form to the Britannia on
British farthings of the 17th century, which is similar to the Roma on
ancient Roman coins such as the sesterii of Nero and Antoninus Pius of
the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, which in turn is similar to the Athena
on the ancient Greek coins of Lysimachos in the 3rd century BC.

I'm not aware of these kinds of connections involving the Liberty on
the Walker or Standing Lib quarter.

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