Collectors of Ancient Roman Coins

[apierucci]

How many of you collect ancient Roman coins? I have been buying uncleaned ancient coins since about 2000, and have identified a bunch. I have coins from constantine, constans, etc. They are a great way to get kids into ancient history, and a cheap way to collect ancient artifacts. I have well over 500 anicent coins sitting in olive oil, to clean them. It is really entertaining. How many of you collect ancient coins?


Andy

[Caivs Molinarivs Blandvs]

I´m also an collector from ancient coins and I put the bronce coins also in olive oil.
It´s a very tedious way. But I prefer to collect the roman silver coins,
from the first and second century like Denares and Antoninianes.

caivs

[Jona Lendering]

I used to, but my collection was stolen when I took it to a university to show it to the students. I have a suspicion that it was taken by one of the university teachers, but can not prove it. (And for those who happen to know ancient historians in my hometown Amsterdam: no need to suspect your friends, it happened somewhere else.)

[Senovara]

I have a small set of roman coins. Unfortunately I have no idea which era they're from and truthfully I don't know how to identify them. They're sitting in olive oil for cleaning. Perhaps when most of the grime is out, I can take some pictures.

[apierucci]

I have a small set of roman coins. Unfortunately I have no idea which era they're from and truthfully I don't know how to identify them. They're sitting in olive oil for cleaning. Perhaps when most of the grime is out, I can take some pictures.

There are some great websites to help one identify their coins.

www.wildwinds.com/coins

the above is one of the best, and most comprehensive. It is fascinating how many coins are out there. I just pulled some of my coins out. One of them was made during the reign of Constantine I, for an anniversary of the founding of Rome. It is really cool. It has Remus and Romulus, with a wolf on the reverse.

Andy

[Medusa Gladiatrix]

and truthfully I don't know how to identify them. They're sitting in olive oil for cleaning. Perhaps when most of the grime is out, I can take some pictures.

That would be a good idea to take a picture when the coin is clean. A coin expert told me it's at least easy to identify if they date from the early Imperial period or are from Late Antiquity.

[DanM]

I have 1 roman coin, a follis of licinius from heraclea. I just bought an inchtuthil nail yesterday from a coin shop

[Ioannes_Ahenobarbus]

I have a very few that I picked up in England on vacation, but mainly from Justinian and after (i.e. Byzantine). Mainly a copper follis here and there.

[Lepidina]

I'm so behind on reading this board. :?

Does anyone know of a good dealer for ancient coins? I'd love an old-style Athenian tetradrachm in good condition. I'm also a fan of jewlery made with ancient coins so if anyone knows of a good jewler that does nice coin jewelry, please let me know.

[Dan Diffendale]

Unfortunately, the majority of coins on the market come from undocumented, illegal looting.

I'd recommend reading this link, with discussion by Nathan T. Elkins: http://www.savingantiquities.org/feature_coins.php

"Because it evokes an immediate and close connection to the ancient past, one that we can literally hold in our hand, the collecting of ancient coins has become an almost addictive pastime for many people today...
...Such romantic notions also captivated me and, after purchasing my first ancient coin for $1.75 in the mid 1990's when I was 13 or 14 years of age, I fell in love with the history and ideology celebrated by various designs on Roman coins...
...Yet after beginning my doctoral studies in 2003... I began to re-evaluate the ethics of ancient coin collecting. I became aware of the irrevocable destruction of information caused by systematic looting at historical sites in search of ancient coins to sell on the market."

"Between June 4 and July 2, 2007, I tracked listings in the Ancient Coins section of eBay (the U.S. site) and found that, on average, approximately 5,000 to 5,300 lots of ancient coins are sold per week. A number of dealers sell bulk lots of uncleaned ancient coins fresh from the ground (e.g. bags of 1000, 100, or priced per piece), often indicating that such coins were " excavated " in Eastern Europe— especially the Balkan countries. If one assumes that this one-month period reflects trends throughout the year, one may conclude that between approximately 260,000 and 280,000 coins are sold each year on the eBay-U.S. website, not counting bulk lots. These rough numbers indicate the large-scale importation of ancient coins from the Old World and the potential movement of between half a million to a million coins sold in the North American marketplace annually, taking no account of local coin dealers who sell ancient coins in various cities and towns throughout the country. The trafficking in undocumented coins is clearly a multi-million dollar industry in the U.S. and Canada alone."

http://www.savingantiquities.org/feature_coins.php
http://www.savingantiquities.org/feature_coins.php
http://www.savingantiquities.org/feature_coins.php
http://www.savingantiquities.org/feature_coins.php

[Paullus Scipio]

Well, I was aware of the problem, Dan, but certainly not the scale!
Scary stuff ! hock: hock:

Thanks for the 'Heads Up', and a Laus for highlighting a significant problem.This may be the biggest sector of the problem, but it is evident from other threads and news sources that systematic tomb-robbing of the many thousands of tombs in the Balkans and former Eastern Communist bloc countries is going on by 'organised crime' ( they certainly are organised! ).One has only to look at other desirable items such as helmets and weapons, which regularly go on sale in Auction houses , to disappear for generations into private collections, to surface briefly for sale later.

Their activities make the Etruscan tomb robbing gangs ( and other Italian archaeological sites - even places like Pompeii are just 'crook magnets) pale into petty theft by comparison.....

[aitor iriarte]

The big problem is really not if the item disappears in a private collection for years or forever.
That is really bad, no doubt (

Aitor

[Paullus Scipio]

Aitor wrote:-

...the archaeological context would be lost forever due to the lack of a proper archaeological recovery method and, believe me, contexts write History, not items

...I took that as a "given", Aitor, since it has been pointed out before, but perhaps the reminder is good.....

[Lepidina]

I know this is completely heresey, but given the amounts of coins, pot sherds, and other common items dug up, would a way to combat grave robbing be for museums to sell off some of their well documented, common items? Granted museums will never flood the market and put grave robbers out of business, but if they can establish a solid market where people are willing to pay more for documented items that they know are not from looted sites, that would in theory, push the prices on looted items down and make it less profitable to loot.

It makes room for more artifacts as well as makes the museums some money, which they desperately need.

Just a thought.

[Dan Diffendale]

I know this is completely heresey, but given the amounts of coins, pot sherds, and other common items dug up, would a way to combat grave robbing be for museums to sell off some of their well documented, common items? Granted museums will never flood the market and put grave robbers out of business, but if they can establish a solid market where people are willing to pay more for documented items that they know are not from looted sites, that would in theory, push the prices on looted items down and make it less profitable to loot.

It makes room for more artifacts as well as makes the museums some money, which they desperately need.

Just a thought.

It's certainly been proposed -- but for some, it *is* akin to heresy. It might go some way toward the goal, or not. The problem is that it could never fill the enormous demand, which is why the current tack is to try to stem the demand, as for instance was done with fur in the last decades (of course, Carlos Picón, the curator of the Greek and Roman department at the Met, informed of the analogy, said "I do not own a fur coat, but I would like to.")