Ancient Coins that are (still) Affordable in 2024
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- čas přidán 22. 12. 2023
- Lets once more have a look at the numismatic market and look at some interesting types of ancient and historical coins you can acquire for reasonable sums. Numismatics is for everyone, and even collectors of modest means can assemble a nice collection!
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Lets see some examples of affordable niches and time periods that are widely available and easier to collect. We´re going to check some examples, so you know what to look for!
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Thanks for helpful video Leo,
Have a great new year 👍
This is really the true coin collecting world. Of course there are ppl with amazing coins and multiple gold peices. Me I usually only can do 100 every 2 weeks. The fact that I can't just grab whatever I want makes my collection more enjoyable. I will be more excited than the ppl who have so many that even getting a gold Solidus only gives a mild excitement. Coin collecting is like our own little club, no matter the amount you have love your collection. Ty again for all your great videos and for being a mentor of sorts to some of us.
Always good and thoughtful advice. This is my favorite ancient numismatic channel.
Thank you! Im glad to be able to bring education to my fellow collectors
Started watching the channel a fews months ago and started regularly checking vcoins around the same time. I've only bought 6 coins since then but I am really happy with everything I got (A sabaean kingdom imitation owl, Hadrian Denarius, Republic Quadrans, Heroic Bust Hadrian As, Antoninus Pius Drachm from Alexandria, and a Ptolemy II obol.) Overall I'm really glad I stayed patient and only bought when I was getting a decent price on a coin I really liked. All of the tips your channel provided really helped me delve into this complex market and I'm sure you've helped many other beginners get into ancient coins. Keep up the good work!
I am in the wait and save up camp, if you can only buy 2 coins a year then just buy 2 coins! There are a lot of books to read and museums to visit as well. Go for quality not quantity. A great collection is not the collection with the most coins unless they are all superb! I love the coins of Constantine the Great and Maxentius. I do not collect ancients but I could not resist buying one of each in fabulous grade and they were not too expensive, I really like them. It is also worth making a few cutbacks, such as do you need that burger from the fast food chain for instance? The money all mounts up to buy free coins! I also agree the Roman Provincial coins are excellent and provide another collecting angle and are also a great way to acquire the coins of the Caesars. Great video and great coins shown! I also like Roman coins with Countermarks, these are most interesting and offer another angle to collecting too.
Great video- I think this will really help some people. Given the incredible range of prices for ancient coins especially, seeing that decent ones can be had for low-ish cost to start with or to still have fun when your budget isn't huge is wonderful. Little Greek Obols, for example, I find really attractive- the fact that anyone was able to engrave such tiny figures of such wonderful detail sometimes is incredible. I only have one so far, but I will hopefully have many more in the future. And you reminded me about the Sassanians- I'd kind of forgotten their coinage in the wake of the incredible beauty of classical Greek coins, so thanks for showing those again so I can be sure I don't forget again ;)
You have a wonderful coin channel , Always very well presented. This video is especially informative. Thank you !
Thank you very much! Im glad this video has been useful :)
Roman provincials are slept on so much!
2 months ago I picked up a bronze provincial CALIGULA with his face on it for under 100. Just goes to show you can get some crazy things that you’d never be able afford in official imperial issues
I've found that to be the case as well!
Couldtn agree more, such interesting coins
I was able to get an early emperor through provincials. Definitely under valued!
Ikr? Same caligula coin in from Rome(or their typical mint) and it's a 300$ t0 600$ coin
A small note on the Indian coinage: it would probably be more 'diplomatic' to say that Indian coinage originated in the 4th century BCE at the latest. Maybe earlier, but we don't have enough evidence to push it past the 4th-5th century BCE.
Also, the Nahapana drachms are now dated to circa the 3rd quarter of the 1st century CE, as it is no longer believed that Nahapana's inscriptions date to the Saka era, so his reign ended by 89 CE at the latest and more likely at or around the start of the Saka era in 78 CE. This also fits with his coins being overstruck by the Indo-Parthian Sases, whose coins are subsequently overstruck by the Kushan ruler Soter Megas/Vima Takto.
Hope this helps. Love your videos. Happy holidays!
Thank you for the tips, I'll keep them in mind for when I do the indian drachm video :)
Personally I had collected with a very limited budget when I was younger but I still have a few rare pieces. All I had to do was save up for a few months and be extremely patient and careful with what I bought. With enough time, most people could afford solidi or beautiful tetradrachms. When there’s a coin you want, there’s a way…
Hi classical numismatics love your videos
Tbh to own any decent ancient coin is amazing because you own something that passed through many ancient hands hundreds of years ago.
Great episode! Very informative and interesting. Some great Coins.
1:09 This must will be sucks for those who watch this video in 4023, when these coins will be twice as old as now and probably will be more expensive.
🤣
I recently picked up a silver Roman Denari from the Roman Republic 94BC. It's nice, w/ Roma wearing a winged helmet on the front and a 2 horse chariot pulling winged Victoria on the reverse. It's beautiful and has great detail. $100USD
I've been adding coins of Magna Graecia and Sicily to my collection.
I recently got my first ancients. I won three lots of about 50 coins each, 2 mixed imperial and one of Ae3&4 late roman bronzes that included some Aurelian and Julian coins, my two favorite emperors from that period.
I’ve had a lot of fun identifying them. There were some difficult/interesting ones like an Augustus from Corinth. I got a sestertius of Trajan and Hadrian I’ve decided to work on a sestertius set of the 5 good emperors, just ordered a Marcus Aurelius, so now just Nerva and Pius.
Your channel has been a big inspiration, I’ve been watching for about a year because of my interest in Roman history. Now I’m already hooked.
I have a couple of ottoman Akçe silver coins. Can't read what they say, but they look beautiful.
But my favorites are still the roman ones, because they tell you so very much about the culture of ancient times.
4:30 these silver double dirhams of the Eretnids (Turkish "Muluk al-Tawaif") from Anatolia, with "Allah" both as a countermark and as a "pseudo-countermark", all very scarce, have become quite plentiful in the current market in these last 2 years as a huge hoard has been dispersed by a well known German auction house.
My father got me a nice silver denarius of Hadrian for Christmas. RIC 724. From my untrained eye and your videos it seems legit. I was surprised by how small it was and by how much the head protrudes from the flat part of the coin.
8:03 one thing I’ve wanted to do was collect one coin from each major Chinese dynasty I have a few ancient and medieval Chinese coins
Hunnic coins are also nice underrated asf, probably the most varied portraits of any empire to be honest, but the term itself is a blanket term for like 50 different groups. Still very cool though
Good point, some very interesting little coins!
Incredible! Thanks for the info! Thought provoking. Thank you!
No problem! Thanks for the view and Im glad this video has provided you some value :)
Excelente video,preciosas y bellas piezas,un fuerte abrazo.
Some decades ago back in Europe I started a small collection of roman coins. As I live in Chile right now nearly the only way here to get some afordable coins is via e-bay. Unfortunately the quantity of fakes has increased along with their quailty and it is a bit risky to buy cois that way but sometimes you can find a bargain. Also the fomerly very cheap 4th century coins have risen a lot during the last years, at least when you see them classified and attributed buy some larger dealer. So I spend quite some time looking through the non assigned coins or coins from new sellers wh tend o have lower prices and shif throug the different marketplaces from USA with GB, France, Germany or Spain as each one has apparently different preferences and price tags. From the first century the Quadrans of Claudius seems to be among the most affordable selling in some occasions with a reasonable quality for some 10 - 20 Eur, especially from Spain. In Germany prices for provincial coins seem lowest and from France (little surprisingly) those from the Roman-Gaule empire. I hope to fech next year an Antoninianus of Marius that I have seen in some occasions for just under 100 Eur in that market.
I bought an antoninianus of the Emperor Valerian for C$40. It had a crack halfway across the coin, apparently because the degraded silver alloy tended to crack more easily, and quality control at the mints was also pretty poor by then. I bought it because I liked the (probably apocryphal) story that the poor man was captured by the Sassanian king and used thenceforth as a footstool for the king to mount his horse.
A denier from the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars for £32. I had thought all crusades were to do with regaining the Holy land, so the research on the coin was a welcome education.
An extraordinarily beautiful, perfectly struck Henry III penny for £95 that glitters under LED lights. The design is so modern it reminds me of Starbucks signage (only better). The only interesting thing I could find on Henry III was that he had a very long reign (56 years).
Can you do a "Affordable gold coins" ?
Meaning, nice gold coins that don't have a crazy numismatic value over spot
That would be an interesting video.
And to answer your question, byzantines, indian, flavian aureii, medieval gold and especially islamic gold are the most affordable types.
I never paid attention to ancient coins until vault box series 6 came out and I bought one for 300. And I am hooked! I have around 100 ancient coins around 50 are graded and 50 loose. I have been thinking about doing videos of my whole collection.....
Vaultbox is suuuch a bad deal :(
What coins did you get in the vault box? Kinda curious what they actually put in there.
I just bought my first ancient coin (Constantine I with Sol Invictus on reverse minted in Trier) and it got me thinking…how did this survive till now? Were most of these in hoards that survived untouched till now? Were they buried? And finally…do you have a video about that? Thanks for the great channel!
I prefer Indian coins, Western Satraps, Gadhaiya Paisa, Nagas of Narwar, Sultans of Sind, Delhi Sultans, Bull and Horseman coins are nice and cheap. In China, Wu Shu and Song Dynasty coins are the easiest to get.
Indian coins are really cool!
Motivating! I just bought Thrace Chersonesus Silver Hemidrachm Lion (400-350 BC) VG-XF for $100. We'll see what I get. I want to hold something 2,300 years old in my hand. I might make it my daily carry coin (currently a 1923 Peace Dollar). I can imagine some Greek kid, just discovering the value, clutching it in his hand, headed for the nearest store that sells sweets.
So....was it everything you hoped for?
@@BennyBunghole-tk7ts Yes. I still like holding it and thinking about the hands it passed through 2,300 years ago. I don't think I'll be collecting ancient coins, but they still interest me.
This might be a dumb question. But, who draws your art? I dig it.
I draw them myself :)
@@ClassicalNumismaticsNice! Gives me ideas.
Could you give me some names of books to help ID Ancient Greek Bronze coins. Other then the Henry Clay Lindgren Collection. Enjoy your videos so much information. Take care.
Ive got some recommendations on my video descriptions, have a look!
Also, in the old world it's easier to start with whatever is commonly found in your area
Depends where you live. Medieval Norwegian brakteats are sold for 500$+ for the most common and worn examples. A good Norwegian Medieval easily costs thousands of dollars, or more
I have been doing Obol’s and drAchm, and there is still a bit
Hello, I am a stacker and a collector (of ancient coins too).
I wanted to ask if you can make a video regarding the Illyrian coins. I do have a few but I would love to hear your thoughts 😊😊😊.
All the best, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!
Regards from Germany.
Tyty
What does it mean for a coin to be cast vs struck? Can you do a video on that.
I have a video on "coin manufacturing" you should have a look, it explains that
Many of the coins in this video seem cast by the surface bubbles and cracks that don't go through to other side but kinda end in the middle while other side is ok. Certain known defects on the surface of a few of these coins, such as open areas in the top layer(cast coins use 1 mold mostly of a real coin) from a bad mold but used to make many fakes. But hey I could be wrong. But the majority of real ancient coins are minted/hammered while the majority of fakes are cast from a mold(lost wax method maybe?). Struck coins are hammered on both sides from a hammer or similar with the images carved into the metal hammers. Then hard whacks cause the coin to literally go molten on a microscopic level, mostly in the low spots around the image. That's where you'll see the best patina changes over the years.
Roman coins are my favorite ancients
The Classical World Romans could do a lot of things better than the contemporary Qin and Han dynasty Chinese. But a mystery is why the Romans couldn't produce fine, molded, uniform coins like the Chinese could. The Chinese were capable of minting uniform-size, quality copper coins for a thousand years.
By contrast, every Roman Empire silver denarius coin, despite the ingenious designs and artwork on both sides, were not uniform circular but rough and odd shaped. You would have thought the Classical World Romans could do far better minting, neat, circular, uniform-sized coins. Historians know that the Roman Republic and the later Empire were under constant pressure to mint as many coins as possible; the demand for coinage currency was insatiable and infinite. The Romans had to pay the regular salaries of their ever-growing legionary and auxiliary armies. As the centuries moved on, emperors had to pay their soldiers increasing salaries to buy the loyalty of the legions and keep pace with inflation.
But even from an early stage that started with Marc Antony, and possibly even earlier, some Roman warlord generals and later emperors out of necessity or desperation to create more coins with lesser supplies of silver, started debasing denarii with lead. This created a vicious cycle of debased denarii coinage leading to inflation and consequently higher and higher demand for coinage to make up for the inflation.
They were quite capable of producing fine quality and uniform stamped coins but they did not see the need. Between the changing of rulers and expansion of territory and constsant influx and outflux of people from different cultures, their primary concern with coinage was practicality and usefulness as well as minting at speed to keep up with their changing economy and not making pieces of art. Usable, easily minted and distributed currency was their primary concern
But I see no archeological evidence that the ancient Romans could mint, uniform, circular coins in the quality known of Chinese copper and bronze coins. Roman coins look a wax seal, as if someone poured a small amount of molten silver on a flat metal surface then used a stamp on the melted silver to make the coins.@@Gator-357
I would only add that there are some incredibly affordable medals, tokens and modern coins out there. Royal French, Holy Roman Empire, Prussian, Austrian, and Russian, of exceptional beauty are completely ignored. The new Napoleon movie reignited the interest in them but otherwise, i am surprised that they are STILL affordable.
Many are very common, so I think (and hope) they'll stay affordable
Classical Numismatics
I have several silver Roman coins some in excellent shape, some not so much. I don't remember the names of them but a few are only worth a couple of dollars and a couple are worth a couple of thousand in early 2000's money, when I last checked them out.
hi guys, my friend found some ancient Illyrian Albanian coins, daring back over 3500 years, claimed to be much older than roman coins, they are in good condition from both sides, with portrait of king of Illyria Agron son of Pleuratus, also another one Queen Teuta and Alexander the great, can he be rich by selling those coins ? nice video.
I am guessing it was graded at MS 63 and resubmission graded MS64. Cant wait to hear the result! Thanks Daniel!
When does the video start?
0:50
4:35 correct me if I’m wrong but I believe it’s the Hadith that says that not the Quran
The more you make these videos the more you will drive prices up
Its not like you are owed a monopoly on all coins 👀
@@ClassicalNumismatics I don’t even have one
It is the well known youtube phenomenon. People get interested and prices go up. I am personally more afraid of more interest, more forgeries. I like a more engaged and more numerous participants market. This stuff is all ridiculous awesome from a history perspective. Thank you for your excellent videos. I have learned alot and love the voyeuristic journey each episode offers, so much eye candy! When I do the various 10 euro reserve auctions, I try to get types you have featured including one of those Nero tetradrachm from Alexandria. Not hugely valuable but super cool to hold in your hand knowing it has been traveling this world for almost 2,000 years and will continue on long after I will be gone. Thank you again!
@@gaineyjohnson6628 my only real worry is that people who care about profit more than history will be attracted, but I mean, at the end of the day its currency so its not exactly that it should be exempt from that either. It just is what it is.
Thanks for the reply. Good luck on starting a collection gandalfgrey91. There are several good fairly affordable auctions on biddr and there is a French weekly auction cgb that I have gotten very lucky on. If history is your primary motive, man there is a ton of super cool stuff out there that anyone can afford, 5 to 20 dollars. The 3rd century Roman silver, deflated as it was, brings in several interesting rulers and time lines. The fate of Gordian III and the abundance of his silver is always an interesting coin and an interesting story. Best of luck!
Well not anymore 😂
If you only knew how small my impact in on this market 😂
@@ClassicalNumismatics If only you knew how big the impact of your channel is on us.
@@nathanielscreativecollecti6392 Agree 100%. I'm only back into coin collecting, and only discovered the love of Greeks coins, because of this channel.