Getting Into Ancient Coins

It is very up to you as to what approach you take.

Some people making the move that you are only feel secure buying slabbed ancients. I have bought many thousands of ancients in 20 years of collecting them and only have one slabbed coin and that is because I wanted the coin and the slab was incidental. If you choose to buy slabbed coins then feel free but the majority of ancient collectors don't go this way as they like to hold their coins.

One reason that people like slabbed ancients is that it gives them the assurance that the coin is authentic. This is due to the fact that there are a lot of fakes out there and there are a lot of fakes out there.

When you start out you should be trying to familiarise yourself with what you like but also what real looks like. If at all possible buy from a dealer or set of dealers that you can trust. This will allow you to buy authentic coin but to learn about the correct stylistic attributes that make the coin real. Handling the coin will help you learn what real coins feel like. This might sound daft but you can feel a cast fake in your hand almost immediately when you have handled enough real coins.

Before buying I would suggest also looking through some fakes databases to see if there are any similar coins there. This is not necessarily to check that the coin in question is fake but will give you another point of comparison between real and fake. If you can get to the stage when you know what the fake is fake and why the real one is real you have made a big step forward. THIS MAY TAKE SOME TIME.

Ask questions.... Posting you coin in a variety of coin forums will generally solicit feedback to questions. You might learn more about the context of your coin than you already know.

If you see a deal on ebay and you think that it is too good to be true then it generally is. This is not always the case and there are always bargains to be found but you need to know what you are buying.

If you do make a mistake and buy a fake don't be put off immediately. We have all done it. Treat it as a lesson. Create a black cabinet of your fakes and copies and learn from them. Why was it wrong? How will I spot it next time?

What do you want to buy? Gold? Silver? Early Bronze? Later Bronze? There a lots of options. Study a bit. Choose a period. Enjoy.

If you are buying from a dealer then you will be paying retail prices. Don't expect to make a profit selling the coins on.

In time you will find a collecting theme or themes that catches your imagination and you can go with it. Don't get stuck on other peoples "rules" about collecting. It is YOUR collection. For example if you decided to collect portrait pieces from the Severan period you could decide to mix Roman Imperial and Roman Provincial coins because that's what you have chosen to do others might restrict a similar collection to Imperial portraits only. Neither of these is right or wrong... they are just different.

When you have decided to make the plunge please share it with us. Perhaps explain why you chose what you chose. I am sure you will get some feedback.

I was surprised to learn that NGC doesn't guarantee authenticity. I discovered that while trying to understand their grading system. Actually, buying slabbed coins was the approach I thought to take to try and avoid counterfeits. Anyway, this is my first purchase.

While NGC doesn't guarantee the authenticity of ancient coins (for legal reasons I assue), it is worth noting that the primary graders at NGC Ancients, David Vagi and Barry Murphy, are among the world's leading experts on ancient coins and will not certify coins of suspecte authenticity. Barry in particular is recognized for his expertise in Counterfeit Detection.

I will also add that this forum's automatic generation of commercial links from the text in our posts is tiresome and ethically questionable.

This is very true. I think the lack of a guarantee is because ancients are much harder to guarantee or condemn, because of the variation in production - for some issues it's not even clear what's official and what isn't. But slabs are definitely a safety net.

However, you can buy a raw coin in an auction like CNG's, whose experts are also unlikely to let a fake through, and you get this:
'CNG guarantees the authenticity of the coins we sell. Any coin determined to be a forgery may be returned for a full refund of the purchase price.'

Coins from a CNG auction won't be cheap, but you have a guarantee, and you won't have the cost of a slab on top.

Even better, if the coins are raw, you can see for yourself what a real coin looks like - the feel, the weight, the edge - all crucial in spotting a fake, and features you lose sight of once a coin's in a slab.



That Hadrian is a nice coin. If you research many ancient coins (even after you've bought them!) you find out all sorts of interesting facts about the iconography (to answer maridvnvm's question) or what they were minted for - to pay for a war, to celebrate victory, to fund an usurpation... You end up researching all sorts of things way beyond what you might've learned just by reading a book.