Collecting Ancients?

For many years I've had a longing to collect coins from the Roman period but never had the time until now. I already have a small collection, some attributed, some not, mostly low denomination late Roman period.

As a long time coin collector I'm aware of the many traps and pitfalls awaiting the novice and I want to avoid these as much as possible and also to shorten what is undoubtedly a pretty intimidating learning curve. I'm pretty well versed in the history of Rome ad the lines of succession but applying that knowledge to numismatics is a different story.

There are several excellent ancient forums but they are all aimed at people who are already familiar with the basics. So I thought I'd ask the good and knowledgeable folks at Numista.

1. I understand that the normal advice to not clean coins is somewhat less stringent for ancients. Has anyone published a guide to conserving coins without buying lots of expensive equipment?

2. What are the standard reference works?

3. Where can I find a guide to grading ancient coins, preferably with pictures?

4. Are the any decent websites with current values such as Numismedia or NGC?

5. Where do I find an easy to understand guide to the different denominations used throughout the Empire?

6. At what point is it generally agreed that Roman coins start and finish? For example the Eastern Empire was never really "Rome" in my view so what would be the end point for the Western Empire?

7. Is the Rome / Ancient section of Numista adequate for cataloging a collection? I don't want to blindly follow an arbitrary system only to find out much later that it's completely off the wall, like for example the current UK, Great Britain, England mess.

8. What are the best sources outside of eBay for Roman coins? I've seen bulk lots for sale of newly dug coins ready to be cleaned and identified. This seems to me to be a good way to start filling up the more common types. Are these legit or is it someone looking to offload unsaleable junk?

9. How common are forgeries and are they easy to spot?

10. What websites do you use for identifying unattributed coins?

That's the most pressing questions in no particular order. I'm sure there are just as many that it just didn't occur to me to ask.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

I have started to do some reading up on this because I was aware that there were some high quality fakes made in eastern europe. I have just finnished reading Counterfeit Studios and their Coins by Ilya Prokopov and Rumen Manov. It is from a series of books they started in the 90's about fake coins made in Bulgaria. It was an insightful book lots of images but black and white which is a shame. Some of the coins were easy to spot and some much harder. Most fakes have there tells. Unfortunately it would appear that some are not possible to detect, I was impressed by their honesty in admitting this as many dealers would be happy to cover this up.

Quote: pnightingaleFor many years I've had a longing to collect coins from the Roman period but never had the time until now.

You clearly have too much time on your hands now Mr Nightingale

Here's a couple of links that may help you identify some roman coins.

http://www.romancoin.info/

http://www.tesorillo.com/aes/home.htm

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp

http://www.dirtyoldcoins.com/Roman-Coins.html

http://ancientcoinsforeducation.org/aph/coin_id/id_1.htm

http://ancientcoinsforeducation.org/content/view/75/81/

Quote: pnightingale2. What are the standard reference works?

I have also thought about collecting ancient coins some time ago and I found that these are the most widely used reference books around:
1. H Mattingly & others, Roman Imperial Coinage , volumes 1-10 (Spink) -> RIC numbers
2. D R Sear, Roman Coins and their Values -> Sear numbers

These books, especially 1st are pricey (1st for the whole set hundreds of USD), but there are also databases of these lists online - I found this web page, for example, extremely interresting:
http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/index.html

There are coins (Roman, Greek, but also Byzantine, Celtic and old English) with their RIC or Sear numbers, with images, you can find coins by emperor etc.

Quote: pnightingale5. Where do I find an easy to understand guide to the different denominations used throughout the Empire?

If you wanted some very basic info for start, I used this little book which is for free. There are also denominations at page 6 described:
http://www.littletoncoin.com/LCC/html/pdf/how-to-collect-ancient-roman-coins.pdf

Thank you gentlemen, that was exactly what I needed and much appreciated. The foot in the door so to speak. At the very least I can now set up an album and get started, the rest will fall into place.

Walder, have you seen the article published a couple of years ago by a journalist who took several Chinese fakes around a major coin show and 50% of the major dealers failed to spot them? I posted a link to it long ago. If you'd enjoy being shocked or depressed I can find it for you. Let me know.

Quote: radrick007

Quote: pnightingaleFor many years I've had a longing to collect coins from the Roman period but never had the time until now.

You clearly have too much time on your hands now Mr Nightingale

Retirement is bliss my friend, this is my 2nd attempt having got bored and returned to work for a couple of years.

Funny thing is though, I don't seem to have any more time now than when I was working. Nightingale's Law states that the amount of dumb s*** you do expands to fill all available time.

Perhaps if I stopped calling the White House in foreign accents and give up building my Death Star I might get my coin collection in order.

Quote: pnightingaleThank you gentlemen, that was exactly what I needed and much appreciated. The foot in the door so to speak. At the very least I can now set up an album and get started, the rest will fall into place.

Walder, have you seen the article published a couple of years ago by a journalist who took several Chinese fakes around a major coin show and 50% of the major dealers failed to spot them? I posted a link to it long ago. If you'd enjoy being shocked or depressed I can find it for you. Let me know.

Sounds good - I would certainly be interested in reading it. A lot of the fakes have been very professionally made but most have visible tells that give them away. One bit of kit I have on my dream list is a spectrometer, but the fakers can easily fool this method of detection by using worn down ancient coins to strike afresh.

Quote: pnightingale

Quote: radrick007

Quote: pnightingaleFor many years I've had a longing to collect coins from the Roman period but never had the time until now.

You clearly have too much time on your hands now Mr Nightingale

Retirement is bliss my friend, this is my 2nd attempt having got bored and returned to work for a couple of years.

Funny thing is though, I don't seem to have any more time now than when I was working. Nightingale's Law states that the amount of dumb s*** you do expands to fill all available time.

Perhaps if I stopped calling the White House in foreign accents and give up building my Death Star I might get my coin collection in order.

      Phil- I'm glad you finally named that "law"! It's been buggin' me for years.

I never bother with Roman coins, mainly because I don't know enough about them to be able to spot a fake.

Ave Phil!

Sorry that I have popped into your post do late, most of the issues already has been answered, but I try to add my views, too...

Quote: pnightingale2. What are the standard reference works?

As stated above RIC [Roman Imperial Coinage] is the bible, or the KM of ancient Rome if you will. it comes in 11 volumes, easily downloadable from the net. The other source is SEAR (David Sear that is...) he has summarized the most common pieces in 5 volumes of books. These 2 are frequented in Numista as well by Tetricus, who is a helpful fellow, being a referee for Rome, pity he only speaks French  

Quote: pnightingale3. Where can I find a guide to grading ancient coins, preferably with pictures?

http://forumancientcoins.com/ - I find this amusing, as Tony suggested.

Quote: pnightingale5. Where do I find an easy to understand guide to the different denominations used throughout the Empire?

As for "easy" this would do: http://www.romancoins.info/Denominations-Early.html - however denominations makes not too much sense in Rome, as weight rules!

Quote: pnightingale7. Is the Rome / Ancient section of Numista adequate for cataloging a collection? I don't want to blindly follow an arbitrary system only to find out much later that it's completely off the wall, like for example the current UK, Great Britain, England mess.

Numista is TOTALLY NOT APPROPRIATE for Rome, as we would need alternate catalog entries (i.e. SEAR and RIC), a different year system, a section for Gods (the reverse is always a God on Romans, so most searches are done by the God, not the emperor) plus a differentiation whether Hadrianus minted the coin as "Caeasar" or "Emperor" or "Consul" ... etc.
I personally just entered the number of my coins under a random Roman coin to see my dashboard statistically correctly  - no entries here, till it gets fixed!

Quote: pnightingale8. What are the best sources outside of eBay for Roman coins? I've seen bulk lots for sale of newly dug coins ready to be cleaned and identified. This seems to me to be a good way to start filling up the more common types. Are these legit or is it someone looking to offload unsaleable junk?

I am not buying Romans on eBay or any other internet sources, unless I know they have a payback guarantee and I know the owner (one of them is www.numismatics.hu but that is Hungarian) for reasons in answer to your next question:

Quote: pnightingale9. How common are forgeries and are they easy to spot?

VERY!... well, you are far away from Bulgaria and Romania where total jewellery workshops are devoted and specialized in forgery (see Ilya Prokofjev's reports, as suggested by Tony!) - but you have to be very careful in tracking the source where the coin comes from.
Do not go for gold, as they are almost by definition untrackable remakes!
Recently, I have been in Palestine, some people call it Israel, where an aurei was on sale for 1350 USD, with a certificate, so shoutingly fake that it resembles some of the tourist copies of Chinese Taels!

In general, common Imperial sestertii, denarii and antonianii are okay to start with to give you a picture of how they look [under a microscope, as well] than you can go further in quality and in time (e.g. Roman Republic backwords)

These are my thoughts let me know if I can help you further, mate!

Romania doesn't fake coins, i have never heard of any (just regular 20 century Romanian coins). They do in Bulgaria though,
I have searched that name Ilya Prokofjev and not find anything about Romania.
Do you always use false information just to impress people(you said that Romania fake roman coins a while ago and i told you the same and you didnt say nothing) ? WW2 ended so don't get stuck in the 20 century rivalry.

Thank you for that most comprehensive reply my dear Imreh. Your encyclopedic knowledge never ceases to impress me. You are a great asset to this site and a treasured friend.

Post moderated by bam777.

Should this match between imreh and Kommodore continue both members will be banned for 24 hours.
I would advise you both not to comment on each others' posts.

Post moderated by bam777

Second warning, Kommodore.