4 ms·

Anyone collect ancient coins? I've always thought it would be interesting to own something that was created and handled by someone in ancient Rome or Greece or

by timmg 3y ago

Anyone collect ancient coins? I've always thought it would be interesting to own something that was created and handled by someone in ancient Rome or Greece or China. My wife is 100% against the idea, though, because you don't know where they might have come from and (therefore) you could be supporting grave/site robbers. (I wonder if a case like this, thousands of coins discovered -- maybe sell some to collectors -- and we can feel good that they haven't been stolen.)

uni_rule 3y ago
I think in places like Italy they discover something of that sort almost every single time they dig a hole deep enough into the ground (eg during construction).
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Same thing in France, Germany, UK and elsewhere, except the coins are unexploded ordnances.
  - anadem 3y ago
    Some decades ago, swimming in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast, I dived to pick up what at first very-nearsighted glance (not wearing my specs in the sea) could be an amphora. At the surface it was obvious that it was an unexploded shell, which I put down very carefully then swam far away.
    - School-Cotton 3y ago
      Not sure about developing countries like Libya decades ago, but in places like France, Germany etc. there are well-developed procedures for dealing with this sort of thing, and you should definitely contact the police if you find something like this.
- jl6 3y ago
  Related… I believe there are many discoveries still to be made beneath the foundations of historic buildings that are too revered to excavate. To do a thorough survey of these sites would amount to taking down the buildings that sit on them, and nobody’s touching those UNESCO-grade buildings, so the secrets beneath remain undisturbed in modern times.
  - whycome 3y ago
    Sometimes you can find a King under a parking lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_and_reburial_of_Richard_III_of_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_and_reburial_of_Ric...
toyg 3y ago
I'm Italian, and my maternal grandfather was a "numismatist trader" (commerciante di numismatica). He made pretty good money in the '70s, when the field had a short-lived boom, but in short: don't ever do it for the money, the field is full of sharks that will happily part you from much-more-modern currency. Valuations are often pulled from thin air, even the most official-looking ones, and things that are supposed to be rare because of age (say, a Roman coin) end up being anything but - because they were coined in massive numbers. As for supporting grave robbers: that's unlikely, unless you actually live in the Middle East (where the practice is still relatively easy to carry out). You can easily look at it in the opposite way: a lot of those countries will never have the interest or money to properly look after minor artefacts; so you might as well try to preserve things for them. In terms of what to do with hoards like this one, it really depends on laws of the country - afaik in Italy they can't be sold to the public, they are automatically State property and that's it.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  It's generally estimated that the vast majority of antiquities on the market are the product of illegal activity, though typically more less severe crimes than grave robbing. It's not a problem limited to the middle east, though looting is particularly severe there. I've seen it all over the US for example, a country with particularly strong antiquities laws. People should avoid any antiquities that don't have clear provenance.
  - pbhjpbhj 3y ago
    >People should avoid any antiquities that don't have clear provenance. Stay clear of the British Museum ;o)
dr_dshiv 3y ago
I do! I never imagined I’d say that but here I am. I collect ancient Greek coins and Renaissance era books with an esoteric flair. I have a coin that was probably designed by a Pythagorean (based on imagery and dating) and several books by Marsilio Ficino. I also have several coins that appear to depict mushrooms :) In the future, I’d really love to get into collecting manuscripts in India, because there are still so many rotting away in temple basements…
- pmichaud 3y ago
  Wow, where do you source these things? I’m interested in similar!
- Analogbullfrog 3y ago
  Lovely! Which coin do you speak of? (And which ones have mushrooms on them?)
  - dr_dshiv 3y ago
    Pliny speaks of a place in Greece where the wine is so strong is has to be be diluted 20-1. Which makes no sense— wine can’t be that strong. I have a coin from there with a bunch of grapes that look very distinctly like a mushroom. The Pythagorean coin has the tripod from the Oracle of Delphi on it, two snakes, was minted in Croton and dates to 510 BC. Pythagoras’s father was a gem engraver — so there is a possibility that the coin was designed by Pythagoras himself. Magical!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
AlotOfReading 3y ago
What you're looking for is a coin with a documented provenance, basically that its modern history of ownership is known and traceable. The word used by numismatists is pedigree. Pedigreed Roman coins are widely available for relatively cheap prices ($100-$300) through reputable dealers.
- raminf 3y ago
  The trouble is finding a "reputable" dealer and a trustable path of provenance. I've been looking around for a set of specific coins from the 6th Century. They show up in searches but range from $20-$500. You can't tell if you're getting the real thing or a knock-off. Few have an escrow mechanism so you don't know if you're throwing your money into the void. So many of the websites raised red flags that I just stopped looking.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  is the modern pedigree/provenance of value because you don't want to buy stolen coins? or is it faked coins? or something else? I favor provenance, but my primary interest is ancient provenance. Authenticity of course, but I find coinage of obscure satraps with brief reigns interesting just because they nail down a small geography and time period, as opposed to say an Alexander the Great coin which, who knows, there were a ton of them everywhere.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    I don't personally collect, but as a (former?) archaeologist I have both some familiarity with the subject and a pretty strong distaste for looting. Provenance is just plain necessary for any sort of good academic work on historical artifacts. Only time I've directly purchased coinage was for the purposes of melting down into a ring for my now-wife, and that had provenance paperwork just to ensure I wasn't enriching modern looters.
bokohut 3y ago
If not coins then how about relics? Everything that someone owned before us which was lost is below our feet and all one needs to do is study old maps to correlate the increased probability of finding one of those lost things from long ago. It happened by chance, almost 15 years ago now, that I learned something about the area in which I live that piqued my interest. As one who metal detects for exercise versus paying for a gym membership like many do, my chosen exercise pays me back quite well too if your area is significantly historic. ;) This leads me to inform those reading this far with interest that stone tools are everywhere and one just needs to know what to look for. Some of these stone tools date back over 10,000 years so if owning/holding a coin that is a 1000 years old is exciting, put yourself in my shoes when I discover and pick up a point (arrowhead) that dates back 5000 years. Now consider the last person to touch it before it was lost and how many people that relic fed. I have found hundreds of such relics and many old coins in the last 15 years, just yesterday I went for a walk and found 2 more points. My neighbors house is going up for sale in a few weeks for anyone that is extremely hard core in this hobby.
latenightcoding 3y ago
I'm sorry but your partner sounds like a pain in the. History is History, Go find yourself some ancient goods.
garbanz0 3y ago
Why is grave robbing something that old immoral? Is it just the potential to ruin an archeological dig site or do we actually care about leaving these things untouched?
- naremu 3y ago
  Even though it's generally pretty morally frowned upon, it's probably a high risk to damaging historical evidence that the pillagers may not consider "valuable" for resale in the process of finding things they do. It's also pretty much destruction and hoarding/privatization of literal historical artifacts, art theft on a chronologically heart breaking scale. Really we do largely want to touch those things. Just slowly and carefully and for the benefit of a larger volume of knowledge for the whole of humanity. "It belongs in a museum" may have some good debate around it, but "it belongs on the free market for the highest bidder" is probably statistically less favored, I'd wager.
vondur 3y ago
I do. I have a variety of Roman coins dating back to Principate up to the Byzantine era. I tend to look for coins for Emperors that I find interesting, such as Trajan, Constantine, Aurelian and others. It looks like most of the coins were Folles, which were a low denomination coin. These coins were pretty much worthless starting in the late 270's until the Empire stabilized in the 330's. The Romans devalued the coins so much and inflation became so bad that the Roman government abandoned using coinage and reverted to a payment in kind system for taxes. (I believe Gold Currency was not affected as much but was only held by the very wealthy) Constantine introduced a new gold coin (solidus) at the time, which became the standard around Europe until the 1100's or so.
suzakus 3y ago
If you want a Roman coin the safest way is to get one from the UK, where they have the PAS (portable antiquity scheme) in place for legal finds. You can definitely find a coin with a PAS number and be confident it isnt looted. There is really no other good way, though. Most digs don't sell the artifacts and coins don't come with documented find spots; at best you can buy very expensive ones that were published around 140 years ago for sale, but that isnt a guarantee that the coin wasn't originally acquired fully legally

by timmg 3y ago

uni_rule 3y ago

I think in places like Italy they discover something of that sort almost every single time they dig a hole deep enough into the ground (eg during construction).

Scoundreller 3y ago
Same thing in France, Germany, UK and elsewhere, except the coins are unexploded ordnances.
- anadem 3y ago
  Some decades ago, swimming in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast, I dived to pick up what at first very-nearsighted glance (not wearing my specs in the sea) could be an amphora. At the surface it was obvious that it was an unexploded shell, which I put down very carefully then swam far away.
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    Not sure about developing countries like Libya decades ago, but in places like France, Germany etc. there are well-developed procedures for dealing with this sort of thing, and you should definitely contact the police if you find something like this.
jl6 3y ago
Related… I believe there are many discoveries still to be made beneath the foundations of historic buildings that are too revered to excavate. To do a thorough survey of these sites would amount to taking down the buildings that sit on them, and nobody’s touching those UNESCO-grade buildings, so the secrets beneath remain undisturbed in modern times.
- whycome 3y ago
  Sometimes you can find a King under a parking lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_and_reburial_of_Richard_III_of_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_and_reburial_of_Ric...

toyg 3y ago

I'm Italian, and my maternal grandfather was a "numismatist trader" (commerciante di numismatica). He made pretty good money in the '70s, when the field had a short-lived boom, but in short: don't ever do it for the money, the field is full of sharks that will happily part you from much-more-modern currency. Valuations are often pulled from thin air, even the most official-looking ones, and things that are supposed to be rare because of age (say, a Roman coin) end up being anything but - because they were coined in massive numbers. As for supporting grave robbers: that's unlikely, unless you actually live in the Middle East (where the practice is still relatively easy to carry out). You can easily look at it in the opposite way: a lot of those countries will never have the interest or money to properly look after minor artefacts; so you might as well try to preserve things for them. In terms of what to do with hoards like this one, it really depends on laws of the country - afaik in Italy they can't be sold to the public, they are automatically State property and that's it.

AlotOfReading 3y ago
It's generally estimated that the vast majority of antiquities on the market are the product of illegal activity, though typically more less severe crimes than grave robbing. It's not a problem limited to the middle east, though looting is particularly severe there. I've seen it all over the US for example, a country with particularly strong antiquities laws. People should avoid any antiquities that don't have clear provenance.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  >People should avoid any antiquities that don't have clear provenance. Stay clear of the British Museum ;o)

dr_dshiv 3y ago

I do! I never imagined I’d say that but here I am. I collect ancient Greek coins and Renaissance era books with an esoteric flair. I have a coin that was probably designed by a Pythagorean (based on imagery and dating) and several books by Marsilio Ficino. I also have several coins that appear to depict mushrooms :) In the future, I’d really love to get into collecting manuscripts in India, because there are still so many rotting away in temple basements…

pmichaud 3y ago
Wow, where do you source these things? I’m interested in similar!
Analogbullfrog 3y ago
Lovely! Which coin do you speak of? (And which ones have mushrooms on them?)
- dr_dshiv 3y ago
  Pliny speaks of a place in Greece where the wine is so strong is has to be be diluted 20-1. Which makes no sense— wine can’t be that strong. I have a coin from there with a bunch of grapes that look very distinctly like a mushroom. The Pythagorean coin has the tripod from the Oracle of Delphi on it, two snakes, was minted in Croton and dates to 510 BC. Pythagoras’s father was a gem engraver — so there is a possibility that the coin was designed by Pythagoras himself. Magical!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

AlotOfReading 3y ago

What you're looking for is a coin with a documented provenance, basically that its modern history of ownership is known and traceable. The word used by numismatists is pedigree. Pedigreed Roman coins are widely available for relatively cheap prices ($100-$300) through reputable dealers.

raminf 3y ago
The trouble is finding a "reputable" dealer and a trustable path of provenance. I've been looking around for a set of specific coins from the 6th Century. They show up in searches but range from $20-$500. You can't tell if you're getting the real thing or a knock-off. Few have an escrow mechanism so you don't know if you're throwing your money into the void. So many of the websites raised red flags that I just stopped looking.
fsckboy 3y ago
is the modern pedigree/provenance of value because you don't want to buy stolen coins? or is it faked coins? or something else? I favor provenance, but my primary interest is ancient provenance. Authenticity of course, but I find coinage of obscure satraps with brief reigns interesting just because they nail down a small geography and time period, as opposed to say an Alexander the Great coin which, who knows, there were a ton of them everywhere.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  I don't personally collect, but as a (former?) archaeologist I have both some familiarity with the subject and a pretty strong distaste for looting. Provenance is just plain necessary for any sort of good academic work on historical artifacts. Only time I've directly purchased coinage was for the purposes of melting down into a ring for my now-wife, and that had provenance paperwork just to ensure I wasn't enriching modern looters.

bokohut 3y ago

If not coins then how about relics? Everything that someone owned before us which was lost is below our feet and all one needs to do is study old maps to correlate the increased probability of finding one of those lost things from long ago. It happened by chance, almost 15 years ago now, that I learned something about the area in which I live that piqued my interest. As one who metal detects for exercise versus paying for a gym membership like many do, my chosen exercise pays me back quite well too if your area is significantly historic. ;) This leads me to inform those reading this far with interest that stone tools are everywhere and one just needs to know what to look for. Some of these stone tools date back over 10,000 years so if owning/holding a coin that is a 1000 years old is exciting, put yourself in my shoes when I discover and pick up a point (arrowhead) that dates back 5000 years. Now consider the last person to touch it before it was lost and how many people that relic fed. I have found hundreds of such relics and many old coins in the last 15 years, just yesterday I went for a walk and found 2 more points. My neighbors house is going up for sale in a few weeks for anyone that is extremely hard core in this hobby.

latenightcoding 3y ago

I'm sorry but your partner sounds like a pain in the. History is History, Go find yourself some ancient goods.

garbanz0 3y ago

Why is grave robbing something that old immoral? Is it just the potential to ruin an archeological dig site or do we actually care about leaving these things untouched?

naremu 3y ago
Even though it's generally pretty morally frowned upon, it's probably a high risk to damaging historical evidence that the pillagers may not consider "valuable" for resale in the process of finding things they do. It's also pretty much destruction and hoarding/privatization of literal historical artifacts, art theft on a chronologically heart breaking scale. Really we do largely want to touch those things. Just slowly and carefully and for the benefit of a larger volume of knowledge for the whole of humanity. "It belongs in a museum" may have some good debate around it, but "it belongs on the free market for the highest bidder" is probably statistically less favored, I'd wager.

vondur 3y ago

I do. I have a variety of Roman coins dating back to Principate up to the Byzantine era. I tend to look for coins for Emperors that I find interesting, such as Trajan, Constantine, Aurelian and others. It looks like most of the coins were Folles, which were a low denomination coin. These coins were pretty much worthless starting in the late 270's until the Empire stabilized in the 330's. The Romans devalued the coins so much and inflation became so bad that the Roman government abandoned using coinage and reverted to a payment in kind system for taxes. (I believe Gold Currency was not affected as much but was only held by the very wealthy) Constantine introduced a new gold coin (solidus) at the time, which became the standard around Europe until the 1100's or so.

suzakus 3y ago

If you want a Roman coin the safest way is to get one from the UK, where they have the PAS (portable antiquity scheme) in place for legal finds. You can definitely find a coin with a PAS number and be confident it isnt looted. There is really no other good way, though. Most digs don't sell the artifacts and coins don't come with documented find spots; at best you can buy very expensive ones that were published around 140 years ago for sale, but that isnt a guarantee that the coin wasn't originally acquired fully legally