I purchased a massive collection of ancient coins along with coins from the 1700's and 1800's 0

[Standby]

Can someone offer a resource to sort these out and determine value. I'll post images as I go through this but it's going to take a while I believe there is about 1000 envelopes with old coins from all over the world. Lots of ancient coins as well. This will be a lot of fun!

 

[Just Bob]

I foresee a lot of late nights in your future. 

You will have a ball with all of those, though. I know I would.

Here is a good place to start: https://www.wildwinds.com/

[Standby]

Here are a few more images. I'm going to start by separating them into ancient coins, 1700's and 1800's then countries.

Here are a few more images. If you spot anything good from my lousy pictures please let me know. I will take better images in time. I just opened up the package.

 

[RWB]

Sort by country or region, then determine which references pertain to those. You seem to have a lot of pieces with labels, so that will cut research time. Once you know what you have, then you can begin to determine what they are worth. The white envelopes look a lot like dealer foreign from 2x2 boxes which often means they are worth  $1 or $5 retail.

If you bought these, you must have a rough guess about value.

Edited December 20, 2022 by RWB

[Zebo]

Itemize, itemize and itemize. Once that is done you can start researching in earnest. 

[Standby]

I am seeing that many are worth $1-$5 as you said.

I am coming across a few good ones though.

Straits Settlements 1891&1894 10C

Plus I have a good 30 ancient silver, brass and copper coins. All of them are in the $50 and up range. I bought the lot for fun. I hope to calculate my cost out of it and trade it or sell it all to a dealer for US coins or a coin but who knows there could be a winner in here. They look very old. I would guess put away in the early 70's. I have at least 1000 coins and they are all labeled so yes it helps.

Does anyone here like ancient coins?

Let me know I will be glad to sell them or trade them for US. 

[Hoghead515]

I really like that little siver ancient with the carrige and horses. I dont know what it is or how much its worth. I just like it. Looks like a very nice little hoard. Nice additions.

[RWB]

A biga (2 horses) or quadriga (4 horses) were popular reverse designs for centuries among Attic and Italiate cultures..

[JKK]

If you want help with the ancients, ask away.

If you mostly want to do it yourself, Wildwinds as mentioned is a good source. For Roman stuff, so is Aorta or ERIC II (both by PNW homie Rasiel Suarez), but either of those might cost you more than the whole ancient collection is worth. The Sear volumes are another expensive but potentially useful attribution tool. All of the above probably cost me $800 in total.

The method I use to study an ancient coin and sort out its devices, I call BORTE. I take out a little slip of paper (the little notepads charities give you as "gifts from the children" are very helpful), leave room at the top, and write in column at left: B O R T E. Bust (or other obverse device), obverse legend (including writing in the field), reverse legend (same but other side), type (as in reverse device), and exergue (area at the bottom reverse where Roman imperial mint marks are common; also can refer sort of to writing in the field). I then write down what I see. If a legend is missing letters or they are indistinct I try and use underbars for those spots. At the top I write what country I think it comes from, the evident metal, and its weight and diameter (grams and mm). Once I have organized my approach in this way, I start looking through my books or Wildwinds. I update it as I figure out what I'm really seeing. Wildwinds will generally supply you with catalog numbers so there is no need for you to become a total ancients nerd with more money invested in books than in coins, though if you want to go hardcore you'll find that antiquarians--in history studies as well as numismatics--tend to be a very kind bunch, eager to share what we've learned.

If you want the fastest approach to doing it yourself, post pics here, sharp and cropped obverse and reverse, one coin per thread, and tag me (I normally ignore this forum and just happened in; ever since they consolidated basically all coins here, it ceased to mean anything). If you post them without weight and diameter, of course, I'll be patient and wait for you to realize you need to add that (if you don't bother, that's fine, but neither will I). Once they're posted in usable form, I'll at least give you some idea of where to start looking. That combined with Wildwinds should get you through quite a few of them. It will also tell you just how many subvariations can exist for a given denomination.

Metal abbreviations: AV=Au or electrum, AR=Ag, AE=all the copper-based alloys, BI=billon (debased or even trace silver). That is the language of ancient metal alloys and you might as well soak it up. I had to create one of my own recently: SN=Sn, for attributing a tin dinheiro of one of Portugal's Indian Ocean colonies. I admit it: I just thought it was cool to have a real tin coin, and really really wanted to put that on the insert. Plus it wasn't too spendy. A juvenile indulgence, which is totally okay in ancient numismatics.

You probably trust the attributions you see on some of the holders. I wouldn't. One of my rituals when I buy new stuff is to take it home and check on the attribution. Dealers don't always know much about ancients and are rarely willing to spend an hour or two on an ancient bronze, so they'll just write Constantius AE 12 (or whatever) and charge the $8-12 one may reasonably charge for a worn example. You should look them up yourself and make your own judgment. I even look up coins I buy from the ancients guru in our coin club, one of my great mentors--not because I don't respect him, but for learning purposes and because he would expect it of me. In fact, he'd be proud to have helped equip me to question his attributions.

Edited December 20, 2022 by JKK

[JKK]

On 12/20/2022 at 3:29 AM, Hoghead515 said:

I really like that little silver ancient with the carriage and horses. I don't know what it is or how much its worth. I just like it. Looks like a very nice little hoard. Nice additions.

It's a Republic AR denarius, probably second century BCE, but I haven't looked it up. They aren't very expensive, typically $70-100. If I recall correctly, that type is fairly common and should be affordable. The coinage doesn't have a ruler because the Republic of course did not have rulers, just consuls and censors and praetors, so there's something on the obverse other than a living person's head--at least until the mid-first century BCE if memory serves. Usually the name of the magistrate in charge of coinage is in the legend, I think; memory slips me as to whether that was a consul, praetor, aedile, etc.

Edited December 21, 2022 by JKK

[blazeaglory]

Need help opening envelopes? Haha

 

Seriously you have allot of mid level ancients. Early Roman, Greek, etc... maybe more better stuff too but so far what I see is the stuff I like!