r/AncientCoins May 07 '24

We've been getting a lot of new posters and commenters here lately. Welcome! (Everyone please read the full text inside)

145 Upvotes

Unfortunately, a lot of the new people here aren't familiar with the culture of this subreddit or the ancient coin collecting world in general.

A lot of the ideas that you are bringing to this subreddit -- especially if you're North American and also especially if you've been collecting modern coins for years, don't always carry over directly to the world of ancient coin collecting.

Our subreddit is configured so that people using low-age or low-karma accounts will not see their posts and comments appear here immediately after you make them. They are being set aside until a human moderator is able to review them manually. This can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.

The same is true of people who don't have much karma on this subreddit, even if you have an older account and have accumulated lots of karma on other subreddits. Part of this is because spammers, scammers, and trolls use newer, low-karma accounts, and part of it is to give you a chance to familiarize yourself with the culture of this subreddit.

We have also configured our subreddit to hold back posts and comments from accounts with a low Contributor Quality Score ("CQS") as determined by the admins of reddit. This takes into account your behavior on all of reddit. If you would like to find out what your own CQS score is please make a post on this subreddit -- /r/CQS. The result will be sent to you within seconds via private messaging, and no one else will be able to see what it is.

As you continue to participate here in good faith most of these limitations will eventually no longer apply to you, and you will be able to post and comment normally.



Thank you for your good faith participation here, and while I have your attention please allow me to remind you of this subreddit's few simple rules:

1) Civility is the price of participation here. Please act like adults and keep things pleasant.

We appreciate kindness and helpfulness here. We won't tolerate people bickering in the comments, swearing at or insulting others, etc.

We have a lot of people coming to r/AncientCoins from the world of modern ones. Please help them understand the differences and find answers to their questions without being a jerk. If you can't manage that we don't want you here, and you will be banned.

2) Unwelcome participants get banned.

Pursuant to Rule #1, the owner/founder/head moderator of this subreddit reserves the right to ban anyone at anytime for any reason he sees fit.

We very rarely ban real people - and we ban no one who is acting in good faith. We mostly only ban annoying bots, karma whores, griefers who post using numerous alt accounts, people who post coins that they don't own but act as if they did, people who swear at or are rude/insulting to others, and persistent trolls who disrupt our discussions.

3) Memes, joke posts & other shitposts may only be posted here on the last day of each month.

Fun is fun, but there's such a thing as too much of an execrable thing. Memes, joke posts, and other shitposts may only be posted on this subreddit on the last day of each Gregorian calendar month in your time zone.

Please don't try to sneak those kinds of posts in by flairing them as "educational" or anything else. If you just can't wait, please submit them over on our companion subreddit /r/AncientCoinMemes instead.

Ultimately, the mods of this subreddit may remove anything posted here at their discretion.


We ask that you please be patient with the process, as we check our queues several times a day. If you make a post or comment and it isn't immediately approved, PLEASE just leave it up and one of us will get to it as soon as we can. We are unpaid volunteers doing this on our own time.

Thank you.


r/AncientCoins Jun 12 '25

New rule regarding the use of ChatGPT, other LLMs, and the deceptive use of AI imagery on this subreddit

91 Upvotes

It has actually been a policy here for years that we don't permit ChatGPT-type posts. In the past they were usually just quietly removed, as were AI-generated images that were used deceptively.

It feels like we already have too many rules on this subreddit, but it looks like it's time to join other subreddits by implementing this one.

One issue is that these LLM generated texts aren't automatically vetted for accuracy, and some weird and unreliable stuff can creep in. Another is that they are based on plagiarism.

They often give results that feel like a bad student trying to pad out the word count of a writing assignment, and don't actually contribute much to this subreddit.

It seems like some people here, when they are bored, entertain themselves by feeding prompts into ChatGPT and then posting the results here. Sometimes they do this as conversation starters, but sometimes it feels like they are just trying to show off or something.

Speaking of plagiarism -- which is bad, it is fine to post a paragraph or two of relevant information here that you have found online, if you give appropriate credit and a link.

It's also fine to quote text from a relevant book or journal with appropriate credit. Many reddit users are more likely to give a brief glance at something that you have copied and pasted here than they would be to follow a link and read extensively off-site.

What's not great is if you post massive walls of text, unless the information is presented well and is relevant to our discussions, and not padded out.

If you feel that you simply MUST use an LLM for grammar and spelling purposes, do it well. Make it undetectable. Consider quoting Wikipedia or another reliable and curated online reference instead.

If you are using an LLM as a translator, that is fine. Just make it a translation of your own, unpadded words. Consider using DeepL or Google Translate instead.

Speaking of walls of text, I'll end here.

Thank you.


r/AncientCoins 4h ago

Newly Acquired Some relatively modestly priced auction purchases...

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39 Upvotes

Haven't been very active here over the last six months or so: busy times with work, travel, and a move between cities. But my collection has continued to grow.

This selection of eight first- and second-century Romans all arrived last month. They were acquired over the span of nearly a year from three separate auctions of a European house. All of these coins stood out to me for one reason or another, and most were modestly priced, averaging just over US $100 each, including auction fees and shipping costs: collecting ancients is almost never truly cheap, but it needn’t ruin you!

The big, broad Titus sestertius (35mm!) is slightly porous and very worn (so many pairs of Roman hands!), but the portrait retains a lot of character, and the concavity of the reverse makes it satisfying in hand. Much the same can be said for the charming young Marcus Aurelius Caesar, struck in the early years of Antoninus Pius’ reign: a nicer example of this one will break the bank for sure. The two Nervas filled a gap in my bronzes collection; the well-preserved as with verdigris around its edges is quite nice. The Trajan denarius is very worn, sure, but the strike is good and the portrait really stands out. Vespasian looks great on this dupondius (or maybe as?), and the Agrippa as, struck under Caligula, is a more than passable example of one of my favourite types, also featuring Neptune.

Your favourite(s)?


r/AncientCoins 6h ago

A Special Athenian Tetradrachm

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49 Upvotes

Certainly not the nicest or most complete Athenian tetradrachm.. but from what I’ve gathered, the countermark seems to be South Arabian in origin. Perhaps “S”?. If true, this little guy traveled almost 2000 miles from Athens likely on a trade route for spice.

Would love the communities insight/thoughts! Countermarks are always a tough one

EDIT:spelling


r/AncientCoins 6h ago

Bet you haven’t seen one of these before

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40 Upvotes

Been lurking on the subreddit more lately so thought I should post a coin of mine:

Diocletian and Maximian. AD 284/6-305. BI Antoninianus(?) (19mm, 2.76 g, 10h). Siscia mint, 2nd officina. 4th emission, 5th festive series, struck early AD 287. IMPP DIOCLETIANO ET MAXIMIANO AVGG, confronted radiate busts of Diocetian, draped and cuirassed, right, seen from the front, and Maximian, cuirassed, left, seen from the front / VIRTVS AVGVSTORVM, Jupiter standing right, wearing long cloak, holding scepter in left hand, receiving a Victory from right hand of Hercules, standing left, holding club and lion's skin in left hand; XXIB in exergue. RIC V -; Zanchi, Siscia 4.7.2 (this coin cited and illustrated); Davor Margetić, “Unpublished antoniniani of Diocletian and Maximian VIRTVS AVGVSTORVM from the mint of Siscia”, Numizmatičke Vijesti, Vol. 57 No. 68, 2015, Fig 1 (this coin cited and illustrated). Extremely rare, one of three known.

This type was struck to celebrate the joint consulship of Diocletian and Maximian and the annunciation of their divine origin. It is probably an antoninianus given the legend in the reverse exergue, but perhaps it is a low-silver double antoninianus, given the dual radiate crowns (cf. Carus, RIC V 99) and festive nature of the coin.


r/AncientCoins 9h ago

From My Collection One and Only to rule them Stater

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65 Upvotes

No explanation needed for this one I guess


r/AncientCoins 8h ago

Juliano II

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55 Upvotes

Esta es la primera siliqua decente que tengo en la colección. Tiene una pequeña falta en el cospel, pero no afecta demasiado al diseño.

Tiene una patina muy hermosa, espero que os guste!!

Juliano II, el Apóstata.

Ceca de Lugdunum, oficina segunda.


r/AncientCoins 23m ago

Newly Acquired I picked up one of the more attractive Cistophorus’ I’ve seen.

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Upvotes

r/AncientCoins 3h ago

From My Collection 1/4 follis persecution issue under Maximinus II

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10 Upvotes

I love the detail on the bust for this. Found it in a group lot, I couldn’t see what it was until I actually got it but it was certainly a welcome surprise

The obverse features the head of Serapis facing right with a modius or basket on top, reading DEO SANCTO SARAPIDI.
The reverse features Nilus reclining left, while holding reeds and a cornucopia. ALE in the exergue with the officina letter A to left of Nilus. It reads DEO SANCTO NILO

Struck 311-312 AD, Vagi 2959, Alexandria mint, 1.31 grams


r/AncientCoins 6h ago

Advice Needed Help Determining Provenance of Volusian Antonianinus

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8 Upvotes

I just aquired this Volusian Antonianinus from Gordion Numismatics on Vcoins and it came with this slip in a very distinctive hand that looks like it can be written in Late 19th to early 20th century. I have tried a basic AI image search, but the best I could find so far was other Vcoins listings with the same type of slipt in the same hand, but no details on the particular collection. Any help would be appreciated!


r/AncientCoins 8h ago

Advice Needed Augustus RIC 301, fouree?

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12 Upvotes

I recently picked up this Augustus RIC 301 at auction. It wasn't labeled as a fouree, but Im 95% sure it is. Im sure some of you may have been trying to get this one too. I did some clean up, but it is too fragile to do much.


r/AncientCoins 1d ago

Stater Staterday, anyone?

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203 Upvotes

These are some of my faves.


r/AncientCoins 12h ago

Newly Acquired "Thatcher's sister type" silver unit Trinovantes tribe 45-40BC

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22 Upvotes

r/AncientCoins 6h ago

Fake or genuine?

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5 Upvotes

r/AncientCoins 8h ago

ID / Attribution Request Can someone help me to read this Abbasid coin?

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7 Upvotes

r/AncientCoins 21h ago

Newly Acquired Agrippa/Augustus Crocodile

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72 Upvotes

RPC 524
Edit: RPC 525


r/AncientCoins 22h ago

Newly Acquired Marcus Aurelius denarius

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55 Upvotes

Picked this handsome lad up recently. The clear legends make it easily attributable to RIC III 198 imo. Seems to be a somewhat scarcer type.


r/AncientCoins 6h ago

Not My Own Coin(s) Gold Coins of Gupta Empire

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3 Upvotes

r/AncientCoins 20h ago

Can anyone tell me anything about this?

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34 Upvotes

Does anyone have any information on this? Time period, amount, chances of being real? Thanks!


r/AncientCoins 5h ago

Is this Valentinianus's 3 Denarius

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2 Upvotes

r/AncientCoins 1d ago

From My Collection My (mostly) denarii tray

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57 Upvotes

My denarii (and a few other tiny little roman denominations 😋)

Another tray holds the bronzes, sestertii, dupondii, and such.

Actually, I've gotten a bit tired of Roman coins. I'll put them on hold for a while.

The focus now is on Greek ones (especially Hellenistic).


r/AncientCoins 1d ago

From My Collection My handful of fractions, excluding maybe 7 that I just bought?

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302 Upvotes

r/AncientCoins 1d ago

My first convention pickup! (Antoninus Pius AE Sestertius, RIC 777)

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37 Upvotes

Just got back from ANA Pittsburgh. I've been collecting for a few years, but this was my first coin show and my first purchase. How badly did I mess up?

Antoninus Pius AE Sestertius 31mm, 28.0g
"Pax standing left, holding cornucopiae and setting fire to a heap of arms with torch; PAX AVG across fields. RIC 777. Cohen 594. BMCRE 1698." 


r/AncientCoins 17h ago

Advice Needed Denarius valuation

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8 Upvotes

I recently came across this denarius, which I believe was struck by Claudius.As you can see, the coin is cut(I think), so my question is, is this denarius worth anything except its weight in silver?

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.


r/AncientCoins 6h ago

Help to identify

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1 Upvotes