Ancient Coins: Cataloging your Collection

[@oliet9947]

I received one of your fantastic t-shirts for Christmas. The design is of a solidus of the Roman Emperor Anastasius. The t-shirt is fantastic and the design/artwork is beautiful. I would highly recommend to anyone! Thank you for all your work on these videos, you should be very proud of the drawings/designs you make of ancient coins. They are stunning.

[@isabelcruzbenedito9656]

This is indeed very important. And for those who feel like thats too much work, a worse scenario is not fully knowing how much your collection is worth!

[@victorvanmurray7664]

Thanks for the video! I am currently in the process of catalouging my collection, as well as writing little articles about them. Its been an amazing experience to learn about the surroundings my coins were minted into, as well as the mythology behind them!

[@leehooks4957]

Always love your videos. You are such a valuable asset to our hobby. Thank you!

[@Jesse_Dawg]

I love your videos. I watched like 15 of your videos after your ToldInStone collaberation. That was such a good video. Please make more like that

[@romanancientcoins8200]

Always fun cataloguing a new coin 🙂

[@donklaser217]

I have previously gathered some of the information you mentioned in the video, but it looks like I have my work cut out for me! New Year - new task!

[@romulus1300]

I catalogue my collection - slightly differently than you have shown - but it is fun and a crucial element of the hobby.

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Thats perfectly fine :) How do you do it?

[@Numischannel]

Excellent video! Yet rather than the price paid (which may have nothing to do with the actual value of the coin), from some time now, I try to keep record of the source from which I bought the coin. This is the most important piece of info regarding the pedrigree of a coin.

[@Jesse_Dawg]

Also, I love your gold coin videos! Please make more on gold coins so I live vicariously through you because they are too expensive for me

[@stanslad7868]

Thanks for this info, although I only collect what I have dug detecting, I still need to sort them out properly.

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Properly cataloguing your finds is the very best way of knowing if you have just dug up a rare, or even unique piece :)

[@Numischannel]

Coinage of Lysimachos is one of the great lacunae in the Hellenistic kingdoms' series, a great research field. There is only a paper by Margaret Thompson that's an overview of the mints striking for Lysimachos, and then, entries in hoards such as Meydancikkale and a few others.... Müller's catalogue is very old.

[@phillipditto6590]

Excellent advice

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it :)

[@cosmo3665]

I just keep ‘em all in a treasure chest like a pirate 🏴‍☠️🤷🏽‍♂️

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Yarrr

[@alvarofranco7938]

Hi Leo, just wanted to ask: is there any danger to the coins when placing paper tags (eg: cut out from common A4 sheets) under them, maybe due to acids?. Also, is there a difference between using pencil or ink, or are they both chemically harmless? Many thanks!

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Most printer paper nowadays is acid-free, but its worth having a look at the packaging the paper came in just to be sure. As per pencil or ink, I always go for pencil. Why risk it? :)

[@flaccidvs]

I have tried to catalog using a spreadsheet but i havent included some areas but ai will after watching this video! One thing i find challenging is the fact that some of my purchases are lots of different coins without specific values for each one individually.. at that point do i make my individual entries by measuring them myself if e.g weight and diameter for individual coins are not included?

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Yes, absolutely. A scale and some calipers are really useful tools for any numismatist. Its also reasonably easy to fully ID your coins online (I have plenty of videos showing how to ID coins). With those you should have more than enough to fully catalog any coin that you get.

[@flaccidvs]

@@ClassicalNumismatics so helpful! Thank you very much!!

[@thatoneguy7191]

Am I blocked from leaving comments on this channel? Every time I refresh the page my comment is instantly removed :(

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Thats odd, you arent blocked and your comments show up here just fine :)

[@thatoneguy7191]

@@ClassicalNumismatics Let me try it again: One thing I would add to the ID cards is the denomination. You mentioned it being a tetradrachma in the video but it's not mentioned anywhere on the card. Having it there would be especially helpful for ancients and medievals, as those very rarely had any denominations mentioned on the obverse or reverse of the coin. There's also a few useful websites for cataloguing your coins online like Numista and Lastdodo. They're kind of like wikipedia's but for coins and they usually contain catalogue references as well. Numista's interface can be a bit complex, but it's great for finding ancients and it has some awesome features like a map that automatically shows where all your coins are from, and a timeline with the years of each coin you own. You also get a rough estimate of your collection value (although due to many values not being filled in, the real value is often higher.) Lastdodo does more than just coins and isn't great for ancients, but it still features a large and easy to use catalogue as well as a very nice marketplace system for buying coins. Both of them also allow you to export your collection to an Excel spreadsheet, which is quite useful. I also find that the hardest thing about identifying coins without references is actually finding the right catalogue. I often find myself using obscure websites in foreign languages and hard-to-find pdf's of physical catalogues to actually ID an old coin in order to be able to pinpoint it on websites like Numista etc. It would help a lot of new and curious collectors if there was a more easily accessible and free way to access these catalogues online in a single place. (Apologies if the text seems rough, youtube deleted my original comment for some reason so I had to redo the whole thing on memory.)

[@eammonful]

Is Amazon a good place to get coins or will those probably not have good prominance, price, etc?

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Absolutely not.