You’d be surprised! It’s all about supply and demand. You can get very common Ancient Greek coins from 300 BC (eg ~2300 years old) for $50 these days. For example:
Do you have a coin shop in your town? If you do they tend to have a bit of everything (though most likely a focus on coins from the country you live in) and should have a few moderately priced ancient coins to choose from.
I do, but they do not. I'm the Midwest, small towns, coin shops are just very specific pawn shops. They have a fine selection of silver and gold new coins. Thanks for the suggestion though! I may drive to the nearest urban center to look. I hadn't thought of that.
If you want to be sure it's legit, try the site vcoins - they have a good selection of shops specializing in ancient greek coinage, and they have a good reputation for vetting.
Is there any particular city state / public person your friend is fond of? I'd plug that in their search bar and see what comes up.
I would choose another gift. The trade in ancient coins encourages looters to dig up ancient archeological sites, destroying their value to archeology.
I understand rarity and all, but it's still strange that there are US pennies worth far more than these coins. It makes sense, but instinctively feels wrong.
I think it's one of those things where people love US pennies because it's what they know and or grew up with (and possibly got them into collecting) - at least in the US. I always got the impression that collecting ancient coins like this was much less mainstream than people collecting the coins of the country that they currently live in.
Yes, exactly. Relative to roman coins there are much rarer limited run coins or accidents that have a lot of value now. But there are also rare-ish coins that no one cares about, like things minted specifically for collectability, say some hypothetical, commemorative Princess Diana coin that got made and marketed to rip people off who bought into the idea it would gain value.
I believe every country has a business like that nowadays, or a side-business from the official Mint that makes coins. And it's not even about whether it would appreciate in value tbh, they are a good medium for collecting and encoding important events or celebrating something.
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I don't think so - hoards like this tend to get found often enough and as far as I know the market for these sorts of coins hasn't cratered in recent times.
I presume they would come with a certificate of authenticity from a respectable source. Also, it's not in the interest of an auction house to sell fake coins. I'd be much more skeptical if it was on ebay.
You’d be surprised! It’s all about supply and demand. You can get very common Ancient Greek coins from 300 BC (eg ~2300 years old) for $50 these days. For example:
https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/greek/ancients-phoenicia-s...
Of course you can also get rare ones for $thousands or $millions. All about who cares and how many there are.