Starting a Collection

——————————————-Collecting tall versus wide——————————————-

To steal a term from strategy gaming, an important question to ask yourself is at this point in your collecting do you want to focus on collecting “tall” or “wide”?

Tall in this context means to focus on high quality specimens or rare emperors. Most eras of Roman history have a rare emperor or a type of obverse/reverse that costs significantly more than others. Certain Greek coinage also falls into this, such as Attican tetradrachms.

Wide means to focus on quantity. However, quantity doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice quality. Emperors such as Gordian III have ample high quality coins available for very affordable prices and periods such as the Severans or Crisis of the Third Century have similar emperors.

This question doesn’t have to be set in stone. At the early stages of your collection, going wide may be more worthwhile. When I started my goal was to acquire a “decent” obverse of the emperors of whatever period I was working on. Very rare or high quality coins weren’t much of a consideration. Once I completed the majority of my initial collection, I began focusing on going tall - spending my resources on high quality.

In short, assess this now and return to it often.

——————————————-Ideas for Collecting——————————————-

Every collector will have their own opinion on collecting but here are some suggestions:

  1. Start with the “Five Good Emperors”. Nerva is the only one that may be a bit more pricey but is still very affordable.

  • Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius

2. The obvious next expansion would be to complete the Antonine dynasty with Lucius Verus and Commodus.

3. There are a couple options from here. They are:

  • 3a. Julio-Claudian dynasty. Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero. This can be an expensive set to complete, depending on if you only want denarii or if provincial bronzes work.

  • 3b. Flavian dynasty. Vespasian, Titus, Domitian. Out of the 3, only Titus can be challenging for an affordable nice specimen.

  • 3c. Severan dynasty. I consider this the easiest option and a good way to expand your collection with quality, affordable specimens.

4. A tempting option is to complete the Crisis of the Third Century. While many emperors in this series are very affordable, quality specimens (and just specimens in general for some) can be prohibitive depending on your budget. Still, you can acquire many quality antoninianus from this period if you want a wider collection.