Where's it been?

tbh

Hi all,

just a general question. i recently bought my first roman coin, it's around 1750 years old. I was just wondering, if anyone is in the biz, where's it likely to have been all this time? in the ground, or maybe in a vault or something? It's not really important, i'm just curious more than anything.

RoundyMooney

Cool.

Can we see a pic?

SpitfireIV

tbh wrote: »

Hi all,

just a general question. i recently bought my first roman coin, it's around 1750 years old. I was just wondering, if anyone is in the biz, where's it likely to have been all this time? in the ground, or maybe in a vault or something? It's not really important, i'm just curious more than anything.

Ground perhaps? Well....depends on its condition I guess. I'm always amazed when watching the 'Time Team' when they are dealing with Roman Sites, they do those field walks first or metal detection are are constantly finding Roman coins, broaches etc and they seem to think nothing of them, they must be as common over there as us finding c.1980's Coke pull tabs here

tbh

RoundyMooney wrote: »

Cool.

Can we see a pic?

yeah it is cool It's amazing to think who had it before me.

sorry the image is so bad, phone cam



here's a similar coin, better pic tho

RoundyMooney

I'd be inclined to think it was stuck in the ground as well.

Still, though, what a piece of history to hold in your hand!

tbh

and only 20 quid! It puts pressure on me tho, I'd hate to be the one to lose it. Mind you, if some centurion had been more careful with it a thousand years ago, I wouldn't have it, so swings and roundabouts

ODD-JOB

I once "spent" an ancient Roman coin in a supermarket by accident.
I had it in my pocket amongst other Irish coinage.

A fool and his money .......:rolleyes:

What a beuatiful thing to have , collecting Roman coinage can be quite affordable.
The silver one s are called Denarii , ... and they can be such good value !

Apparently soldiers in the Roman legions got paid about 25-30 denarii a month,... so in proportion , they carry similar monetary weight today./
they can be picked up usually for approx 100 euro or less sometimes.
then of cousrse the rare one's are really expensive, or the ones that have a beautiful crisp "strike" of an image , like the second image you posted !

I wonder in 1000 years , will they be finding rolls of banknotes under ancient farmers matresses ??
In the ancient Roman times , The safest place to hide your money was under the clay.... they find more and more every year, so they dont get any rarer as such.

Try to find a coin that was struck during the time of an emporer with a very short reign !! There can be only a small amount ever to exist of these examples.

Blade

I collect Irish and Roman coins and Roman artefacts. Things like brooches, keys, rings etc. Theres hundreds of different types, with silvers like these ranging from around $8 upwards. Some cheaper common bronzes you'll pick up for a dollar or two. It's fun if you want to start off by picking a common emperor like Gordian III and collecting all the different reverses of his coins, different god's and goddesses, commemoratives etc. Then you might also have their wives or other family members on a whole range of coins. The average price I paid for silvers like these was about $20.

I bought a lot of stuff from this guy, have a look through some of the cool things he has:
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZancientQ5ftreasures

Most of this stuff is being dug up all the time around the balkans. Soldiers would usually bury their stash for safe keeping before they went off to war. Of course many would not make it back, so often large hoards are discovered.

My father told me of when he was 14 growing up near Rome that they use to find lots of Roman coins while playing in the fields. Being kids they tried to buy sweets with them but the shop keeper refused to take them as he didn't know what they were either. Having no value to them they just threw them away. They were finding them around this massive rock that sat in the middle of a farmers field. The farmer was sick of having to work around this rock and wasn't able to move it cause it was so big so he had it blown up with dynamite. Underneath they found hundreds of apparently previously very rare Roman coins. The farmer was conned into selling them cheaply to some unscrupulous individual who then sold them to the Vatican. Because there had previously only been a few of these particular coins in existence, the Vatican had them all melted down except for 3 which they kept. This was done to keep the value up. What a shower of w***ers eh!

Degsy

A lot of roman coins are dug up in england by people with metal detectors,the really common ones in bad condition are known as "grots" and can be bought almost by the kilo.Different coins will have different patinations depending on the kind of soil they lay in.Does anybody know for sure if any roman coins were ever discovered in Ireland?

Riamfada

Two Roman coins placed on the bodies of two burials in Bray, Co.Dublin dating to the end of the 100AD. Plenty found around the megalithic sites such as Newgrange, Knowth and a possible roman site at Loughshinny. So yeah, lots and lots of Roman stuff in Ireland. Luckily its not common enough for people to go randomly digging it up so we get a picture of the extent of Roman penetration into Ireland.

Blade

Talking to an Archaeologist a while back, he suggested that the relatively few Roman finds made in Ireland, like a fibula on one of the Islands off Howth may have just been brought over by merchants at the time.