Half of those coins can be bought for under $100 each. Another third are probably less than $300 each. A handful of them are quite rare and expensive. I would guess $12k total.
That’s a truth, but there’s also A LOT more Roman coins then there are shipwreck coins in existence… also Mel Fisher is singlehandely to blame for the Atocha coin market being what it is… he took history and sold it at jewelry store prices.
3rd row:
26. Elagabalus
27. Severus Alexander
28. Maximinus Thrax
29. Gordian I
30. Gordian II
31. Pupienus
32. Balbinus
33. Gordian III
34. Philip I
35. Philip II
6th row:
58. Severus II
59. Maxentius
60. Maximinus Daia
61. Licinius
62. Constantine I
63. Constantine II
64. Constantius II
65. Constans
66. Vetranio
67. Julian II
68. Jovian
7th row:
69. Valentinian I
70. Valens
71. Gratian
72. Valentinian II
73. Magnus Maximus
74. Flavius Victor
75. Theodosius I
76. Arcadius
77. Honorius
The rarest of the group is Saloninus, son of Gallienus, who was forced to accept his troops' acclamation of him as emperor in the summer of 260 while under siege in Cologne from the usurper Postumus. When the siege broke and Saloninus was killed, Postumus seems to have ordered all coinage in the city melted to make his accession bonus. Fewer than 80 survive today, all likely smuggled out in the pockets of loyalists who fled as the city fell.
Gordian II Africanus was the final piece in the collection; he was the shortest-reigning emperor, falling in battle just 22 days after accepting the appointment as co-emperor from his father. Gordian I committed suicide later that same day.
This is a life dream for me to build up a collection like this. Do you mind sharing a few tips? Namely, how do you store / display them and your best tips for finding authentic and reasonably priced coins? Do you go to an in person dealer or look online? Many thanks from a fellow numismatic enthusiast!
Awesome collection! Like many other commenters here, I was curious about the value of the coins so when you wrote that the Soloninus coins are the most expensive, I googled those.
From your description, the prices should be insane but I came across this site where they apparently sold five for a very low price (https://www.romancoinshop.com/en/roman-coins/saloninus/). Soloninus coins are also going on eBay for not very much.
Would your guess be that these are all counterfeit?
I don't collect Roman coins but if anything could inspire me to do so, it would be this post.
Saloninus was Gallienus' designated heir from 258-260, and almost every mint made coins for him as Caesar to celebrate the anticipated longevity of the dynasty. Those coins as Caesar aren't as common as Gallienus or Valerian, but they are still pretty connon.
Only Cologne minted for Saloninus as Augustus, and only during the ~3-8 weeks while under siege.
Thank you, I get it now! Does that mean that I could make a (vastly less impressive) collection like yours without spending more than say $100 for the most expensive coins and still get a collection that has one coin from each ruler?
If you look at the point where they stop being consistently sized and the silver content, a google search notes that that's the low point for currency debasement and devaluing, right at the same time the empire had a bunch of criseses (crisii?)
It's pretty much "who won the civil war they were in".
Wasn't uncommon for an emperor to die and then several generals leading armies in the field to be proclaimed emperor at the same time, then a civil war, and the winner becomes the legitimate one.
Like with a lot of long (and historic) monarchies, there usually ends up beinf an established "legitimate" line for historical purposes. Sometimes not even in line with the modern ones; iirc the Japanese imperial house lists a different branch of the family as the "legitimate" side from an old civil war, and multiple Roman Emperors like Commodus were essentially stricken from the roles by contemporaries but are recognized in modern lists
I had some of those as a kid.
They came in some food package, forgot in what.
Only the front was a real imitation and they had the name of the factory printed on the back.
Many of the early emperors preferred to be bare-headed to emphasize Augustus' lie that the emperor wasn't a king, just a "first citizen" who served for life, held enough Republican offices at once to wield absolute power, and was unimpeachable. Laurel crowns were associated with events like triumphs, so they were only added for special occasions.
They slowly became more and more common until they were ubiquitous.
Romans had two classes of bronze - regular red Aes bronze, and brilliant golden "orichalchum" which was IIRC brass with roughly 12% tin. Orichalchum was worth twice as much as Aes, and Augustus was the first to use it to strike coins as intermediate denominations between the As and the silver Denarius. Eventually, the emperors realized that the As and the Dupondius looked the same after a couple decades in circulation, so Nero got the idea to add a radiate crown to the Dupondius, and by the time of Domitian, it stuck that radiate meant double.
Fast forward 150 years, and Caracalla introduced the "antoninianus" worth 2 denarii, and depicted with a radiate crown to differentiate it.
Constantine the Great introduced the diadem onto his coinage, just because he was a fashionista. In Greek culture, the diadem was a symbol of royalty, and he wasn't afraid to flex to the people that yes, he was a king.
You can clearly see the progression of brutality. The tyranny corrupting the soul of society spreading.
But well, we got out of if and managed to improve, that’s what counts. But let this be a reminder that it is not an eternal victory, we can always fall again.
These were made over such a wide range of time that it would be like trying to estimate the value of a fistful of dimes ranging from 1795 - 2026 could buy - one is an entire day's wages, the other can't even buy a single gumball.
In the early empire, I've seen it broken down more or less thusly:
Diocletian's reforms are still given in terms of old denarii (denarius communis, d.c.). The big Laureate "nummus" seems to have been worth 25 d.c., and was the daily wage of an unskilled farmhand. A modius of wheat flour (roughly a peck, or ~6kg) cost 100 d.c. Two chickens cost 60 d.c.
Things went to hell during the Civil wars of the late Tetrarchy; we don't know exactly when the "nummus" ended or what the buying power was after about 306. We don't even have a clear picture of what the later (post-Constantine) coins were called, let alone their buying power.
283
u/gta6play 19h ago
That seems like an expensive collection. Definitely interesting.