I've always thought it would be interesting to own something that was created and handled by someone in ancient Rome or Greece or China.
My wife is 100% against the idea, though, because you don't know where they might have come from and (therefore) you could be supporting grave/site robbers.
(I wonder if a case like this, thousands of coins discovered -- maybe sell some to collectors -- and we can feel good that they haven't been stolen.)
I collect ancient Greek coins and Renaissance era books with an esoteric flair. I have a coin that was probably designed by a Pythagorean (based on imagery and dating) and several books by Marsilio Ficino. I also have several coins that appear to depict mushrooms :)
In the future, I’d really love to get into collecting manuscripts in India, because there are still so many rotting away in temple basements…
The Pythagorean coin has the tripod from the Oracle of Delphi on it, two snakes, was minted in Croton and dates to 510 BC. Pythagoras’s father was a gem engraver — so there is a possibility that the coin was designed by Pythagoras himself.
Magical!
So many of the websites raised red flags that I just stopped looking.
I favor provenance, but my primary interest is ancient provenance.
Authenticity of course, but I find coinage of obscure satraps with brief reigns interesting just because they nail down a small geography and time period, as opposed to say an Alexander the Great coin which, who knows, there were a ton of them everywhere.
Only time I've directly purchased coinage was for the purposes of melting down into a ring for my now-wife, and that had provenance paperwork just to ensure I wasn't enriching modern looters.
As for supporting grave robbers: that's unlikely, unless you actually live in the Middle East (where the practice is still relatively easy to carry out). You can easily look at it in the opposite way: a lot of those countries will never have the interest or money to properly look after minor artefacts; so you might as well try to preserve things for them.
In terms of what to do with hoards like this one, it really depends on laws of the country - afaik in Italy they can't be sold to the public, they are automatically State property and that's it.
People should avoid any antiquities that don't have clear provenance.
Stay clear of the British Museum ;o)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_and_reburial_of_Ric...
It's also pretty much destruction and hoarding/privatization of literal historical artifacts, art theft on a chronologically heart breaking scale.
Really we do largely want to touch those things. Just slowly and carefully and for the benefit of a larger volume of knowledge for the whole of humanity.
"It belongs in a museum" may have some good debate around it, but "it belongs on the free market for the highest bidder" is probably statistically less favored, I'd wager.