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Comment by kadushka | Hacker News Reader

A thousand year old coin for $1000? That seems rather cheap.

(Professional coin nerd here)

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.

wonder how much that coin is worth now vs how much it was worth in 300 Bc

Prices in Ancient Greece in Athens in the 5th century BC

1 loaf of bread 1 obolos

The standard rate for a prostitute 3 oboloi

6 oboloi are 1 drahma, about 4 drahmai to the shekel. That coin is 1/16 shekel, so about 1.5 loaves

Either bread was expensive or hookers cheap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

> the tendency for wages in jobs that have experienced little or no increase in labor productivity to rise in response to rising wages in other jobs that did experience high productivity growth. In turn, these sectors of the economy become more expensive over time, because their input costs increase while productivity does not. Typically, this affects services more than manufactured goods, and in particular health, education, arts and culture.

This is a really roundabout way of referencing the scene in Silicon Valley where he figures out the new algorithm while everyone else is having a side conversation about how best to manage the conference attendees.

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.

If I was looking for one of those coins as a gift for a friend who is very into ancient Greece, where would I go?

Bearing in mind that I know nothing about ancient Greece and coins in equal parts.

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.

Actually that's a really good question. I'll have to surreptitiously dig to find out.

And by dig, I mean ask literally anything and listen to the half hour lecture.

Thanks!

I would choose another gift. The trade in ancient coins encourages looters to dig up ancient archeological sites, destroying their value to archeology.

Yeah, I get that. I guess maybe I was hoping for a coin with some kind of certified providence. Like gems mined without slave labor sort of thing.

Will the number of coins in the OP cause prices to drop?

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.

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.

The Franklin Mint had a huge business in this kind of stuff.

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.

How do you know if these coins are legit?

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.

Even in antiquity Lebanese currency is worthless...

You used to be able to get uncleaned late Roman bronze coins from the Balkans for about a buck apiece in the early 2000s, so I’d guess they’d be maybe $3-5 each now. Then you get the fun of very carefully removing the encrustations to reveal the coin underneath. You generally ended up with a coin worth about what you paid for it, but it was fun.

You still can. The Balkans is pretty widely known as a major center for trafficking looted antiquities, including coins.

I was similarly surprised recently when I found out you can legally purchase many ancient artifacts, like lamps, seals, and burial items. They're by no means cheap, but they aren't priceless treasures either. We've always mass produced stuff, and the museums aren't interested in most of it.

Trash is cheap

Supply and demand. In Europe or Asia it is very normal to find Gold or Silver coins, because they are Noble or semiNoble materials and do not degrade, or do it very little. For archeologists is not very valuable.

What is really precious for History is finding materials that usually degrade like cloth or wood or iron things from thousands of years ago.

An archeologist that finds a gold coin is like: Meh. if he finds wood from +2000 years, it will change her life. You will see her celebrating like an Athlete winning the olympics.

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