Ancient Coin Collecting

by Wayne G. Sayles

With more than 200 photos, 25 tables and charts and a pronunciation guide, you'll acquire the savvy needed to wisely buy and sell your ancient coints

Genres: Numismatics, History

196 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1996

Reviews

[Leigh-ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to give this book 5 stars simply because it's such an excellent reference title and a great introduction to the topic. It wasn't the smoothest read (most reference titles aren't), but there's a lot of good information here and I'll certainly plan to buy a copy for my personal library. The photos were amazing - it was almost as great as a visit to a museum.

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

A standard reference for the field. The entire series is recommended by numismatic authors and curators to this day with good reason. Ancient coins are diverse, mysterious, sometimes infuriatingly hard to figure out, and present the collector with the opportunity to literally hold thousands of years of history in the palm of their hand.

Sayles' works are an excellent place to start, although they are out of date in some matters. Certified coins are nowhere as prevalent in ancients as they are in United States coins, but there are a lot of them now. With the constant threat of forgeries, slabbing is hard to avoid. The Celetor is sadly no more. Most of the websites listed no longer exist.

Regardless, an essential acquisition for the ancient collector. I bought the entire series on Amazon and some came from Sayles himself, and they came signed! Buy the book before the coin.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good intro read, if a little dated, but it's a monograph so yeah. I really appreciated the amount of books referenced and sprinkled throughout, it definitely makes tracking down good introductory resources easier. I'd recommend it based solely on that alone, but the book also has a lot of decent, practical advice.

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and well organized but not anything that's not in dozens of other coin books.

[Donald Scarinci · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very basic book about collecting in general.

[Deirdre · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book on how coins were made and how to collect coins. There is something for every coin enthusiast/historian/educator in this book!

[Wesly Van Eycken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book, very well written.