Monday, April 27, 2015

WHAT WOULD YOU PAY FOR A WIDOW'S MITE?

Numismatists who have collected American coins for a while are aware that there are many examples which can bring prices in the five, six, and seven figures. These collectors are sometimes gobsmacked to learn that numerous Roman and other ancient coins can easily be obtained for something like five dollars or even less. Logic would dictate that the passage of thousands of years would mean that the coins would be scarce, hard to find, and very expensive. Logic would be wrong in this situation.

There are certainly ancient coins of extreme value, especially those made of gold or silver. However, brass and copper coins of the same time period were so common that they were sometimes used as ship ballast. Furthermore, due to the scarcity of banks, paper money, and electronic financial transactions, most citizens hid their coins in a concealed clay pot or the like for safekeeping. Disease, civil unrest, and invading armies often meant that the owners would never recover their treasures, and the hoarded coinage pops up centuries later in excavations and the like.

As an example, the coins pictured above were given to an American Army officer in 1944 by Italian street urchins in exchange for chocolate and other luxury items. The boys had apparently found them in the rubble of a building which had been shelled. They are today probably worth a total of about $300.

On the other hand, there is the tale of David Crisp, the British chef who uncovered in 2010 a hoard of over 52,000 Roman coins in Somerset worth several hundred thousand pounds.

The bottom line is, regardless of the value or lack of value of the coin, it is still cool to be able to own something minted thousands of years ago which may have been handled by someone like Cicero, Pompey, or even Jesus himself.

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