Fraggle Rock

Good morning! I'm a new collector of Roman coins, and I have bought the silver and base metal books from Chris Perkins, which are great. But a lot of the coins I'm considering buying aren't in those books. The face of the ceasars/emperors are featured in the books, but frequently the reverse isn't featured in the particular listing. This means that I can't really get a realistic idea of the value/cost of the coins. Is there a book I can get which features all coins complete with both the obverse and all reverses? I guess it's going it cost me, but hey! If I didn't like throwing money away I wouldn't collect coins.....! Cheers, Fraggle

Many thanks for all your help, Guys. A beginner like me is so frightened of getting stung for £100 when a coin is only worth half that. I'm looking on vcoins.com quite a lot. Is that a good place to buy? Or can you recommend any other places with variety and good prices? Cheers, Fraggle

What does it mean when a coin has the edges serrated? Why do people do this? Who does it? What does it do to the value of a coin? Cheers, Fraggle Rock

Fourrees... hmm interesting. So when you say they are counterfeit, do you mean that in terms of counterfeit when issued, and are they worth less now as a collectable item then the original article? Frag

Thanks for the research, Tom. The link doesn't work, but I get the gist. Just one question more, before I let you all go and talk about proper collectible coins, rather than all this Roman rubbish (!)... When it says "Fourrees exist", what do they mean? Cheers, Fraggle

Thanks, guys. I guess this is the question... If you were looking to buy a Roman coin, and it had serrated edges such as this, what would you think? Does it de-value the coin? If not from a financial point of view, what about collectability? On another note, how about designing some posh smileys for this website designed to look like coins...? Second thoughts, forget that. lol Cheers, Fraggle

Hi guys and girls! I've just started collecting Roman coins, but I'm not sure where the best place to start is. Apart from the usual places like the rather wonderful predecimal.com, and the rather skanky e-bay, where do people recommend? I live in Sheffield - anybody know of a good shop anywhere nearby? Or which websites do people recommend? Do most people get their collections by buying from commercial sites, or by detecting and detecting, or from car boots, or from a mixture of all of them? Cheers, Fraggle Rock

Thanks, for your reply. There are many coins about that have this "Serratus" edge. Surely it's not all a case of unwitting vandals? Is there any historical proof of this being done by the Romans? Fraggle

Not sure what I mean? Check this out... and the reverse... Anyone got any ideas? Cheers, Fraggle

Thanks for your replies, chaps! Chris - yes, I'm one and the same as the mountain guy! Thanks for the suggestion of the Chronicle book - I may well give that one a whirl. Geordie - thanks also! I've steadily building up a list of good websites in my list of favourites, and I'll get round to all of them eventually. Looks promising though! Cheers for now... Fraggle Rock

...Hi guys and girls! Any ideas about a good book to give me a short history of the Roman Empire, so that I can more fully understand where Roman coins fit into the history? Cheers, Fraggle Rock