Number of ancient collectors (auction house customers)

[Heliodromus]

I was interested to see two recent numbers from Leu about their number of customers.

1) Their post-auction Leu Web auction 26 review proudly noted 1,839 customers (from 79 countries!)

2) A recent e-mail equally proudly touted their sending catalogs for their upcoming Floor auction 14 to 4,000 "active customers".

Their web auction 26 included a large tranch of LRB coins ex. Lars Ramskold, including many rarities, which one might expect would have attracted bids from most serious collectors of that material.

These both seems relatively small numbers, although perhaps unsurprising.

I wonder does anyone else have any numbers indicating the number of ancient collectors and/or auction customers ?

 

[JayAg47]

That's only the number of people who participate/subscribe to auctions. And there are collectors like me who've never participated in auctions but only bought coins from retail. 

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

In his book "Ancient Coin Collecting'" Wayne Sayles wrote that "we would speculate that 50,000 (active collectors of ancients) is not an unreasonable estimate, and that indeed may be a conservative figure." The number is based 1) on the number of coins dealers (in 2003) and 2) the number of people on their mailing list. He also recognizes that it is impossible to know the exact amount. Many collectors don't buy in auctions (especially overseas one), the market is now on sites like ebay where you can find a lot of low-medium grade coins. 

[ComicMan]

1 hour ago, Ocatarinetabellatchitchix said:

In his book "Ancient Coin Collecting'" Wayne Sayles wrote that "we would speculate that 50,000 (active collectors of ancients) is not an unreasonable estimate, and that indeed may be a conservative figure." The number is based 1) on the number of coins dealers (in 2003) and 2) the number of people on their mailing list. He also recognizes that it is impossible to know the exact amount. Many collectors don't buy in auctions (especially overseas one), the market is now on sites like ebay where you can find a lot of low-medium grade coins. 

Reddit's /r/ancientcoins has almost 50,000 members, not that everyone there is a collector, but it indicates a pretty large interest in the hobby (though with the top post only having 1k upvotes the engagement isn't quite there). 50,000 seems really conservative now (though maybe it was a good guess 20 years ago). But communities are rather fragmented, a lot of collectors are on different forums, Facebook groups, maybe a lot of the old guard doesn't even interact with anyone online. Also, this is an English-language forum, there are probably groups in other languages as well too.

[Heliodromus]

2 hours ago, ComicMan said:

Also, this is an English-language forum, there are probably groups in other languages as well too.

Yes, although there don't appear to be too many. The major ones I'm aware of are:

nummus-bibeil.com (French)

numismatikforum.de

lamoneta.it

Surely there are some UK, or other former roman territory country, hosted active discussion sites ... does anyone know of any ?

I guess Reddit and FaceBook are more likely hangouts for younger generation, but altogether it seems most collectors are an introverted and/or private bunch that don't want to talk about them!

 

[Heliodromus]

4 hours ago, Ocatarinetabellatchitchix said:

Many collectors don't buy in auctions (especially overseas one), the market is now on sites like ebay where you can find a lot of low-medium grade coins. 

Yes, hard to tell how much of a "tip of the iceberg" the auction buyers are.

eBay for ancients seems to have peaked, although I still visit every day. It seems the new eBay is biddr.com - if you want to sell your collection just start an auction house! 😀

[Hrefn]

I recently attended the Bay State coin show, which at one time was held in Boston, but now is in a suburban location.  I believe it is the largest and best attended coin show in New England.  Boston, with its plethora of universities and colleges, has historically regarded itself as one of the intellectual capitals of the USA.  One might expect the show would be crawling with stereotypical port-quaffing, tweed jacket-wearing bespectacled faculty spilling out of the local halls of academe to pursue their recondite numismatic specialties.

 One might expect to hear, “I say, Humphries, the epigraphy on this triobol spells out a fragment of Hesiod, but transposed into the aorist tense.  There’s only one other like it, in Professor Czeski’s collection in Bucharest.  I shall scoop it up, and Lavinia will go mad with jealousy,” and similar remarks from the assembled professoriate.  

But alas, not so.  The local university intelligentsia is now more interested in the effects of climate change and polychlorinated biphenols on gender fluidity in the genus Limulus, or at least I suppose they are.  They certainly are not mobbing the Bay State show.  

The ancient coin dealer community was represented by a few stalwarts:  Allen Berman, Nick Economopoulos, Joe Linzalone of Wolfshead Gallery, and Warden Numismatics.  Additionally, there was a relative newcomer, Romarorum.com.   All were gracious, knowledgeable, and a delight to visit.  I have been a customer of all of them.  I picked up four nice coins, and if funds were no object there were others on offer which were reasonably priced and desirable.  Overall, well worth the visit.  

I remain amazed, after forty years of collecting, that I can buy the treasures I have, and face so little competition doing so.  50,000 active collectors scattered through the US, Canada, and Europe works out to 4 persons in 100,000.  Byzantine collectors must be about one in a million.  

 

 

 

[JayAg47]

Include the 2 billion more people from India and China, even if less than 1% were interested in collecting coins and less than 0.1% in ancients, that's nearly 2 million collectors! and given the raise in middle class in both countries, I think the number will only increase. 

[Salomons Cat]

35 minutes ago, JayAg47 said:

Include the 2 billion more people from India and China, even if less than 1% were interested in collecting coins and less than 0.1% in ancients, that's nearly 2 million collectors! and given the raise in middle class in both countries, I think the number will only increase. 

Something like that has happened to Chinese stamps: In the past, stamp collecting was seen as a bourgeois hobby in China. And therefore, it wasn’t appreciated by the general public during the time of hardcore communism.

This has changed during the recent years, Chinese people became interested in their own stamps and the prices for them went through the roof. I think that Chinese stamps, especially those from the cultural revolution, are now amongst the most expensive stamps in the world.

Of course, something similiar could happen to ancient coins. I don’t know if Chinese people would become interested in Roman or Greek coins, though. But sometimes I have the impression that the supply is so limited that I already notice if there is only 1 collector with deep pockets who is present at the same auction and interested in the same area as I am. And my collection interests aren’t even as specific as those of other people :,)

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Salomons Cat

[John Conduitt]

4,000 is also only that part of Leu's customer base who spend enough to get a catalogue. I buy quite a lot of coins but I don't often buy from Leu, and don't count as active enough to ever get a catalogue. I am, though, in the 1,839 (with my Ramskold coin), so those are not all already counted in the 4,000. I imagine quite a lot of them aren't.

There are very many (200+?) auction houses if you look at the lists on NumsBids and Biddr. There can't be anyone who qualifies for a catalogue from all of them, or even 10 of them. Indeed, I buy from CNG regularly but only once or twice a year enough to trigger a catalogue.  So that 4,000 number multiplies up pretty quickly if it's 3,900 different people each time, with maybe two or three times as many people never in it.

Given 70-80% of my purchases are under £100, and from a previous thread this seems to be typical, I think it's quite possible to collect avidly and never get a catalogue from anyone.
 

5 hours ago, Heliodromus said:

Surely there are some UK, or other former roman territory country, hosted active discussion sites ... does anyone know of any ?

I guess Reddit and FaceBook are more likely hangouts for younger generation, but altogether it seems most collectors are an introverted and/or private bunch that don't want to talk about them!

I don't know why there'd be a UK forum when all the English language forums are in English. That would be unnecessarily shrinking the pool. They're not American forums as such (and places like Numista aren't American).

There are, though, plenty of Facebook groups for British coins, as well as for ancient coins for British people, where your location might make more of a difference e.g. for metal detectorists or people wanting to sell coins without the paperwork.

All these groups seem at least as active as the forums, presumably because you don't have to compose anything as such. It's not all young people either. In fact, young people wouldn't touch Facebook with a bargepole.

[DLTcoins]

12 hours ago, Hrefn said:

One might expect to hear, “I say, Humphries, the epigraphy on this triobol spells out a fragment of Hesiod, but transposed into the aorist tense.  There’s only one other like it, in Professor Czeski’s collection in Bucharest.  I shall scoop it up, and Lavinia will go mad with jealousy,” and similar remarks from the assembled professoriate... 

To avoid scrutiny by their anti-collecting overlords, the Harvard Square types in attendance may have been artfully camouflaging as hoi polloi: "I say, Humphries, this triobol is a wicked pissah!", etc.

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

Hard to assess. Probably not as many collectors out there as one would think. For example, if I stood on Park Avenue and asked folks walking down the street who Diocletian was I might get one affirmative response over the course of a day. Furthermore, collectors presumably form a small subset of those interested in ancient history.

[John Conduitt]

2 hours ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

Hard to assess. Probably not as many collectors out there as one would think. For example, if I stood on Park Avenue and asked folks walking down the street who Diocletian was I might get one affirmative response over the course of a day. Furthermore, collectors presumably form a small subset of those interested in ancient history.

Well, even if you take the 50,000 to be only from the USA and Europe, that's 0.0046% of the population or 1 in 22,000 people. That gives you 3,200 ancients collectors in the UK, about the population of Cringleford in Norfolk. 

If I stood in the middle of Piccadilly CIrcus, I think I would be lucky to bump into one person from Cringleford in Norfolk all year.

[Salomons Cat]

34 minutes ago, John Conduitt said:

Well, even if you take the 50,000 to be only from the USA and Europe, that's 0.0046% of the population or 1 in 22,000 people. That gives you 3,200 ancients collectors in the UK, about the population of Cringleford in Norfolk. 

If I stood in the middle of Piccadilly CIrcus, I think I would be lucky to bump into one person from Cringleford in Norfolk all year.

I just wonder: Has it ever happened to you that you met someone and you accidentally noticed that you both collected ancient coins? I mean, apart from coin shows or shops or anything like that. 

 

[Deinomenid]

Just re  Chinese and Harvard-esque purchasers -

Someone who hoovered  up a staggering percentage of a recent Swiss auction of  Greek fractionals as well as setting a record for a Greek coin at NAC recently was Chinese. So "they" are indeed active - & quite a few  pretty nice coins continue to come out of the Japanese market, presumably from the huge bull market  they had and the mania in the 1980's for overseas assets. I mention the latter only to support the view that the attractions of ancients are much broader than the Anglo/American/European sphere.

I've also found  out that I have been handily  outbid  by several US universities recently on certain  unusual coins. For some reason I assumed  the  main institutions had stopped  adding to their collections (pressure re politics of it, looting etc and  even assuming some of them would practice what they increasingly loudly preach, but no) but  apparently this is not the case. Alas  I am  not yet able to go head to  head with the endowments.

https://www.coinworld.com/news/world-coins/princeton-builds-top-collection-of-byzantine-coins-with-additions

https://www.ashmolean.org/press/new-acquisition-iceni-coins-press-release  - as a gift  but still in the market and there are  tax wheezes associated.

Yale seems to  be  in the market a lot,  not  just  hoovering  up occasional huge collections such as these

https://artgallery.yale.edu/research-and-learning/curatorial-areas/numismatics

and  Harvard just now stated they are in the market

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/newsplus/laure-marest-appointed-associate-curator-of-ancient-coins-at-the-harvard-art-museums/

having  just  filled this attractive  role role

https://classicalstudies.org/placement-service/2022-2023/37381/damarate-associate-curator-ancient-coins

 

I'm  probably being  outbid  by Cringleford Parish Council too.

 

[John Conduitt]

31 minutes ago, Deinomenid said:

Just re  Chinese and Harvard-esque purchasers -

Someone who hoovered  up a staggering percentage of a recent Swiss auction of  Greek fractionals as well as setting a record for a Greek coin at NAC recently was Chinese. So "they" are indeed active - & quite a few  pretty nice coins continue to come out of the Japanese market, presumably from the huge bull market  they had and the mania in the 1980's for overseas assets. I mention the latter only to support the view that the attractions of ancients are much broader than the Anglo/American/European sphere.

I've also found  out that I have been handily  outbid  by several US universities recently on certain  unusual coins. For some reason I assumed  the  main institutions had stopped  adding to their collections (pressure re politics of it, looting etc and  even assuming some of them would practice what they increasingly loudly preach, but no) but  apparently this is not the case. Alas  I am  not yet able to go head to  head with the endowments.

https://www.coinworld.com/news/world-coins/princeton-builds-top-collection-of-byzantine-coins-with-additions

https://www.ashmolean.org/press/new-acquisition-iceni-coins-press-release  - as a gift  but still in the market and there are  tax wheezes associated.

Yale seems to  be  in the market a lot,  not  just  hoovering  up occasional huge collections such as these

https://artgallery.yale.edu/research-and-learning/curatorial-areas/numismatics

and  Harvard just now stated they are in the market

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/newsplus/laure-marest-appointed-associate-curator-of-ancient-coins-at-the-harvard-art-museums/

having  just  filled this attractive  role role

https://classicalstudies.org/placement-service/2022-2023/37381/damarate-associate-curator-ancient-coins

 

I'm  probably being  outbid  by Cringleford Parish Council too.

 

Yes I outbid an Australian university once. I only know this because their agent messed up and failed to keep outbidding me, and I was contacted to see if I'd sell.

Conversely, the Fitzwilliam don't want coins anymore, preferring high resolution photos.

Edited August 4, 2023 by John Conduitt

[Rand]

42 minutes ago, Deinomenid said:

and  Harvard just now stated they are in the market

I thought that DO never stopped buying, for example:

https://www.doaks.org/resources/coins/catalogue/BZC.2013.027/view Purchased Numismatica Ars Classica NAC AG, Auction 75. 18/11/2013. Ex 1973 Jericho hoard, Jordan

https://www.doaks.org/resources/coins/catalogue/BZC.2002.3/view Purchased from Baldwin’s, 23/03/2002

The possibility of American collections buying does add pressure for bidding. With a private buyer, there is hope for another chance later. With universities/museums, when there are gone, they are gone (with few exceptions).

Regarding DO, my impression has been they buy very sensibly, selecting nice coins and not pursuing very high.

Now Harvard joining does add pressure.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Rand

[Hrefn]

Harvard controls Dumbarton Oakes, and has for many years.  Unless Harvard University is developing a second Byzantine collection in Boston, any acquisition by Harvard is going to DO, I suspect.  

[Rand]

It was my long-term impression that DO was 'the Harvard collection' until Harvard Art Museums put online coins from their collection. Many provenances indicate bequests and gifts accepted over decades rather than purchases (https://hvrd.art/o/196513). I hoped to visit the museum last year during our daughter's graduation. However, the campus was very busy, and I did not have enough time.

From the link provided by @Deinomenid, it reads that Harvard Art Museums intends to actively expand the collection. We may now have two 'collectors' from one University to bid against.