WEISS BOUGHT this Athens dekadrachm last January for $575,000, a record at public auction for an ancient Greek coin. (Photographs courtesy Peter Weiss.)

Exchange Greats
By working with a reputable dealer, it is possible to jump in as an investor and make a 20 percent return on a coin in just a few months in such a hot market. Long-term collectors, however, are often far more interested in a coin’s mysterious history than its market value. The top tier of ancient Greek coin collectors is a clubby group of enthusiasts with a scholarly bent. For many ancient Greek coins, the exact date of creation, mint and sometimes even the image depicted are open to educated interpretation. Devoted fans immerse themselves in the history of the ancient Greek city-states, argue over minutia about individual mints and marvel at the slightest alteration in the goddess Athena’s hairstyle over the course of several centuries.

"My way of collecting is to go deep into each area and try to learn as much as possible; this is really the joy, in my opinion," says the collector known as BCD. (A Greek national, he prefers to use this alias because he says the national government frowns on collectors.)

After collecting coins for 40 years, BCD began selling his collection in a series of high-profile auctions in 2001. The sales have set collectors salivating—and yielded millions. The January 2006 Classical Numismatic Group auction of his coins from Boiotia alone earned $5.7 million. In total, however, BCD says he expects to finish only slightly above breakeven.

For BCD, collecting is an act of scholarship, not a search for something flashy or for a steep return. He focuses on coins from spots in mainland Greece, including Corinth, Boiotia, Macedonia and Thessaly. One might expect such a collection to include coins from Athens, Greece’s leading city, but he chose to ignore Athens because these coins have already been extensively collected and studied.

COLLECTOR PETER Weiss became enthralled with ancient Greek coins when he first saw—and bought—this tetradrachm depicting Alexander the Great.

Now in his late 60s, BCD is selling the coins partly to leave a legacy of published scholarship in the form of comprehensive auction catalogs. The catalog for the May 2006 sale of his coins from the Peloponnese is illustrative of his approach. A hardbound book totaling more than 400 pages, the catalog covers examples of nearly every coin struck in the region from the archaic period until 260 BC. He added notes to the detailed descriptions of coins by Zurich-based LHS Numismatik. At times BCD offers evidence to contradict LHS’ dating of a coin, or a rumination on why a certain coin is so rare. BCD even gently mocks himself, well aware that such minutia is of interest only to aficionados.

"For me, the objective was to see the particular area appear in print—as complete and as interesting and as exciting as possible," BCD says, adding that he also wanted the pleasure of knowing that, in the future, people are going to refer to it.

Weiss also takes a scholarly approach. Though he never studied Greek culture in college, he has since learned ancient Greek in order to read the inscriptions on coins. He also writes academic articles and sits on the board of the American Numismatic Society.

Magnificent Mints
The thrill of discovery drives many collectors, and Weiss and BCD are no exceptions. For Weiss, the excitement comes from getting the first call when a dealer has an unusual coin. That happened a decade ago when a Swiss dealer, cleaning out his desk before a move, unearthed a coin in a paper envelope from the bottom of a drawer. The client who deposited it there in 1960 had long since died, and the coin was for sale. The dealer sent Weiss a photograph of the coin, covered in crud. It seemed interesting, though, and Weiss haggled to a price of $60,000.

It was a risky purchase. Ancient Greek coins are sometimes brittle, and cleaning may cause damage. When a friend who handled the cleaning called Weiss and told him to pick up the coin in person because it seemed too valuable to ship, Weiss knew he had scored big. The coin turned out to be a Syracuse tetradrachm from the ruler Gelon, circa 485 BC. It is the first coin known to depict a human figure looking at the observer, rather than in profile. Weiss estimates its current value to be at least $500,000. "I took a chance on it and could have lost," he says. "That’s what made it fun."

BCD has most enjoyed discoveries that contribute to numismatic scholarship. At press time, he was planning an October sale of coins from Akarnania and Anatolia, two areas often neglected because the coins are not pretty or common. He says he discovered a previously unknown mint from Anatolia and was able to put a name to it.

"It is in such areas that, if one involves himself, the rewards are waiting," he says.

Despite the excitement generated by recent price gains and the sale of BCD’s coins, affluent coin collectors face a major new challenge. The growing global trend toward careful examination of an ancient artifact’s origin is reverberating beyond museums to the coin world. In July, the United States approved new restrictions on the importation of ancient coins from Cyprus, a precedent-setting decision that reverses previous policies. Archeologists and the Cypriot government supported the rule, saying it will help prevent looting.

HANS BERQUIN paid $45,000 in 2001 for this stater, depicting Demeter on one side and Hermes holding Arkas on the other. (Photographs courtesy Hans Berquin.)

Although he supports laws to stop looting, Weiss says that such pilfering of coins has declined since the 1980s, a period when amateurs with metal detectors sought to cash in on hordes. He fears that the primary consequences of the new rules will be to hamper U.S. collectors’ ability to compete. Collectors and dealers also worry that this deal will inspire other nations to seek similar agreements, further limiting an already tight supply of ancient Greek coins.

"It sets a precedent for problems with other countries, and how one determines what was, quote-unquote, looted or was languishing in a collection someplace," says Rob Freeman, managing director of Santa Monica, Calif.–based coin dealer Freeman & Sear.

So far, increased attention to provenance has served to heighten the interest in pedigreed coins—and the premium they command. Before he makes a purchase, Belgian collector Hans Berquin gives heavy weight to who else has owned a coin and whether it has been published. He has spent the last 30 years building a collection focused on Magna Graecia (southern Italy), and has amassed roughly 150 coins valued at about $1.35 million. Berquin purchased a Sicyon silver drachm adorned with a dove, circa 431–400 BC, for about $5,000 and a silver hemidrachm from Phlious, circa 270 BC, for about $4,600 from BCD’s Peloponnese sale. Solid provenance reduces the chance of a fake and reinforces the coin’s chances of retaining value over time. "When a collector buys from a collector, that is the best he can do," Berquin says.

Like most collectors, Berquin has fallen for a false coin on occasion. One year he sent out his customary New Year’s card with a picture of one of his coins—only to hear from a dealer that the coin looked suspicious. It turned out to be a fake. BCD finds clever fakes instructive, and keeps a collection of several hundred examples.

Veteran collectors recommend that novices work with a reputable dealer who is a member of the International Association of Professional Numismatists, and follow the popular maxim, "Buy the book before the coin." Weiss says new collectors should learn to tell what corrosion looks like under magnification because it cannot be faked.

Even after two decades of collecting, Weiss says he still gets the same rush he felt when he picked up that first Alexander tetradrachm.

"Once you possess something, you are looking for the next thing," he says. "The chase and the history are just fabulous."

Pastime of the Powerful
Some coins have a provenance dating back a century or more, and many have been published in scholarly auction catalogs. This history reflects the hobby’s long roots as a favored pastime of the wealthy. Even Alexander the Great’s teacher, Aristotle, is believed to have collected coins. Modern coin collecting—the building of large collections and the emergence of a market—began during the Middle Ages, attracting Petrarch and later the Medici family. In his book, Ancient Coin Collecting, author and collector Wayne G. Sayles says that 17th-century painter Peter Paul Rubens brokered the sale of 18,000 ancient coins. As the hobby gained popularity, it became standard practice for kings, queens and European aristocrats to amass ancient-coin collections as part of a classical education. Ute Wartenberg Kagan, executive director of the American Numismatic Society, notes that during the late 18th century, the coins were highly sought after by travelers on a grand tour of Europe. Those who could not track down genuine coins would purchase copies—some of which now circulate as fakes.

Catherine Curan is a senior correspondent for Worth.