Lisbon Portugal — Archaeologists excavating a site in northeastern Portugal discovered 4,500 ancient Roman coins tucked away inside a wall.

The bundle of 4,526 copper and bronze coins was hidden inside the wall of a 4th-century blacksmith's home,

The sack holding the coins appeared to have disintegrated.

Archaeologists excavating the site — believed to be an ancient Roman village — came across the coins Friday.

In addition to the blacksmith's home, the excavation site includes a spa and a large house with heated rooms and colorful mosaics.

The dig is expected to last several years.
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Wow! That would be so exciting to find.

oooo neat-o! I wonder which roman era they're from. I have a small collection of ancient roman and greek coins (very small). Coins are one of those pieces of antiquity that you can easily aquire and affordably own and enjoy for the history they represent. But I'm a known dork, so maybe people think I'm wonky... they could be right

I own one roman coin. I ahve tonnes of old coins, but mostly Canadian.

I found a queen Elisebeth I coin in a sack buried in the ground in my yard when I was 7. Along with it was a roman coin and an Canadian 1 cent from 1900. and some other coins.

ooooooooohh! What a feeling to hold a coin that old and to know the history that someone had forged it and was held in the hands of a roman citizen.

see thats what i think of too, holding something someone may have had in their hand a couple thousand years ago, cool. Like standing on a walkway in front of castles and stuff, where you stand a guy in full armor once stood or died etc.

Wow what a terrific find...I can only imagine what else they'll find...My dad had all sort of ancient (I don't think valuable) coins that he kept in this little blue pouch...All I get are old bottles dug out when my son-in-law is on a site...

My uncle was a major coin collector in Seattle years ago.
Interestingly, he told me that most Roman coins are often a poor investment because of discoveries like the above. He said that caches of Roman coins are found all the time.
Consider the following:
Bob buys a rare Roman coin for $9,000. He got a good deal because it normally sells for $10,000 but the seller needed the money.
A week later, someone finds a hidden cache of hundreds of the same coin.
The bottom drops out of the market.
Suddenly, Bob's $10,000 coin is now valued at about $500.
It will never increase in value because there are now so many like it in circulation among collectors and investors.
So Bob takes a huge loss in his investment. A loss that can never be recovered.

Of course, most of us would be thrilled to have a common Roman coin just to imagine whose hands it passed through. I have one Roman coin and I still get a thrill handling it. I paid very little for it and I don't care about its value.
But I thought my uncle's little lesson in Collector Economics was interesting.
Still, I'd love to find a cache of old coins, Roman or more modern. I think it would be one of the thrills of your life.

Yes, I must agree about the finding of ancient Roman coins. I can well remember a fellow in England finding a huge cache of Roman coins that were evidently hidden by Romans as they were fleeing and they never returned to reclaim them. Just recently the cave of Romulus was discovered under the palace of Augustus Caesar. The entrance hasn't been discovered yet, but a camera was lowered through a hole in its roof and absolutely stunning photos of intricate mosaic work were taken. When I used to make jewelry I was buying 200ad Roman coins for as little as $3 each and incorporated them into the jewelry. Sold a ton of them.
At the present I have been working on a Virtual Reality Rome and visitors can choose an avatar and walk around the city. At the present I have the Roman Forum area built out to the Colosseum going west and just starting on Capitolium Hill to the east. If you would like to take a look it is free and you can do so by downloading it from www.virtualrealityrome.com/ Take care and I really enjoyed this thread.

Do You have a new working link or any other information about the digging, I am into coins collections as I said here and would love to see some pictures