[pepsi_junkie]

I wonder if the value of these is numismatic or just the gold itself? I inherited a collection of ancient coins from my gradfather in the 80s. I was excited and figured silver coins that were 2000 years old had to be worth a fortune. It turns out that, with a few exceptions, they are worth less than a middling silver dollar from a bad year. Supply and demand, there just aren't that many people who collect these things so even though the supply isn't tremendous, it's sufficient to readily meet the demand.

Pristine gold coins though are surely more prized. Even museums might want them. We might get lucky and see these coins preserved as coins rather then turned into gold bricks.

[SunkenCiv]

5th century gold Roman coins, probably going to be okay. The current price of gold may indeed be higher, but that's also due to supply and demand, and not intrinsic value. Gold and silver are just commodities.

[Antoninus]

Sadly, many of the “silver” coins from the 3rd century AD were made of debased silver—some had a silver content of less than 10%. This is how the Romans expanded the money supply during the Crisis of the Third Century — but it didn’t really fool anyone and they ended up with run-away inflation until later monetary reforms.