my name is Jaroslaw Majchrzyk and I live in Troisdorf with my partner Julia, my sons Colin and Felix and a dachshund-lab mix Rocko, whom we found as a puppy some 5000 ft high in a lonely forest on Gran Canaria island.

The small town of Troisdorf in West Germany is located just between the ancient Roman city of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (today's Cologne/Köln) and Roman military fort Castra Bonnensis (the former capital of West Germany - Bonn). Living on the former Rhine frontier triggered my interest in the history of the Roman empire and subsequently also in Roman coins.

History was my passion since early school times, starting with the Greek myths of gods and heros. In those days I admired the sophisticated ancient Greek culture and saw Romans as a mere militaristic offshoot of Hellenic civilization. Some decades later I can fully appreciate my mistake, but nevertheless I still have a strong admiration for the pioneering spirit of the Greeks.

My first collecting passion were not coins, but stamps, or more precisely postal stationeries (letters, postcards etc). Coming originally from Poland, I was a passionate collector of items from 20 years of Polish independence between WWI and WWII. As a teenager I took my hobby very seriously, taking part in some exhibitions and scoring second in Polish final of Philatelic Olympics. But after 10 years my interest shifted to numismatics. The coins proved to be wonderful time vehicles and after all these years I'm still amazed about the fact that after so many centuries and even millenia one can still hold in his hand the piece of money circulating in the time of Alexander the Great, Nero or Justinian.

Our offer reflects my interest mainly in ancient (including Byzantine) coins, but you can also find some coins from Middle Ages or modern times. Greek, Roman and Byzantine coins are of course most numerous. In the navigation you'll find Greek coins ordered geographically and the Roman ones chronologically. Some subjective decisions were made to maintain the simplicity of the navigation structure. So you'll find some of the provincial ("Greek imperial") issues, namely semi-autonomous coins, in the Greek section. Also there the Punic, Phoenician and some other issues can be found, wheras some kingdoms that were obviously Hellenistic or strongly influenced by Greek culture were moved to "Eastern" section.

We try to cover also the lower price range of ancient coins, even though the effort put into the photographing, attributing and describing of one 20$-coin could well excess the time spent on coin worth many times that amount. But nevertheless our opinion is that even these coins can be really interesting collectibles and can lead you into fascinating times and places.

With my passion and knowledge I hope to make some, however small it may be, contribution to the community of coin afficionados. The extensive curiosity and interest in the history have led me to seeing coins not merely as collecting items, but mainly as object of their time, opening the window for wonderful stories of war and conquer, rivalry and love, belief and persecution or just daily life centuries and millenia ago.