#782 – Dean Kinzer – Ancient Coin Expert | Founder of Kinzer Coins

Key topics

• Dean shares his origin story growing up in a collector household, surrounded by baseball cards, American coins, and a father whose collection grew into a massive organized archive
• We discuss how caring for his father’s collection after his illness led Dean to ancient coins, especially Biblical pieces like shekels of Tyre, tribute pennies, and widows mites
• The conversation explains the earliest coinage in western Turkey, including electrum, hand struck pieces, and the early fight against counterfeiting with striated designs and incuse punches
• Dean breaks down Croesus and the shift from stamped metal to formal state backed coinage across the Mediterranean
• We discuss how coin artistry evolved from utility to high relief portraits, signed dies, and city states using coins as civic identity
• Darren asks about money with no inherent value, and Dean uses Rome’s debasement of silver to show how inflation and collapse appear directly in coinage
• The Roman denarius is traced from high purity silver to zero silver over roughly 60 years, with Caracalla, Aurelian, and the late empire used as key examples
• The show explores how coins functioned as propaganda, carrying messages across an empire when direct communication was difficult
• Dean highlights unusual and collectible themes on ancient coins, including wrestlers, athletes, astronomy, animals, music, boxing, gladiators, and mythological founders
• The discussion turns to the Ides of March coin, Julius Caesar’s portrait on coinage, and why the Brutus Eid Mar coin is one of the most famous and valuable ancient coins
• Dean explains the modern collecting market, including slabbed coins, NGC grading, counterfeit prevention, and his own value guide and app for Roman imperial coins
• The episode closes with Dean talking about the diversity of the collecting community, the educational mission behind Kinzer Coins, and the idea of a surprise coin subscription concept sparked during the interview