The Celator
© Copyright 2000 by Michael E. Marotta
If you have the slightest interest in ancient coins, The Celator is the best buy you can make. You will find 100 to 150 dealer advertisements in each issue. The magazine runs three or more features and three or more regular columns each month.
US Domestic subscriptions are $27 per year. Foreign subscriptions are US$48 per year; and Canada US$30. You can get a sample issue for US$3. Their address is:
The Celator
Post Office Box 839
Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17608 USA
They are on the World Wide Web at www.celator.com .
The writing is always lively. These are not the dusty details of professional academics, but the empassioned work of avid collectors and dealers. Even when they are controversial or give unusual interpretations and findings, the articles are basically factual and reliable, with concrete credibility.
Anyone who is anyone in ancient numismatics knows about the magazine, advertises in it, writes for it, or reads it. Of necessity, most of the articles tend to be about Roman topics and then Greek, and Biblical, with the Celts and Everyone Else vying for Fourth. This reflects the interests of most people. However, the magazine is wide open to any interesting and factual presentation on any aspect of coinage up to the fall of Constantinople.
The letters column is often the site of debates ranging from ethics to attributions and is a ready avenue for announcements by any collector who has discovered a single new fact. The Celator also keeps tabs on the important coin shows for ancients as well as announcing significant mail order sales and auctions. Every month brings a cartoon by Parnell Nelson.
The founder and first editor and publisher is Wayne Sayles. After retiring from the Air Force, he earned a masters degree in fine arts for ancient numismatics and he is a recognized expert in Turkoman coinage. The Celator began in 1987 as a newspaper. It quickly advanced to the present slick newsstand format. In 1999, Sayles sold the magazine to Kerry Wetterstrom whose had been a mamanger with the Classical Numismatic Group. Today, Sayles still maintains the Web site.
The Celator was one of the earliest and strongest supporters of online numismatics. They make a point of advertising their email address and webpage. However, the mechanics of business are such that most email requests are not answered any faster than any other form of communication. The Celator was a family business before becoming a one man show. At root, it is a hobby project serving 2,000 readers and 150 advertisers on six continents. If not for Macintosh computers and offset presses, it would not exist at all.
I first subscribed in 1994. I have been published half a dozen times, usually on topics of Greek numismatics. The Celator pays only by extending your subscription. For a professional writer, this is not thrilling. At my shopfloor billing rate, my free subscription costs me between $300 and $1000 per year. However, I consider my work for them well worth the renewal because there is no better value for someone interested in the recovered artifacts of ancient history. – MEM:CMM