NewStyleKing

In my early and ignorant NewStyle days, I bidded on a coin I really liked put on a generous bid . Came back and lo and behold, I lost. I regret it. Because as I became more knowledgeable, I realised it a new obverse and reverse nearly at the beginning of the series. Then the description was totally wrong and the owner and auction house hadn't a clue! I wonder if the winner did? I wonder where all these coins go to? What kind of creature just, (seemingly, randomly), collects them. What is the make-up of the average coin purchaser, most of it is secret, a little of a show -off, look what I got, can someone tell me about it...But mostly it's just collecting, for the sake of collecting. Shiney, magpie like behaviour. Without building a knowledge basis, seems pointless. I wonder where that coin is now, the owner is not on any forum I have known. Maybe all HE was interested in was the word RARE, and whether true or not became the sole reason to possess.

Maybe your not the auction type. Stick to V coins or MA shops or maybe the eBay stores of those dealers.

There's still enough around to rebuild the Parthenon. I wonder where are all those coins that Roma would have sold gone to? The Coin Cabinet is not by a large margin a replacement for Roma. Oh Roma ! Wherefore art thy Roma. Will ye not com back agin?

Some coins from the Larissa Hoard now called the Sitochoro Hoard. Look at the Athena on these and my imitative NewStyle above. Very rare Athens tetradrachms previous to the NewStyle, so rare that many OldStyle collectors do not know of their existence!!!! Under Athens in the Larissa hoard my NewStyle imitation type is mentioned. I got mine via eBay from Mr Lanz who, along with Roma I miss very much. Those were the days when hoards would appear and I would buy choice examples.

Rhodian Bronze Coinage and the Siege of Mithradates VI Richard ASHTON NC vol 161 2001 This might be an interesting read and relevant.

What you need to know the hoards that they are found in, what else is in these hoards, the compositions/types in the hoards. Can the hoards be contextualised? What you think could be missing? The problem is other than AOE they are mute and I guess any other coins that might be found with them. Where did Seltman and Starr start? In later times where does Flement start? I guess a lot of it is Like Flinders Petrie idea of a stylistic progression, seriation, until types with symbols appeared and quickly disappeared heralding the arrival of the NewStyle which by comparison is chockfull of information of the type missing from oldstyle hoards. We can guess on the Mass classic owls followed by various Pi style where folded flans took place rather then melting them down, but nothing really seems to tie them down. Countermarks seem to reveal nothing of use, silver analyses, may say that it maybe a imitation, some Bactrian types may be obvious(?) many less so. I wish you luck, The NewStyle is found in hoards often mixed with coins of the Seleucid Kings that are dated, , the Demetrios l hoard and Gaziantep overlap and finish within a year or so of each other, the runs of the Newstyle show that the earlier sequencing is most probably correct. You got nothing to match for the oldstyle, where are you going to truly start as you do with the horrible archaic Athena's pointy nose becoming less horrible! Ironic, the Newstyle Athena grows worse from a great start! Best of luck! Margaret Thompson said this imitation has elements of the oldstyle in its depiction of Athena, whilst the reverse seems to mirror a reverse of the 150's BC

Sadly 2 hands are not enough!

I know that the GREEKS wrote music and small pieces of music and notation were carved and have been translated and played and recorded, try Youtube! The BBC once had a programme

The trophies are everything, they probably refer to his 2 victories over Archaelos, Mithradates Vl Eupator' s top general in central Greece which lead immediately to the treaty of Dardanus that let Mithradates "off the hook" cos Felix wanted to get back to Italy. He had by this time frightened to death the slayer of Rome's official choice of war leader, Flaccus, Fimbria! The other good thing about Sulla is that he didn't execute Caesar when he had the chance!

Does anyone know anything of certainty about that hoard? Did it contain anything else? Whilst contemporary Mithradates tets were larger they were mainly of the reduced Attic weight, say 16 50 gms, whilst Tigranes are 1 gm or so less. So who was accepting short wages? Late Seleucid tets are often 15 ish gms. In reality he should be called Tigranes the very lucky.He reminds me of the ineffectual Italian efforts in WW2 who also ended up n the allied camp!

The start date of the cistaphorus is still very uncertain and maybe the various mints started at different times The dated cistaphorus of Ephesus was last queried by Jorge Muller, Muller, Jorge W., “The chronology of Ephesos revisited”. Schweizer Munzblatter Band 77 1998 . A re-dating of the dated coins of Ephesos on grounds that the Romans only actually controlled and minted coins in Ephesos five years later than assumed from the bequest of Attalos III. My ideas on the significance of the “Headdress of Isis” symbol in the Rome-Pontic times benefit hugely from his scheme. Opposed by DeCallatay in “More than it would seem….” 2011 .

Oh dear, 1979, what about UNESCO 1970? That's the date from which nothing should be collected after except from official sources. Ironic for a fake coin! Would Greece claim a counterfeit as its own? Baldwin's dont have such a wide ranging selection of Greeks.

But buying most coins appears to me to be party to a criminal conspiracy. Those Tigranes ll seem to be very recently found and no published provenance of any I've seen! Many have been sold and some are still selling and yet I have failed to hear the cuffs clinking!! Those tens of thousand old style tetradrachms made a big hole somewhere probably I believe in Turkey, which does not sell its patrimony! I see coins particularly of celtic types of Phillip ll that have sold recently which obviously have been ripped from a Balkan soil recently, first meris tetradrachms for sale also provenance free! So having a provenance " NewStyleKing" collection makes everything OK! Like the BM who doesn't collect coins anymore but no doubts consults auction details for research purposes . My criterion for quality is not the appearance of the grading but the appearance of rare coins, sort after types. Say the fairly recent appearances of the tetradrachms of Abydos, Alexander Troas and Tenedos etc, coins of the Great transformation, the Stephanophores , the civic types. Hands up, who has NOT bought a coin that had no provenance .......! C'mon where have all those coins plundered from Balkan museums after the fall of the Iron curtain, gone. Balkan Celts knows that the curators actively discouraged enquiries of their wares! It's not just the British Museum that has its wares mined by the curatorial staff and sold on ebay!Such luminaries as Paunov and Prokopov have had enquiries ignored! Where does all that electrum coinage come from , new types all the time And how much provenance are fake ...from the collection of a master and pupil, from the collection of a man in love with art, from the collection of so and so, all collected before 1970...... who says so! Let's be honest is Greece really the home of that gold Eid Mar? How do they know? They don't know where it was minted -Patria? and or buried. It's all hearsay with evidence from someone also untrusty! At least I'm not a fake.