Limes

9 hours ago, Prieure de Sion said:

Today i am little shocked too... 😉 

Make a biddr checkout from a yesterday auction.

 

 

From EU Belgium to EU Germany - 15 Euro for a registered letter? I know registered letter will cost around 8 Euro. Thats a nice winning. 

But 30 Euro for a registered letter with insurance. I know the insurance prices of the market - let me calculate, 8 Euro for the letter and 22 Euro for the insurance of a 500 Euro coin? Normally 99% of the Insurance company`s will take 1% fee of the invoice amount. For a 500 Euro coin = 5 Euro insurance fees. Nice winning.

50 Euro FedEx include insurance. Same. 

Some companies seem to have found a second way to make money. Don't get me wrong - I'm a salesman myself. But if you have earned money from the goods and again from the sales fees. Ok - I understand. But if you now want to earn money from the goods, the sales fees and the shipping. I don't think that's good.

What company is it? It will go on my blacklist. 

I always try to find shopping costs in the terms of a seller. Its very annoying if its not clearly mentioned. 

Thanks for the interesting post @Roman Collector! I have the same type as @Marsyas Mike:

And here's an appropriate song:

2 hours ago, Roman Collector said:

That's certainly more generous than what Seth Stevenson had to say about it in A Dictionary of Roman Coins, Republican and Imperial.

 

Well, as we say here, "daar is geen woord Frans bij" 🙂

Thanks for sharing, did not know about this statement. I would not use the same qualifications of Claudius, but yes, I dont think he was the Superman amongst Emperors! 

Nice addition David. The tradition in the imperial era is also shown on this issue of Claudius. Perhaps for saving the citizens from Caligula? 

On 4/25/2024 at 5:25 PM, kirispupis said:

Although I mostly focus on Greek coins, I'll occasionally pick up Romans and my general goal is to obtain one coin from each emperor in a sort of Pokémon craze. Because I focus mainly on affordable coins in this space, I'm missing quite a few. However, one emperor that has been at the top of my list has been Nero, primarily because we share the same birthday.

Because of that, I'd been planning to make a "big splash" by purchasing an extremely nice coin, but this one came up recently at auction and I rather liked it.

Nero 54-68 CE
Denarius Lugdunum 56-57 CE
AR 19.00mm, 3.67 g
Bare head r.
Rev. EX SC within wreath C 207
RIC 12

 

What drove me to this coin was that it was minted during the early part of Nero's reign, which was considered quite good. He's depicted young here, before he became the fat monster that made him infamous. I also like that his name is very prominent.

The funny thing is I wasn't even watching this coin at the auction, but I was targeting two rare Greek coins and two Koinon of Macedons. When I lost out on my top two targets but picked up the two others at minimum bid, I decided to aim for some "anti-snacks" and bid on three Roman coins with the aim of winning one to make the shipping worth it - only I wound up with all three (the others were Drusus son of Tiberius and Clodius Albinus).

So, even though it's nowhere near as impressive as many Nero coins, I'm very happy with my pickup and I can now cross off the top Roman target from my list.

Feel free to show your Nero examples!

Nice first Nero issue, since mostly available in silver are the Salus reverse types. For your first nero issue, you certainly got a very interesting type!

My first issue was this AE As. 

My latest issue is this one, with Nero. as Apolle, playing the lyre. Never a dull moment with Nero... 

Nice looking upgrade, @Sulla80. The price of these 'tribute penny' issues seem to be ever on the rise. It's quite hard to find e reasonably priced type in acceptable quality. The portrait style of your old issue is very appealing by the way. And, interestingly, my kids have a (somewhat forced) remarkable partiality towards the cucumber too. (Melon not so much.) It's a good replacement for candy 🙂

Anyway, here's an upgrade in my collection: 

@panzerman That pie looks very tasty 🙂

@DonnaML The one I bought is this one https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Holders-Countertop-Pedestal-Collectibles/dp/B01575VTE8?th=1 

I put in 'multi level transparant display stand plastic' in google, and then searched for a specimen with the right measurements. They also use names like 'make up stand' or 'cupcake stands'. You can try those words too. (I swear, I wasnt looking for a display stand for my cupcakes...!) 

@lordmarcovan Your cat looks very relaxed. I like how they always end up in funny spaces. Well, decided to show a photo of one of our cats, chilling, while the youngest is playing with her dolls. I hope the cat isnt pondering about the possibilities to mess up my coin display! 

Had some fun re-arranging my private coin museum. Decided to put several imperatorial and Imperial denarii together on the transparant stand. Looks pretty good in my opinion.

The 12 C's and some friends placed together:

I have some cats sleeping somewhere as well. But the internet is already filled with cats. No crocodiles walking around though. 

7 hours ago, ela126 said:

 

I picked this one up a few days ago from Marc B.. my first Leo 3. Looking at a few other examples, while the strike leaves a bit to be desired, the size of the flan is huge for the type, it’s a wafer thin example, kind of amazing it survived unbent and undamaged.

I used Marc’s write up here:

Attribution: Sear Byzantine 1530 Syracuse mint
Date: AD 721-730
Obverse: Facing bust of Leo, holding globus cruciger
Reverse: Facing bust of Constantine V, holding globus cruciger; large M below
Size: 26.17mm
Weight: 2.99 grams
Rarity:  6
Description: VF. ex Bill Rosenblum with his tag priced at $150.
 

Besides the coin, I also like your rarity bar 🙂 Did you create it yourself? How does it work / do you use it; from a scale of 1 - 10? 

Fantastic portrait!

Two of my favorite portraits of Domitian, and both within the time period you mentioned David 🙂

From my personal experience, I had a lot of trouble taking pictures of my only golden coin. The photo shown below is attempt no. I-dont-know-how-many. I've used different background colours, yellow, white, blue, black and this one, dark grey. And took photos in different lighting: day, evening, sunlight, clouded, artificial lighting, and so on. This one was taken on a clouded day, when the light was sort of gray if you know what I mean. 

My advice, since you asked: keep trying until your are statisfied. That's basically it. I don't have an advice about a set up, since I dont have any. But members of this board, as mentioned above, have professional set ups, and likely better camera's and/or lenses. As I don't feel like investing in that kind of equipment, this it what it is, for me. Which I'm fine with. 

Good luck experimenting with your photoshoot 🙂

16 hours ago, Salomons Cat said:

Stupid question from someone who doesn't own a gold coin and has never seen one:
How is the visibility of the details of an average ancient gold coin when you hold it in your hand compared to silver?

Interesting question. I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer it, since I have only one gold issue, but I think there's no difference. In hand both appear better than on photo's where e.g. scratches are more visible. 

Thats a lovely toned siliqua Rasiel. Can you give some more info on the coin itself? 

Toning in combination with ancient coins is something peculiar. I remember my grandmother cleaning/polishing her table silver, that would turn grey/blackish over and over again. But somewhere, someone decided that on ancient coins it enhances the beauty of the coin. Would the ancients have done with their silver, clean it? 

Anyway, having said that, I do like toning. Every now and then I see if the toning on my coins has changed. I noticed that the siliqua shown below darkened a bit and developed addition 'rainbow' colouring. I tried to capture it on camera, which is quite difficult. The change in toning only took 3 years. 

39 minutes ago, Coinmaster said:

Hi all,

after I recently lost a Lucius Verus denarius in an auction, I'm now happy with this new acquisition! As I mostly collect one coin of each emperor, I'm very pleased with this nice portrait and to color a green square in my Roman emperors Excel overview. It wasn't a bargain, but, as the saying goes: 'Long after the price is forgotten, the quality will be remembered.' 😉 

Münzen Gut-Lynt GmbH > Auction 15, Auction date: 6 April 2024, Lot number: 248
Lucius Verus, 161-169 Denar 166 Rom L VERVS AVG ARM PARTH MAX. Büste nach rechts. Rv. TR P VI IMP IIII COS II, [im Abschnitt PAX]. Stehende Pax mit Füllhorn und Zweig nach links. RIC 561. 3.09 g. Gutes sehr schön / Good very fine.

See also in ERIC and DIR.

Does someone has more information about this coin type? And please do share your own Lucius Verus coins, thanks!

Great coin! The portrait is really nice indeed. If Im not mistaken, the coin is struck 166 AD which could correspond with the conclusion of the Parthian war in the east. Hence pax on the reverse, and the title parth max and imp IIII on the obverse. 

Several other coins also refer to that war. See below my issue. Marcus Aurelius also struck similar issues. 

Actually.... Historians recently found evidence of extraterrestrial interference at the battle, as shown by this ancient Roman photograph. As you can clearly see, the lights are not caused by the sun 😄  

Cool photos by the way. 

And here's a relevant coin:

The victim:

Guy who organised it:

The accomplices: 

The weapon used (not really, but I like to think that):

19 hours ago, expat said:

I won a common coin of Postumus from Astarte auction in the middle of Feb. It was only 24 CHF, was shipped on 22nd, and two days later was impounded by Customs. There it sat for a week. I got an e-mail from Customs Friday asking me to provide proof of payment, the invoice and why such an item was shipped by registered post. Now Switzerland is not in the EU so I knew I would have to pay an import charge, normally it would be around 7 Euros. I sent all these documents along with the reason for buying it was for personal use. This morning I received an e-mail stating that I would have to pay a customs fee of 35 Euros within 5 working days otherwise the coin would be sent for destruction. So, the end result after speaking to the "official" involved about how they came up with a fee of 35 Euros plus tax, for a 24 Euro coin, was that I had to do a bank transfer to them.

Ultimately the coin has cost me

Hammer total     24.00 CHF
      Buyer's commission (+18.50%)     4.44 CHF
      Subtotal     28.44 CHF
      Payment fees (PayPal [+5.00%])     1.42 CHF
      Shipping costs (Registered mail [+1.00%, +15.50 CHF])     15.78 CHF
      Total     45.64 CHF

Converted to Euros this is 47.52, And now on top of this a fee of 43 Euros, giving a total of 90.52 Euros. To say I am disgusted is an understatement. I will never order anything or participate in an auction from outside EU again.

Rant over

 

 

Good rant 😁 Yes, unfortunately, taxes, import duties and shipping costs can get out of control. My advice: don't buy coin from outside EU, that you can also find in EU retail or EU auction. It's not worth it anymore. And if you do buy a coin from outside the EU, be prepared to pay a lot of addition costs. 

A personal example: as of June 2021 in the NL import duties are 21% (taxes) and 4% duties for coins. Those are levied over the total worth of the goods, including shipment. Additionally, a 12 eur administration/handling fee is to be paid too. I bought coins from Leu last July, for a total of 630 CHF. Addition fees of Leu: 116 CHF buyers fee (and 18,5% buyers fee is quite ok, compared to other sellers), 14 CHF postage/handling (handling lol, whats the buyers fee for then?), 12 CHF banking costs, and 7,45 CHF insurance. Import taxes/duties: 249 EUR. So, in total, the costs were 838 EUR (coins and shipment) and 249 EUR taxes/duties (total: 1049) for coins I bought for 630 CHF (about 655 EUR). Overall, I think in comparison to some other houses/sellers, the shipping and buyers fee of Leu are quite ok. Still, to get these coins in my collection, the additional costs are around 40% (I'm not that good in math, but you get the point) of what I paid for the coins themselves. 

Now, personally, this makes sense if it gets me the coin I really want and cant find anywhere else. For 'cheaper' or 'common' coins (i.e., coins you can find in EU retail of within a normal amount of time in EU auctions) I don't buy outside the EU. It's simply not worth it. I've also contacted EU sellers/dealers if Im looking for a specific coin that I cant find in their stock. Sometimes they have stock not listed, or are willing to look around. 

I also dislike the "pay within 5 days or we will destroy your property" attitude. I mean, seriously, 5 days, given the time these custom offices take to clarify goods. Ridiculous. You should file a complaint. 

1 hour ago, galba68 said:

My friend tells me that it was cleaned in 3 hours...

thanks! I would have guessed it would have taken a lot longer. 3 hours seems quite ok! Despite the honost wear, its a beauty. Lovely patina and the portrait retains lots of details. 

Very nicely done! Did it takes a long time to clean it?

On 2/19/2024 at 6:05 AM, Roman Collector said:

Mike Markowitz has written a CoinWeek article featuring "10 Beautiful Women on Ancient Coins." The article features 5 goddesses and 5 empresses. I don't think it is fair to expect mortals to live up to the beauty standard of Aphrodite or Arethusa, though. From the article:

 

Interesting! That Arethusa sure is a fantastic coin. 

Here's my not so pretty coin with the beautiful Arethusa:

Sorry to hear that. Wishing you get well soon @DonnaML! 

Thats a nice coin @Marsyas Mike! Strong portrait. 

I have far too little knowledge about this to say the portrait is of either B or N. I do hope its B, because thats the reason I got the coin in the first place 😄

Great additions! But to me, that Octavian is an absolute stunning coin. Would love to add that to my architecture-set. 

This is often attributed to Britannicus, but i believe more recent information tenda to point to Nero. 

On 2/10/2024 at 9:50 PM, Salomons Cat said:

The Tribute Penny of Tiberius was one of the first coins that I wanted to buy. I think that it is still one of the most iconic ancient coins, in HJB's 'Greatest 100 ancient coins' it is #50.
What has prevented me from buying one was that it is one of the more common ancient coins and still quite expensive. That‘s why I took my time until a specimen showed up that I really liked. I think that waiting a bit was worth it. In hand, it looks like on the photo.
I really really the style of it.

There is also a video from the seller.

Thats a great coin, nice toning!