Limes

Respect for that Ryro. Man, wish I had that energy, but now Im just in survival mode only (and our youngest not sleeping well for about a year now isnt helping!) Keepingup with the labour here, but write ups will have to wait for better days.

Wow, thats quite the scare! Glad to read your ok now. Hope you get well soon!

Great coin David! I love coins with architecture too, and a coin showing the temple of Vesta is a must have. Its one of the oldest and important temples of Rome. Quite a few emperors/empressess show the temple on their coins. Below my coin of Nero showing the temple: Interestingly, this coin shows 6 columns, as does the Republican issue, shown by @Curtisimo. Where as your coin, and the one shown by @Jay GT4 show 4. Artistic freedom for the die engravers perhaps? I also really like the details of the statue of the coin of @Jay GT4. Ive always wondered why the die engravers decides to show a statue, and not the Flame or Palladium.

Fantastic coin, lovely write up and the photos showing the Senate house over the years are very interesting! Below is my somewhat worn / flawed example. I believe the victory on the top of the Senate house is shown on the reverse of a coin of Augustus too (Ric 254). I dont have that one unfortunately.

I think your best shot is a sestertius from one of the adoptive emperors, like Trajan, Antoninus Pius, or Marcus Aurelius. Plenty in trade, and generally more worn examples are available with lower prices and no tooling. Be ware of smoothing, which tends to be a more common practice, if that's not what you want either. Edit: be sure to check out retail too. Quite a few in stock, and not more expensive per se in comparison to ones offered at auction. Especially considering the buyers fees and, sometimes, idiotic shipping fees that some auctioneers seem to maintain to add some pecunia to their own wallet. That does stink!

Thanks! When I have the time I'll take a group shot of all my sestertii (just 21). Think that will be fun, and to see the diameter go down from 36 mm to 27 mm!

Great interview @Ocatarinetabellatchitchix, thanks for the effort. I enjoyed reading it @Ryro and RESPECT for posting lots of threads WITH 3 kids running around! And writing a book too! I dont understand where you find the time?!?

Fantastic additions. I really like that portrait of Titus. First century big bronzes are really big and round. Enough space for the designs and lettering. One of our members who is no longer with us, had a special interest in the lettering. I really enjoyed his posts. Anyway, here are a few of mine. I would like to add a Titus sestertius one day.But the wishlist is big, very big, and the bronzes are expensive...! Same as yours: My only Flavian:

Thanks RC for the write up! Here are two coins of the emperors in somewhat better times...

Love the coin, but the story about the doctor is baffling!

Thats great news Donna! Happy for you that the coins finally, with a detour to Switzerland, found their way to you (well, at least 2/3 of them!)

I would not know what to do with some of this stuff. Are you supposed to actually sit on chairs, that sold for 6.2 million? Or do you place them somewhere, and look at them? Are will they get slabbed for safe keeping? https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6439014?ldp_breadcrumb=back&intobjectid=6439014&from=salessummary&lid=1

That Probus is fantastic!

Fantastic coin! I really love coins with temples or other structures on the reverse. If my eyes are not mistaken, the reverse of this coin shows the three statues of the capitoline triad (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva) in their cella, with an arched colonnade in front, of which the middle one (Jupiter) is larger than the other two. Above the arch is what appears to be an additional architrave, with the entablature of the temple above it. I wonder if this could be the simplified depiction of an arched doorway into the temple, with the two outer columns being part of the side gallery. In any case, the four middle columns don't appear to be just part of the hexastyle facade. I dont know of any other coins of the temple showing the arches. Fascinating!

Well, misses yes, and regrets a bit. But I think regrets really count if a miss is completely due to your own mistake. Participating in auctions involves factors that are not mine to influence. Theres always another bidder with maybe a higher budget. And since my budget is not limitless, i must make choices. And sometimes the choices turn out good, sometimes wrong. For example if there are a couple of targets, i must make a decision which I want to go for the most. If my preferred target is auctioned after the other target, and my budget proves to be insufficient for the main target, but would have been enough for the earlier target, it feels disappointing. I once saved the budget to go for a Hadrian sesterius, and I passed on a Nero sesterius. The Hadrian sesterius proved to be above.budget, but I would have been able to join the fight for the Nero sesterius. Though its of course not certain if my budget would have been enough for the Nero sesterius. It also depends on the other bidder's budget, which is unknown. luckily there are enough ancient coins going around. Theres always another opportunity!

Well, you know what they say about Roma and "leaking things into the market"....

gemeint ist wohl ein elch, meaning meant is probably an Elk. Interesting and appealing coin!

Good idea for a thread. Nice coins and patina! Here are a couple of mine. Hulk green: Green-green: Emerald green (shiny!): Brown and yellow green: Dark green: Bad green (bronze disease) on my Caligula:

Great portrait with an interesting reverse! Congratulations. I agree with what many already said here, its a challenge to find a good and affordable sestertius of Septimius Severus! Im happy to have found this lovely green one a year ago:

Late to the party (and I dont even have a coin to share!), but I really enjoy the coins posted. These posts triggered my interest in particular: That's a fantastic provenance, dating back to 1870 and a specific find spot/area! Was it part of a hoard, or just this find? Jugate bust types are fantastic, but the story behind it is very interesting as well. So, you were able to procure the entire hoard! Thats fantastic! I would love to hear more about it, if you wont mind.

That's a nice looking portrait indeed! The blob on the reverse is interesting. It looks like someone is sitting on a throne, behind the victory. Or victory is pulling a chariot, with someone on it. (I know there's no such coin, but still, it looks like it!) Despite the obvious corrosion, I really like this portrait. Struck late in his reign, he must have gained quite the weight, judging by his portrait!

Except for my somewhat funny remark above, I have not shared an opinion on this matter. There's simply too much to speculate, but too litte to know for sure. I do however feel like I need to let out a rant about some behaviour I have personally witnessed but also read about on this and the CT forum over the years (and pardon for my bad English). I'll keep it short, because I actually find rants annoying and a joykiller to read. (So I perfectly understand if no one reads this!) But the reason is two words outed by the auction house in question: transparency and accountability. So, here goes. First, over the years, I personally have had some negative encounters with auction houses (big and small) and sellers. These were situations such as not responding to questions, shipping coins even though I had asked them to wait for it because of a holiday, taking forever to process my payment and ship a coin, and so on. Usually, the 'if you dont like the treatment, buy somewhere else' applies, but this behaviour seems to have become more common practice it seems and occurs quite frequent. Is it because for the last couple of years, we're in a market that has attracted a lot of new material on offer, new sellers, and more buyers? Taking my business somewhere else has become a bit of a problem, also because of increasing fees and taxes that make non-EU auctioneers/sellers more expensive. Second, there are some sellers whose behaviour is not illegal, but which I dislike personally. One example discussed already, is when sellers buy coins for their stock, only to increase their price substantially, sometimes even doubling it. I will avoid these sellers. This also includes sellers that secretly bid on their own lots to increase revenues, or increase my max bids. Their auctionhouse terms may allow this, it's annoying nevertheless. Then, third, there are now cases appearing which are illegal: fake provenance, selling stolen coins knowingly. In all these cases, examples and instances, it appears to me that there's a lack of transparency, and accountability. So my immediate question to the auctioneer in this thread would be; if you use these words, who is that you are transparant to, and accountable to? Not me. I don't think any (many, if not all) seller is completely transparant. Where do your coins come from, what is the behaviour of you as a seller during an auction, how do you deal with my max bids, and so on. These are all questions I have, which are becoming more and more urgent in my thoughts but that are and likely will be unanswered. Now, I also understand that many buying-selling processes in every day life are not transparant. But then again, this is a delicate market based on trust mainly and trust is easyily damaged. I also understand that most collectors won't care, or care less about all of this. I can merely share what the effect is on me, and nobody has to care about it. And I also will not make bold statements about long term effects on the market and so on, because I find that too difficult to predict since Im no expert. So, I'll just leave it at this rant and hope that someday, these annoying sellers wake up and magically find the interests for their customers the most important. Untill that moment happens (never...), I will scrutinize sellers and try to take my business elsewhere as much as I can.

Well, in theory it could be in that Forrest. We cant rule anything out 😉 P.S. I love these kinds of misunderstandings. I make them with my wife all the time. If I could have a ancient coin for every 'sigh' she makes, I would have collected them all by now 😁

Please, not this. It does not raise questions. Its crap coming from instragram and tiktok. Its only for the benefit of the 'unfluencer' types and wannabe journalists.

Well, i did on page 3 already! i just liked the irony of it!