Numisnewbie

The eruption of 79 AD wasn't in August, it was in October: https://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_news/2022/06/23/pompeii-eruption-wasnt-in-summer-but-october-study_214d0b68-0dd9-4bc4-ae41-efcc3f481955.html

I don't know about Catawiki and coins, but as far as Catawiki and antiquities they don't have the best reputation, unless things have changed in the last couple years. I can't remember this specific seller's name anymore because I stopped even looking at Catawiki, but he listed a lot of dubious "antiquities" (and was known to do so in his brick and mortar store in London, too), and Catawiki happily listed them anyway. Eventually he just changed his seller name and continued right on selling questionable items without missing a beat. That's just one seller example, but the website was full of "antiquities" that raised a lot of questions.

The marketing is understandable ("the spot where Caesar was assassinated"), but a bit of a stretch. I read somewhere that he actual assassination site is under the theater across the street.

If you're going to pretend to be a documentary, you're obligated to be historically accurate. Cleopatra was black? That's not even a good try, and sounds more like a Monty Python movie.

One quick note: a postal distribution center is not the same thing as a local post office. A distribution center, also known as a hub, is a large regional facility that then ships mail and parcels out to local post offices in its coverage. That tells me this mother worked at a regular local post office, not a distribution center. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That makes it even more shocking that this went on for so long. How does someone in a local post office get away with mail theft for that long? Where is the postal inspector for that post office and what was he/she doing all that time? Surely anyone expecting delivery of valuable coins (or, really, anything else) would file a claim when their package never got delivered. I'm a retired carrier ("mailman"), and at different times I saw two employees go down for mail theft, in really stupid ways. One was stealing envelopes containing payment for traffic tickets, and the other was stealing holiday greeting cards addressed to college students here since they likely contained money. In both instances, and very predictably to anyone with common sense, complaints of missing mail came in almost right away, and it was very easy to catch these two idiots. I just can't understand how the local post office in this case would face so many claims of missing packages and nobody caught on for so long.

You find the coolest things! Have you ever found coins or objects that brought archaeologists to your find site?

That's absolutely beautiful! I, too, wish I could do something like that, but my school shop teacher called me The Wood Butcher for good reason. 😜

I could never buy from a seller like this. You didn't even get a tracking number until a month after you paid? That's not even close to acceptable. If you're selling a coin, that should mean you have it on hand and ready to ship upon payment from the buyer. That means no more than a day or two, not a month later.

Timeline Auctions, as noted, doesn't have the most stellar reputation. They end up with some very high-dollar items to auction, but then it falls off into a lot of questionable stuff (dating, country of origin, etc).

I watched the Commodus Hercules go crazy while I waited for a simple dupondius of Livia to come up. Your Commodus denarius is a cool coin! I didn't win anything...I just threw out a low bid on the Livia dupondius to see if it would work, but nope. Kind of hard to believe what someone paid for a coin I didn't think was anything special (I just liked the portrait).

Congratulations!! I agree, too, that becoming a grandparent is even better than becoming a parent. Now you get all the fun and none of the work (unless you want it).

I once had the Julia Domna denarius in the bottom picture, sold it, regretted the sale, and then ended up finding the die match to it (top picture) and had to buy it. Now I wish I could find the original denarius and buy it back, too. Here they are, superimposed together in a quick video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkMLRD16fsI

Check this thread:

I thought Zurqieh had long since been discredited. According to this link - page 123 - (chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://catalogus.boekman.nl/pub/P19-0434.pdf) Zurqieh was caught up in an antiquities investigation, working with Jaume Bagot on "antiquities that were trafficked from Libya (a conflict zone) and Egypt into the European Union and that were purportedly laundered and sold on the European art market (CNN 29 March 2018)". "Police established from e-mails that Bagot was working with Hussam Zurqieh, a Jordanian dealer based in Dubai, and Hassan Fazeli, an Iranian dealer based in Dubai and Thailand." I have no idea whatever came of it, but he's in the report by name.

I like this portrait because I think it is an authentic look at Julia near the end of her life, in her mid 50s, a couple years after the killing of Geta and a couple years before the killing of Caracalla. Caracalla wouldn't have been nearly as interested in portraying her on coins as a young pretty empress as Septimius Severus did...just my opinion.