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.

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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. 😜

31 minutes ago, Heliodromus said:

Well, I've finally given up on this coin.

Tracking number was provided on Feb 1st (a full month after I paid), and now more than a month later it still hasn't transitioned from "tracking number provided" to "in-transit". I pointed this out to the seller best part of week ago and he said he'd investigate and get back to me, but never did. I've now asked for a refund ... let's see how this works out!

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.

My unpopular numismatic opinion: everyone on this forum should let me choose one coin from their collection. That includes AncientJoe (say goodbye to your Eid Mar 👍). DonnaML can substitute an ancient artifact of my choosing from her collection, in lieu of a coin.

This is by far my favorite portrait of Vespasian - I wish the coin were mine. I think this is the most realistic impression I've seen of him, without the usual contorted or exxagerated features and expressions.

Okay, I feel like crap now.  It won't happen again, and I sincerely apologize.

AD 69-79. Æ Sestertius (33mm, 24.01 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck AD 77-78. IMP CAES VESPASIAN AVG P M TR P P P COS VIII, laureate head right; eagle inset of the d’Este family behind head / ANNONA AVGVST, S C across field, Annona, draped, seated left, holding open on her lap a bag of grain ears, the ends held in her hands. RIC II 987; BMCRE 730 (this coin illustrated); BN 768. Even brown surfaces.

I hope it isn't improper to post an auction listing (if it is, feel free to remove this post), but CNG has this Vespasian Sestertius with a 15th century provenance from the d'Este collection that was started in the early 1400s. I've never seen a provenance going back that far, so it caught my eye. The listing has a long write-up about it.

https://auctions.cngcoins.com/lots/view/4-85Z9YY/vespasian-ad-69-79-sestertius-33mm-2401-g-6h-rome-mint-struck-ad-77-78-host-coin-vf-inset-good-vf

What is the oldest provenance in your collection, or what is the oldest provenance of an ancient coin that you know of?

1 hour ago, kirispupis said:

...so many of these artifacts were of either dubious attribution or of dubious sources. For most sellers, I don't believe they were being malicious, but simply didn't have much expertise in these artifacts they were selling.

And that's exactly why I wouldn't buy an artifact from VCoins. I'm sure there are some sellers who are genuinely knowledgable about their ancient artifacts (Ken Dorsey comes to mind), but when I used to browse VCoins for artifacts a long time ago, I saw so many that were almost comical - far more of them than any that appeared at least worth a closer look. Almost as bad as Catawiki and their notoriously bad artifacts.

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I absolutely love Mary Beard! If I had won the recent $2 billion Powerball lottery, I would've paid her whatever she asked for a private tour of Rome, and then again at Pompeii.

23 hours ago, kirispupis said:

#2 You must hand the genie your entire coin collection. In its place you may have any one coin in the world. It can be any coin - even if someone famous owns it or it's in a museum and everyone will magically understand that it's yours. You may never see any of your original coins again.

Since I only have two very inexpensive coins, worth nothing to anybody else, and worth less than $100 together, the choice for me is easy. I'd go with #2, hand the genie my two cheapies, and for my choice of a single coin I'd take @AncientJoe's beautiful Eid Mar (sorry, @AncientJoe).

I agree - context is everything. Without an archaeoligical examination of exactly where it was found, it could have been dropped (or buried) there much more recently.