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Novody has a coin from the great emperor Caeras Llovnahnir (I was hoping we can create a fan club) so I will post another well known emperor - Severus Alexandrv 25 mm, 5,26 g. Troas, Alexandreia. Severus Alexander 222-235. Ӕ. M AV S ALEXANDRV (sic), laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Severus Alexander, r. / COL ALEX AVG TROA, Apollo nude standing, l., placing foot on pedestal, holding laurel branch. RPC VI, 4031 (temporary); Bellinger A334. Next - Apollo

It's up to you. For 63 CHF you can buy a nice enough coin. Sure, not a Julius Caesar UNC aureus, but I personally have a lot of coins I paid similar prices for and I am happy with them.

This is wrong on many levels (but not unusual for this mint and this period) Pisidia, Antioch. Volusian 251-253 AD. Ӕ. IMP CAE RASLLOVNAHNIR, radiate, draped and cuirassed bust of Volusian or Valerian right, seen from behind / ANTIOC- H- IOCLA [R], aquila between two legionary standards. SNG France 1294; SNG Copenhagen 85; BMC 135 Next - either a coin of the great emperor Caeras Llovnahnir, or another coin with a spelling error.

I am glad to see you are feeling better, @DonnaML. When I had Covid I was worried as even if I knew it's a mild case, it really felt serious. As a side note, I received my parcel, sent via Post. Ironically when I opened this thread my only complaint was the high unexpected fee for Post. I didn't know at that time that I will have to make 10 phone calls to incompetent people and also go to a warehouse to clarify. It was an error from the Post, registering my envelope to a different town (this wasn't the sender's fault), but this doesn't exclude the initial problem - why sending via post if for the same fee, recently, from the same house, DHL Express was used. To avoid any kind of problems in the future, I chose the safest solution - I will never buy from them anymore and I am very sure this was a nice attempt to make a small profit. Thank you, but not with me. They are "covered" - they mention nothing about the shipping method. And the insurance written on the envelope was 40 euros. Total was 186. No, thanks, I have other houses to choose from. I trust @Prieure de Sion so yep, this might be the actual fee for that invoice, so Leu is probably asking that price in an honest way but what I will personally do in the future: 1. I expect all the T&C to be clearly stated. This means - how much is the shipping charge, what is the service used. If I feel it is OK. I will buy. I am now expecting a parcel sent with FedEX Priority (good service, faster than FedEX Economy). I paid 25 euros. Sent from Belgium, the house sent it in a timely manner - I am happy with this. 2. If the T&Cs are unclear, I will send an email and I expect clear details. Rather than - "shipping costs are 25 euros" I want to know what does that mean. FedEx, Post, homing pigeons? If no reply is received, skip. Once I assumed that a 29 EUR DHL is DHL Express. It was not. 3. Particularily for Donna's case - 85 CHF is a lot for shipping, even if this is honest and accurate. Houses should be aware that there might be customers who want to buy 1-2 coins, with a total of 1-2-300 EUR. Shipping cost would not be justified then and many customers would email asking for cheaper methods OR asking to hold the coins for a future combined order. In my view, there should be the house's responsibility to make sure they have a cheaper alternate method of sending. And offer it by default - I mean, customer can choose FedEx or Post. If they can't, just state this clearly - we can only offer FedEX for 85 CHF, take it or leave it.

Some things I noticed in the last 6 months or so 1. Less interesting coins. For me interesting does not mandatory mean ultra rare or FDC. When I say interesting, it could be a common emperor/city/whatever but with an interesting reverse. 1 year ago when I was checking a new auction from one of my favorite houses, I usually marked 15-20 coins in my list. 2-3 "mandatory", 5-6 "good to have", rest "could be a good snack". Of course I didn't win all, but now I see myself more and more often not marking more than 2-3 coins per auction, and no, they are not fantastic. There is also a secondary reason here - my collection grew and many targets are already fulfilled so this could be "my fault" also - what I found interesting 2 years ago is now a ticked box. 2. Less bargains. Again I am not sure if it is my perception, but I am looking at the coins I bought 1-2 years ago and see similar examples going for much more. This is just an observation and I am not sure if this is 100% true. Snacks in my perception - denarii from common rulers, in F+/VF-- condition, for 20-30 euros. Now they go for 40-50 euros. 3. Small houses with budget coins get more popular. I had a short list of houses where I knew gems can be found. Gems in my book - interesting coins as per my standards going unnoticed because of a small number of bidders. This seems to happen quite rarely. 4. Some coins are getting very popular. Quick examples - Athens owl tetradrachms in modest condition; Thessalonica bronze with Augustus and Julius Caesar (not a rare coin, interesting, but I refuse to pay 100+ euros for an ugly example); Alexandrian tetradrachms; 2nd century denarii. And I do not mean coins in excellent condition.

Bull 23 mm, 10,8 g. Cilicia, Tarsos. Mazaios 361-334 BC. AR stater. Baaltars seated left on throne, head facing, holding lotus-tipped sceptre, grain ear, grape bunch and eagle; 'BLTRZ' Aramaic legend to right / Lion left attacking bull left; Aramaic legend above 'MZDI' = Mazaios, Aramaic letters below. Casabonne Series 2A; SNG France 338-347 (controls); SNG Levante 101 var.

19,4 mm, 1,86 g. Gallienus 253-268 AD. Billon antoninianus. Mediolanum. GALLIENVS AVG, radiate head right / VIRTV-S AVG, soldier, helmeted, in military attire, standing left, resting right hand on shield and holding spear in left hand. RIC V Gallienus 534. Next - Virtus

These games lost their popularity. 6 hour rule. A coin from Constnatius II 14,3 mm, 1,6 g. Constantius II 347-348. Ӕ follis. Cyzicus. D N CONSTAN-TIVS P F AVG, head of Constantius II, rosette-diademed, right / VOT/XX/MVLT/XXX within a wreath. MintMark: -/-//SMKA. RIC VIII Cyzicus 49. Next - reverse without graphical elements (except wreaths), just text

Oxen 18 mm, 2,67 g. Vespasian 69-79. AR denarius. Rome. 77-78. IMP CAESAR VESPASIANVS AVG, laureate head right / Pair of oxen under yoke left, In exergue, COS VIII. C 133; BMC 206; RIC 943; CBN 184; Old RIC 107

Massive and impressive coins, with a high level of artistry. The only relevant coin I can add is my Leuwendaalder. I keep my collection of pre 1700 coins (mostly ancients) in an album but this coin is that large it doesn't fit ... so I placed a handwritten tag in its place and I keep it in a small jewelery chest. Although the condition is not fantastic, this is above average for these issues. The flans were, in many, many cases, too small and the strikes are poor. So circulation wear is minimal on this. 41,7 mm, 27,1 g Dutch Republic (Netherlands). AR 1 Leeuwendaalder (lily, knight facing left). Kampen. 1648. MO ARG CIV IM P BELG CAMPEN, knight standing behind shield facing left / CONFIDENS DNO NON MOVETVR 1648 (He who trusts in the Lord shall not waver), rampant lion to the left. Mint mark – lily - dividing year. KM# 42.2; Delmonte S# 862; Ver# 163.3.

It's not Livia (and not Cleopatra, a dealer who tells you this should quit this activity). The obverse should be a generic portrait of the Senate. The reverse appears to be a female character holding a long torch. My guess is https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/2/1036 but you can investigate further based on these preliminary clues. I am not into Byzantines but this looks correct - a specialist can confirm further. Salonina, Apamea https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/type/84477 This puzzled me but I suspect it's Antiochos IV of Commagene with Iotape on reverse, from Elaeusa-Sebaste. Style is similar and ΒΑΣΙΛΙΣΣΑ is visible under the feet - check one of those https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/search/browse?volume_id=&number=&city_id=472&region_id=&province_id=&subprovince_id=&reign_id=&obverse_inscription_simplified=&reverse_inscription_simplified=&obverse_design=&reverse_design=iotape+seated+l.+&metal_id=&weight_min=&weight_max=&diameter_min=&diameter_max=&format= or from Corycus https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/1/3712A Severus Alexander, Caesarea https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/6/6845 A suggestion for you, in fact 2. 1. Group your obverse/reverse pics. I have a pretty large monitor but it's not confortable to scroll to see the sides of the same coin especially if the pics are large and clear. Something like 2. Even if for ancients we all know that size and weight are variable even for 2 coins of the same type, the measurements are useful.

20 mm, 3,74 g. Mn. Aquillius. AR serrate denarius. Rome. 71 BC. VIRTVS / III VIR, helmeted, draped bust of Virtus / MN AQVIL / MN F MN N / SICIL, warrior, holding shield and raising up fallen figure (or the consul Man. Aquillius raising Sicilia). Cr. 401/1; RSC Aquillia 2; BMC 3364. Next - warrior doing an action.

Spes: 19 mm, 3,28 g. Geta as Caesar 198-209 AD. AR denarius. Laodicea ad Mare. 198-200 AD. L SEPTIMIVS GETA CAES, bare-headed, draped and cuirassed bust right / SPEI PERPETVAE, Spes advancing left, holding flower and raising hem of skirt. RIC IV 96; BMC 688; RSC 192a.

Fun and luxury 17 mm, 3,60 g. T. Carisius. AR denarius. Rome. 46 BC. Head of Sibyl Herophile r., hair elaborately decorated with jewels and enclosed in a sling and tied with bands / T CARISIVS above, [III VIR in exergue], sphinx seated r. Crawford 464/1; RBW 1613; RSC Carisia 11. Next - a RR coin without horses, bigas, trigas, quadrigas.

I bought from a fair number of houses, but Savoca offer, by far, the best customer experience I have ever encountered. Fast and cheap shipping. Extremely fast sending (I don't know how they do it, but auctions are ended late at night and at 5-6 AM the parcels are prepared for shipping). Every time I had a query (related to shipping or numismatic queries) the replies were polite, friendly and accurate. A slow shipping is, of course, better than broken/lost parcels. But my problem is slow + expensive shipping. And, like in my current case, slow, expensive and wrong shipping due to incompetence.

This means one thing - that house wants your money in a fair way. So you will probably buy from them in the future. This means they are a legit business with respect for the customer. I saw that some collegues misunderstood what I mean. If it looks like I want ultra express shipping for 2 euros, sent 5 minutes after auction end, this was never the case. All I want is to receive what I pay for. This means one thing - send me with the shipping I pay for, without squeezing money. Ship in in a timely manner (I deeply respect houses who ship 1 day after the auction, but I do not expect this for all the houses. 3 days are OK. A week is OK. 2 weeks AND a slow shipping are not OK for me, especially if you charge me extra just... because). But this part - charge more for shipping (without a fair reason) is simply a lack of respect. Let's squeeze extra money, why not. If we do this for 100 customers, this is a nice pile of cash. I have a clear example - I described it. A house always shipped using DHL Express. Suddenly they changed the method to ordinary post. WIth the same fee. I found this out only after I received the shipping confirmation. Initially I didn't even care too much (although this made me initially consider if I want to buy from them in the future), but this wasn't all. The package didn't arrive in normal time (normal time for postal shipments!). The envelope was stuck close to my town. Reason? The house managed to mistype my town name and the actual town was different. And the Post, in its infinite wisdom, couldn't care less so was in the process of returning to sender. I spent almost all day, Friday, to solve this. Phone calls over phone calls and I even went myself to a Post warehouse (in a remote location far from me) and the only thing I managed was to arrange rerouting it to me, sometime next week. Seeing the incompetence of these people, I am not sure they will manage to deliver it. I informed the house and their answer was "we're sorry, if it comes back to us we will ship it to you via DHL Express". Ah, so now you are able to ship via DHL Express, but you wanted to see what happens if you ship it via Post and typing the wrong address.

Pius 18 mm, 2,56 g. Antoninus Pius 138-161. AR denarius. Rome. 141-143. ANTONINVS AVG PIVS PP TR P COS III, laureate head right / ANNONA AVG, modius with four grain ears and a poppy. RIC 62.

19 mm, 2,83 g. Vitellius 69 AD. AR denarius. Rome. A VITELLIVS GERM IMP AVG TR P - laureate head of Vitellius right / PONT MAXIM - Vesta, veiled, seated on throne right, holding patera and scepter. RIC 107. Next - Galba

I have a chipped follis from Theophilus, bought a long, long time ago. 18,6 mm, 2,8 g. Byzantine Empire, Syracuse. Theophilus 829-842. Ӕ follis. + ΘEOFI / LOSbASI, diademed bust facing, wearing chlamys and holding globe cruciger / Large M at l., XXX, at r., NNN, above, cross, below, Θ. DOC 30; Anastasi 548; Spahr 431; Sear 1681.

@Prieure de Sion, I want to clarify that you are not in my list of sellers with expensive and unjustified shipping fees. I only bought once from you and I was very pleased with the process. You used the correct price for your shipping method and you were exceptionally fast. The reason for not purchasing from you more is simple - I haven't found the right coin for me in your offer. I am pretty sure this will happen and when it does, I will not hesitate. @seth77 really said it. And yes, I am fully aware that a large seller/auction house has a special contract with their provider so they can offer smaller prices. But let's be serious. I provided a clear example. I was charged 28 euros for a DHL Paket, sent from Germany. WIthout even mentioning it's DHL Paket. I know a gentleman from Germany (a private, small seller). He sometimes ships packages to me using DHL Paket. He doesn;t even have a contract with them so he has no special offers, but the price he pays for shipping is under 20 euros. Surely an auction house has a contract with DHL for DHL Paket service. It can't be more expensive. Like I said, this is nothing more than an unjustified cost. Same for normal letters.

I totally agree with you, @Prieure de Sion. I know a small seller would not get these offers from FedEx. And I am sure a small seller cannot send DHL Express for 18.5 euros, from EU to a different EU country. But on the other hand, I don't think and ordinary letter costs 28 euros/15 euros (30 with insurance)/ 18.5 euros (when the same house used DHL Express not long ago for the same price - 18.5 euros).. Same with the "insured FedEx" for 50 euros - this is extra charge for the customer. I suspect this is what is called "pecking" in my language, in an approximate translation. They add something to the normal shipping costs as ... tips. For me, this is enough to stop buying from these houses.

As an end customer, I don't really understand how some houses reach the shipping costs they offer. Here is an example from my favorite house, my latest invoice. FedEx shipping. 15 Euros + 1% insurance. As a side note, this house always ships extremely fast. Is this a decisive factor? No. I can wait a week until the seller prepares the package. But a quick shipping means good service + respect for the customer. How come others use totally different prices for much cheaper (as in - worse, because they are not cheap) services? This is the question. And I keep my initial opinion - cheap way to make money. I refuse to believe the fee for uninsured postal service is 15 euros and for insured postal service this is 30.

Because this is how I like, and paying a high price would mean a good service - in this case a fast service. This wasn't my question and I don't have anything against houses who use ordinary post (this means about 2 weeks for me) but for the corrrect fee, not raising the price for the shipping. Do you think it's OK to pay 28 euros for slow post? or 18.5 euros for DHL express in 2023 vs 18.5 euros for slow post in 2024? same house? Or 30 euros for slow post if you also want insurance for it? These were the exact examples.

Like all of us, I am looking carefully at T&C when buying from an auction. What are the shipping fees, what is the service used, if there are any customs/extra taxes, and, as a side note, I admire a lot houses who somehow manage to ship very quickly. If I find a house that a)sends the package extremely fast (some of them ship the very next day after the auction) and b) uses a good shipping service then it is very likely to buy again from them. What I noticed in the last months - some houses use abnormal fees. I am not accusing anyone (and I will not name any of them) but I personally don't like this at all. Example 1 - last year. T&C - shipping is performed via DHL, shipping fee 28 euros. I was OK with this since from previous shipments from other houses, a 28 EUR DHL is DHL Express. This is a very fast service and for EU to EU deliveries, it takes 48-72 hours. So fair enough. Actual outcome - they shipped after a week and the service was DHL Paket, which is very different from DHL Express, slower and cheaper. 2 extra weeks until it arrived. ---------------- Example 2 - a house I bought from in several situations. Until recently they had 2 shipping fees for EU - 15 euros for post, 25 euros FedEx. I usually chose post and I was OK-ish for 15 euros, thinking it is insured and whatever. Suddenly I saw a change in the T&C Post (tracked, no insurance, own risk) • EU : 15EUR • Non EU: 20EUR Post (insured up to EUR 500) • EU: 30 EUR • Non EU: 40 EUR FedEx (tracked, no insurance, own risk) • EU: 25 EUR • Non EU: 35 EUR FedEx (insured up to EUR 2000) • EU: 50 EUR • Non EU: 70 EUR I was a little shocked as paying 15 euros for an uninsured postal package or 25 euros for a Fedex uninsured package doesn't seem to ...reassuring. And doubling the fees for insurance seems silly, doesn't it? I emailed the house, hoping it's en error, after I paid an invoice and I saw on it that the shipping is without insurance, own risk. Their reply "thanks for your mail. Unfortunately, this shipment is not insured. We had to add this option because of some lost packages." Well, I don't see this as a valid argument. Until that moment, the postal fee was 15 euros. For this sum (insude EU) I would expect insurance. If the packages were lost, there should be a refund. Apparently, it isn't. If you want insurance, you need to pay 30/50 EUR. ------- Example 3. Another house I bought from in the past and I was very happy with their DHL Express shipping (as I said, 48-72 hours - price 18.5 euros). So cheap shipping for the quality, right? Recent auction. I only bought 2 coins and I wasn't very happy with the outcome (no great deals) but I said, hey, at least these guys are fast. I paid the invoice, with the same shipping cost as in the past - after a few days they shipped it.... but with ordinary post. I received a tracking number (and I saw it's NOT a DHL tracking number) and 3 tracking links - one for Post, one for DHL (useless) and one for GLS (very useless). So instead of 48-72 hours, for the same cost, the shipping time will be ~2 weeks. ---------- There could be an example 4 but I avoided it. A few days ago I was checking an auction house I never bought from, I saw some possible targets and then I checked the T&C. I immediately closed the browser tab when I saw the shipping fee - 50 euros. Again, from EU to EU. I do not remember the house name but I am sure about the costs. --------- Am I the only one seeing this? Of course nobody would get rich with this but for me this is an example of an easy way to get money. Paying 30 euros for "insured post" sounds silly. Paying almost 30 euros for "DHL" without mentioning "what" DHL is used is also silly. Changing the shipping method from DHL Express to ordinary post, for the same fee is .... you know, silly.

I wish you a quick recovery. I got Covid in September last year. Now idea how as I usually don't stay very close to people. Only possibility - in public transport (I rarely use it anyway as I work from home and I buy all I need from shops near my house). It was a Sunday afternoon, nice weather so I went out for a little walk. In the middle of the sidewalk. Suddenly I felt extremely tired, with an acute headache. I just felt the need to lay down. I reached home as fast as I could (and this was very slow) and in the next 7-8 days I experienced Covid - but in a mild form. Fever - 38.5-38.7 Celsius (so ~101.6 Fahreneit - but I will never be comfortable in using this scale). General diziness and slight difficulties in concentrating. Head ache. Muscular ache. And lots of sweating. I literally changed my shirt 6-7 times a day. I used normal cold/flu medicine but I was keeping a close eye on the symptoms. My immune system is usually pretty strong when it comes to getting a cold/a flu. Actually I never had a flu in my life until this event. For me there were no side effects - my taste and sense of smell were never lost.