Finn235

I tend to be a thrifty shopper, but I have a few in my collection that are likely the best of a particularly rare issue Greek- Kyme Aiolis AR diobol (or trihemiobol by some accounts). Formerly unique, I think 4 or 5 additional examples surfaced since The next best example I could find: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=813447 Achaemenid satraps of Cilicia, unknown city and satrap AR Obol. My photo, sold the coin back in 2018 Not the best surfaces, but it was the most detailed example of a very rare type I've ever seen Roman - Augustus with Rhoemetalkes While not the best condition-wise, it's a contender for one of the best styled examples I've ever seen, and may be one of the few realist portraits of Augustus from this era. Lucius Caesar, AE13 from Antioch ad Maeandrum The second ever sold when I bought it, from a series that had not yet been formally recognized. About a dozen more have surfaced, and mine remains the best known, and the only with distinct hair details. Germanicus and Drusus, AE16 from Sardes To my knowledge, this is the most detailed lifetime portrait of Germanicus on a coin. Most have flat spots and/or a very thick patina that obscures details like his sideburns and eyes.

Always loved this matched pair - one bright and lustrous as the day it was minted, the other still wrapped in a deep black find patina

Or, you know, I could buy this mansion in my town and still have enough left over for a new sport car. Really puts it into perspective how much $4M+ in disposable income is!

Cute little bronzes! I've kept a handful that I've pulled from random lots of coins over the years Augustus- Caria, Trapezopolis AE18 Caria, Antioch ad Maeandrum AE16 (this one is sometimes also attributed to Tiberius) Thrace, Sestos AE12 Tiberius - Ionia, Smyrna AE17 Lydia, Philadelphia AE15 (this one was "Tiberius Gemellus" when I bought it, and tragically has been reassigned as additional examples with "CEBACTOY" before the bust have surfaced since 2018)

Good luck with the sale! Leu does seem to have the strongest bidding action lately, so hopefully it will be a net positive for you!

Definitely mis-aligned, but not an error and no premium. As long as 100% of both sides is on the note, it is within tolerances and would get the green light to circulate. Once part of the note runs off of the bill, then you start getting into error territory.

Japanese mameita gin, would have to check Hartill on the attribution, but early 1800s most likely. Compare: These were bullion coins with no standard weight or fixed face value.

The pricing on Ptolemaic has never made much sense to me. This one (AE41 drachm) I got in a group lot for maybe $50 as its share of the lot price It was an upgrade for this one which I bought in a group lot from CNG with another of the type - sold the first one for $100 and this one for $65 - couldn't figure out why, because this was by far the better of the two. Honestly, one of the most frustrating aspects of selling ancients is when you stumble across a rare type, discover that it sold once or a few times at an auction for a really high price, and then you're stuck with it because nobody wants to pay even a fraction of the auction price for it.

Picked this one up pretty cheap recently I'm too poor to afford a nice Elagabalus Baetl-on-quadriga type, but this one I believe is the only other type to name his God instead of making vague references to "dei soli" Since I was already on the hook to pay $20 for shipping, I added on a couple job lots, which coughed up this fun barbarous Marcus Aurelius, imitating Antioch - the engraver goofed and forgot to mirror the reverse die And a new Roman "key ring" which would have been used to unlock a small chest like a jewelry box

Superb example! Mine is a right-facing portrait, but same reverse - possibly even a die match - I can't quite tell. Pulled this one out of a Naumann lot of "better" type coins a number of years ago.

This is why Indo Sassanian series 1.3 is my favorite - I don't know enough about art theory or aesthetics to articulate why I love these so much, but these are some of my favorite coins

I have a couple unusual trinkets First was given to me by my (very devoutly Catholic) grandmother - I was told it contains a small sliver of bone taken from the skeleton of Saint Francis of Assisi, but the Italian translation is "Dust from the tomb of Saint Francis" so I have honestly no clue what is in the tiny reliquary. The note along with it says that it was personally blessed by Pope Pius XII in the early 50s. Another, a not four- but seven-leaf clover that I found when I was in elementary school. Couldn't tell you why but I was obsessed with 4 leaf clovers at the time, and I found a little cluster of patches on the outskirts of the playground that was a hotbed for them. I eventually tossed most of the 4 leaf clovers but kept this one.

I'm wondering if it's a combo of acid/electrolysis cleaning + repatination?

Over the past 2.5 years, Stephen Album has sold approximately 800-900 Gadhaiya coins of an unpublished type, mostly in lots of 100-120. I managed to win 3 lots containing some 340ish coins, and discovered that all the coins were struck by only 2 obverse and 2 reverse dies. The prototype: Obverse die I, Reverse A - The obverse is oriented correctly and is reasonably accurate, and the reverse is simplified and chunky, but gets the major details right. About 40% of the hoard was struck with these dies. Obverse I reverse B - Same obverse die but the reverse is more finely engraved, but also more sloppy- the bowl of the fire altar is tilted with crooked lines and it looks like the dot standing in for the Pillar is slipping out on the right side. These are by far the rarest, with only about 10 specimens. Then comes obverse die II with reverse A- a sloppily engraved mess with the portrait facing left instead of right - unique among all of Indo Sassanian coinage! These were slightly less than 25% of the hoard And finally II/B - these were about 35% of the hoard Then, a few weeks ago I spotted a lot of about 30 coins from this hoard on eBay and bought them because I thought I saw some coins that were off centered enough to show some of the extremities of the die. After receiving them in hand late last week, they are in fact a new reverse die C! I/C II/C Each were 7-8 of the 30 coins I bought. Reverse die C I'm still trying to make sense of, but I did my best to orient it for the photos - I'm seeing two lines each for both the bowl and base of the fire altar, a single faint line on the left side for the attendants arms, and the rest is just a confused sea of dots. There are also 2 small dots visible at about 10:00 on the II/C coin that helped me identify these as all being the same die. This entire emission is very unusual and I think was an illicit operation by a few individuals with at least 2 preparing dies. Diameters are fairly consistent at 14-16mm but every coin is a different thickness with weights ranging from barely over 3g to nearly 7g. The coins also have an "edged" look to the flan and many have heavy file marks, but some have edge cracks and many are double struck, so these clearly were not cast. My theory about their production: - Flans were probably cast in trees with hand-carved dimples for each, owing to the dramatic difference in thickness. They probably traced around an authentic Gadhaiya and then just guessed at how deep to make it. - After casting, they were transferred and struck while still soft. They likely started out with one set of dies and then a different individual carved a second set, not realizing that the design had to be reversed. At some point perhaps reverse A wore out or broke, and the reverse C was made to replace it? - When the coins were finished, it appears that the marks from casting were filed off, as file marks are seen on the devices as well as the edge. The concern has crossed my mind that these could potentially be modern forgeries, but all signs point to a highly inexpert and completely manual manufacture. Fake gadhaiyas exist, but they are always machine-made and identical, because the profit margin is far too small to warrant hand-striking.

I always scour lots of 5th century tiny bronzes for Vandal coins. They aren't particularly rare, but definitely constitute a minority, even among lots already sorted into the "minim" sized coins. There is a public domain catalog of post-Roman Germanic coins, written by Warwick Wroth over a century ago for the British Museum. I think a lot of his classifications are considered outdated, but it is still immensely helpful. You can view/download it here: https://archive.org/details/catalogueofcoins00britrich A selection of favorites, cherry picked from dozens of lots containing hundreds of coins Vandals: Gunthamund AE denarius Thrasamund AE victory type (I think the legend is DN RC TRAS for Dominvs Noster Rex Carthago Trasamvnd) Hilderic (be careful; a LOT of Theodosius II or just plain barbarous coins will be sold as Hilderic - his coins end in REX) And some anonymous Vandal types You'll also see a LOT of these sold as Vandal, but I'm not so sure that these can be categorized as anything other than "barbarous" Ostrogoth coins are a lot less common Theoderic Athalaric