Finn235

Superb SA! I have noticed that his coins in general are quite nice, but the IOVI PROPVGNATORI issue in particular tends to be excellent. This is one of my overall nicest Roman coins.

Nice pickup! My trio of favorite Marcus portraits Baby Marcus as Caesar As Augustus & Divine Marcus

What? Surely you MUST buy the book Before you can even *think* about buying the coin!

1. I love the obverses on those Syracuse issues, but I don't find the "tangle of horses" reverse visually appealing at all. Worse, most of them seem terribly struck. I just don't understand how everyone says they are "the most beautiful coin ever made" 2. Whenever a complete newbie wanders into this black hole from collecting US Classic coinage to ask how to pick their first ancient, the default advice shouldn't be to tell them to go onto Vcoins and blow their entire budget on the nicest coin they can afford. They have NO idea about the nuances of this hobby and what could make something like a Trajan denarius worth $25, versus $50, 150, or 500. In my view, spending $250 on a $50 coin is not much better than blowing $200 on fakes on ebay.

I've seen some ridiculous listings but I agree this takes the cake. Runner up would be a regular old 1950s wheat penny where the description was a RAMBLING ALL CAPS 2000 WORD RANT ABOUT A MASSIVE GOVERNMENT COVERUP INVOLVING THE PENNY AND HOW IT WAS INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK. Also ridiculous price in the multiple thousands of dollars range. Really wish I had saved pics of that one.

I have two primary focuses. The first, and comprising by far the majority of my collection's value is my Roman "Portraits of Power" collection, comprising of 1) Every Imperator/Dictator, Augustus, Caesar, Empress, non-title-holding family member, usurper and ethnic Roman governor of the provinces that I can find and afford 2) In every distinct title they held, for now focusing on Caesar / Augustus / Divus, although I eventually hope to double back for honorifics like Germanicus, Britannicus, Parthicus, etc. Treating each title as a separate issue has led me down some interesting rabbit holes. Some favorites Did you know that Caligula was honored "as Caesar" under Tiberius, but only by Carthago Nova? There is only a single issue depicting Caligula's wife Caesonia and their daughter Drusilla, and only a (couple?) hundred surviving specimens? Vedius Pollio is best known as the embodiment of cruelty as he kept a pit of starved lampreys that he would feed his slaves to for entertainment, to the horror of Augustus QUINCTILIUS VARUS, WHERE ARE MY EEEEEEAAAAAGGGLLLEEESSS?!? Herennius Etruscus was made emperor so hastily that the mint barely had time to react. This one is on a fresh flan, but up to half of his extremely rare accession issue was minted on top of whatever the mint had laying around - primarily old silver denarii of the Severans. I love the irony of his anticipated victory in the campaign that would claim his life just a month later. My second focus is on a series that inexplicably gripped me - Indo-Sassanian coins. Contrasting my Roman set which is focused entirely on history, I collect Indo-Sassanian purely for numismatic interest. I started because they were neat, then started digging, and realized how *woefully* under-studied the series was. When I bought the only book dedicated to the series and found more of the same obvious errors, I resolved to come up with my own way to organize the series. Like a windows update, it's been stuck at 95% done for the last 5 years, as at this rate I seem to be discovering new types faster than I can manage to hunt down the last few that I know I'm missing.

Just be patient - they aren't *that* rare. I'd recommend setting up an automated alert on Biddr if you haven't already. This was my first one, bought on ebay for $50 or thereabouts (sold it a few years ago) My upgrade, $150ish a couple years ago Coins as Augustus are more tricky - he was Caesar for a year-ish, and Augustus for only a few months. I bought this one about 5 years ago for ~$150. Eastern mints seem to be more common - I guess it took a while for them to learn that he had died.

If I were to want to blow a lot of money on something related to the Diadochi, I'd be inclined to get a gold stater like you suggested OR, how about a tetradrachm or three minted by the mercenaries who won battles for the Macedonians - the Celts!

I love a beautiful coin as much as the next collector, but I left modern coin collecting because I care about the stories and the "personality" of coins that were engraved and struck by hands thousands of years ago. Being decrepit doesn't detract from either. Sometimes it adds to the interest. Julius Caesar coins are neither particularly scarce, nor are they ever cheap. This came from a CNG lot for about $200 after I sold the other 3 Caesar denarii in the lot. It's one of the uglier examples that's been posted on here, but I liked not having to blow 1/4 to 1/2 a year's coin budget on an XF DICT PERPETVO type. I had figured that eventually I would just unceremoniously sell this one when the time came that I could afford a $2k-5k Caesar denarius - but then I got to thinking... It's cool that this coin was minted in Feb/Mar 44 BC while Caesar was still alive. It kind of stinks that "CAESAR" is off flan and most of the reverse is rubbed away. BUT, it's also cool to imagine what happened after this coin was struck. This is the equivalent of IMO a minimum of 40-50 years of continual use; it was certainly in circulation for the entirety of the ensuing Civil Wars, and then likely at least 10-20 years into the reign of Augustus. Perhaps it was circulated more intermittently - was it last used during the reign of Tiberius? Nero? Trajan? Who used it, and what did it buy? There's a lot more to coins than just condition and value.

Cleaning out my office and it's time to let go of the auction catalogs I've been getting in the mail for the last 6 years. Before I trash all of these, is anyone interested in: - Leu 2 - 16 - CNG 109-118 & Triton XXIII - XXV - Nomos 26, 29, 30 - Roma 20, 21, 22 Should be able to ship these anywhere in the continental US pretty cheap via media mail - just let me know if you are interested and all I ask is that you cover shipping!

Splendid coin with a really powerful bust there, @Coinmaster! I have a few Maesas in my collection Antoninianus minted under Elagabalus Denarius with a more "youthful" bust And a more "aged" bust of the same type as yours, but lifeless dead eyes (Aside here - is there any correlation with the young/old bust and whether they were minted under Elagabalus or Alexander?) And the kicker - a posthumous issue under Severus Alexander - an extremely rare issue and I believe I have the only example worth less than $1k! And just for fun - not a sestertius but a dupondius! Very rare middle bronze from a time that not many were made. I did sell this one a number of years back.

Nice example! Japanese coins were my first serious undertaking; I have a full type set from 1870-2006 or so, minus gold or the significantly expensive coins like the trade dollar. I agree that I've always had a soft spot for the dragon designs, although I prefer the sunburst reverse from 1870-71 The 1870 dragon is a relatively rare type coin; it was plagued by striking issues and used to be a $100+ coin in any grade, although the market of course cooled off as soon as I bought mine... And also an 1873, also separated characters

Nice example! I pulled this one from a group lot a year ago but didn't think to research it more than attributing it

Definitely the purple one - I'm a sucker for style, and the style on that portrait is exceptional