Finn235

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Over the past 2.5 years, Stephen Album has sold approximately 800-900 Gadhaiya coins of an unpublished type, mostly in lots of 100-120.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

3 minutes ago, John Conduitt said:

It's probably the Parthians' fault that the Sasanids are listed under Greek. The Parthians started out Hellenistic, following on from the Seleucids. The Sasanians were the bit in the middle before the arrival of Islam.

To be fair, it can be kind of difficult to draw lines where Persia and Persian-affiliated coins are concerned. I've noticed that CNG differentiates "Eastern Greek" from "Central Asian" based on whether they use Greek or another language. Other auction houses place them under Greek, or sometimes even in the world coins section, between Russia and Spain!

It was the Parthians who didn't strike gold. Sassanian gold is fairly common.

I was eyeing the handful of Indo Sassanians flanking that one but decided not to bid on anything. I noticed that one - is it an official mint product or an imitation? Style seemed very questionable to me!

Small mail day last week 

First, is an upgrade - an unassuming coin of a major rarity in the Roman Imperial set - Commodus with his younger brother Annius Verus. Annius Verus is known only from this type (two obverse legend variants of the same type), a couple types of medallion, and *possibly* the "four seasons" series of quadrans, although I believe the last has been debunked.

The old coin, which I suppose now I need to figure out the best way to sell....

And secondly, a type I had my eye on for a while and finally won a middling specimen at a lowball bid

AE10 of Spithridates, Achaemenid satrap of Lydia. Best known for being the man who almost killed Alexander the Great at the Battle of Granicus - he was about to land a blow from behind when one of Alexander's generals cut his arm off, saving Alexander's life.

Another favorite lot of mine came from Leu in 2018:

At something like $40 per coin it was pretty much guaranteed to be a fantastic deal. Some of my favorites:

This Kyme diobol was unique at the time and was sold by Roma for about £300 some six months before it somehow ended up in this lot. Since 2018 I think 3 or 4 more have surfaced, all in very rough shape. Given the current market conditions, this potentially could be my most valuable coin.

This Kebren hemitartemorion sold BIN on eBay for $350. It is a technical marvel that they were able to get a 3D effect portrait of Apollo on a 5mm, 0.07g coin!

This Cilicia satrapal portrait obol may still be the finest known, and sold on ebay for $360

This one sold for $250

This one sold for $200

I liked this one too much to attempt to sell it

It also had a few more keepers for my collection:

Lampsakos hemidrachm

Alexander-type drachm of Antigonus I

And lots more that I apparently don't have images of on my phone.

Like @Orange Julius said, this is how most of my collection was assembled, so I could drone on for pages about it.

Probably my biggest gamble that paid off the most was this lot from CNG

Properly laid out:

That's a Carausius, Macrianus, Quietus, Marius, and a Magnia Urbica for $240 after fees. I ended up keeping the Carausius, Tacitus, and Saloninus, and still profited almost $600 from selling the rest on eBay.

My worst lot:

Seems like a great big pile of good silver antoninianii in superb condition with 3 Macrianus antoninianii right on top, right?

Most of the lot was conveniently arranged to hide the fact that one side was extremely poorly struck. Here's the Valerian in the center right:

That was a "keeper" - many were significantly worse. All in, I think I kept 8 coins and fell $1,000 short of breaking even. Would have been substantially better off just buying individual coins.

It's the AI generated first image that gets me

Couldn't be bothered to Google up enough images of actual coins to photoshop in, so they just had ChatGPT whip something up.

My favorite tetartemorion - 6mm / 0.15g

Here's my big one:

220 coins from a hoard containing 4 types of unpublished Gadhaiya imitations (the lone coin is an unattributable error).

They are sorted, but not yet weighed and imaged. I was able to buy a total of 3 of the 7 lots from the hoard, which Stephen Album didn't recognize as being unpublished. I've had them for almost a year - I grossly overestimated how much free time I would have over the last 12 months between work and family.

Other than that, I have about 75% of the remainder of my Indo Sassanians imaged, and hope that this year I will be able to at least lay the groundwork for a website, and then it won't be as daunting a task to just upload a dozen images a few times a week. Time is my enemy right now 😞

Marius is pretty tough to get for under $100 regardless of condition. I've had several but sold all but this one which cost me ~$250 as an individual purchase from Leu maybe 5 years ago. I feel it's a fair price. I would expect to pay a lot more were it not for the edge splits and slightly weak obverse strike.

I am very much a cheapskate when it comes to coins and will usually let a coin go if I can't get it for a "great" deal. One of the few times I was fully aware of the average price of a not particularly rare issue and still happily "overpaid" was this provincial of Germanicus and Drusus from Sardes:

It struck me as a "must have" because of the incredible artistry in Germanicus' portrait - which IMO is likely the best if not only realist portrait of the man to survive in any medium. The coins in poorer condition tend to sell for $30-50; I paid $180 for the better portrait.

Perfect occasion to show off probably my favorite lot score of all time!

I had the same issue so I ended up having to drop way more than I was hoping on this one a year or so ago

5 hours ago, zanzi said:

I'm curious, how big is this? You say it is a larger AE.

28mm - about the same size as a late RR As.

Definitely not huge compared to Ptolemaic or Roman standards, but the vast majority of the Greek AEs in my collection are sub-20mm, so it's a definite stand-out in terms of size.

Here's a recent "snack" that I've been after for a while but doesn't quite warrant its own thread - a larger AE of Amisos from the time of Mithradates VI, featuring Perseus slaying Medusa. A common, inexpensive coin that I have always wanted in decent grade.

One of my early fascinations about ancient coins was finding coins inscribed with various extinct languages, the more obscure, the better. My pool of options without dropping some serious cash quickly dried up, so that passion has been more of a back-burner interest for a number of years now.

I was aware of the type and had attempted to win it a few times prior, but to my shock a lowball bid actually stuck for once!

Pamphylia, Side AR Stater 20mm 10.51g

Ca 380-360 BC

Obv: Apollo, nude but for drapery at elbows, holding thin long branch and Patera, sacrificing at altar (off flan), bird at feet, Sidetic legend behind and beneath patera.

Rev: Athena standing left, holding shield and Nike, pomegranate to left.

Sidetic was a member of the Anatolian language family, similar to Lycian, Carian, and Pamphylian. Unlike those, however, it seems to have drawn more heavily from Phoenician in letter design and being written right to left. It may have been a novel invention, no more closely related to Phoenician or Greek than Cherokee is to English. It is extremely poorly attested - only a handful of inscriptions and a few types of coin have survived to the present. Online I read claims that the script is essentially translated, but also that several of the symbols still elude attempts at deciphering. The Sidetic alphabet supposedly has 25 letters, but I haven't found consensus on what they are, or their values. Closest to the coin:

My attempt at transliteration the coin legend, supplementing from Wikipedia's alphabet chart when I was unable to find a match to the above:

Obviously very low confidence in this - I found one Leu auction which transliterated as "siduwais" which I am also not certain is correct.

At any rate, it is a beautiful coin of wonderful Classical style and a welcome addition to my collection!

Any others out there? Let's see 'em if so!

5 hours ago, ambr0zie said:

I have seen some great coins in this thread, but the gold medal goes to @Finn235. I see you are actively going for rarities. I don't remember seeing too many Decius semisses (I knew about them) or Volusian as caesar coins, to name just two. 

I am not sure if you are the member who also has a Diva Maesa antoninianus, as I saw one a long time ago and I had no idea these were produced. 

Thanks!

And denarius - the antoninianus was already canceled by the time she died 😉

Wonderful coins all!

Decius' family is IMO one of the most interesting, numismatically speaking - especially for a span of only 2 years!

For Decius, a trio of uncommonly seen denominations

AE As

AE Dupondius, also probably from the same largesse event

And these tiny AEs are usually called the last semisses ever struck, although I've also heard some people argue that they were an attempt to reintroduce the As as an orichalchum coin.

Herennia Etruscilla

Herennius Etruscus

A very uncommon Etruscus AE As

Herennius Etruscus as Augustus - a position he held for likely only a month before he fell in battle

Hostilian as Caesar

And Hostilian as Augustus with Trebonianus Gallus

And as an added bonus, Hostilian's Caesar, Volusian

Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

How are your taste and smell? My wife got hit with the variant that makes everything taste like sand, and more than 2 years later she's only back to about 75%.

I blame @DonnaML in particular for planting this idea in my head!

This was another case of missing my main target, winning a lesser target, and realizing halfway through the "Medieval & World" section that I should see what else could tag along since I was already on the hook for paying $20+ shipping. Bidding was extremely weak on both of these and I won both.

#1 42mm, 41.14g

AE Medal of the French Consulate with Napoleon, Cambaceres, and Lebrun as Consuls

Commemorating the placement of the foundation stone in the Colonne Vendôme by Lucien Bonaparte, 14 July 1800

Obv: BONAPARTE PREMIER CONSUL / CAMBACÉRÈS SECOND CONSUL LEBRUN TROISME. CONSUL DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE, Bust of Napoleon in military coat right, DUVIVER on truncation 

Rev: LE PEUPLE FRANÇAISE À SES DÉFENSEURS / PREMIERE PIERRE DE LA COLONNE NATIONL. POSÉE PAR LUCIEN BONAPARTE MINISTRE DE L'INTÉRIEUR 25 MESSIDOR AN 8 14 JUILLET 1800

The medal comes from just a few months after Napoleon's rise to power - before he stylized himself as Emperor. The reverse names Lucien Bonaparte as Minister of the Interior, a post he held from 1799 until 1800, when he resigned and moved to Spain after a falling out with his brother, and the two maintained an uneasy relationship for the rest of their lives. I was confused at first about why the medal mentions the Column when construction wasn't started until 1806 - but a little further digging revealed that the initial column was started in 1800 but then abandoned for six years.

I particularly like the somewhat rough, "hand made" appearance of this medal - the inscriptions were obviously punched one letter at a time, and almost none of them are perfectly in line with each other.

#2 52mm, 72.81g

Gilt AE medal celebrating the return of Napoleon's remains to France, and advertising the book by L. Vivien which is referenced on the title. Dies by Montagny, 1844.

Obv: HIST. DE LA REVOLUTION, DE L'EMPIRE DE LA RESTAURATION ET DE LA MON. DE 1830. / PUBLIÉ PAR POURRAT FRÈRES A PARIS., Laureate head of Napoleon right

Rev: Alegorical France holds garland, olive and laurel branches as Napoleon's supporters bring forth his coffin; cupid/Eros holds torch and tablet engraved N on column behind left; warship Belle-Poulle fires salute behind right; Napoleon looks on from the heavens on the back of an eagle.

This medal is quite a bit more common, and I was able to find several additional examples online. It was commissioned as an advertising piece for an 1844 book by Vivien which covers the history of France from 1792 - 1830, with later revisions covering up through 1840.

Post those Napoleonic medals and coins, or anything else related!

IMO, if you are wanting a lifetime Drusus, one of the more interesting issues would be an issue from prior to 19 with Drusus and Germanicus as Caesars. They are fairly difficult to find from Germanicus' lifetime and tend to be pretty small - I paid a massive premium for mine because of the Germanicus portrait, but this AE16 issue of Sardes in Lydia isn't *too* rare and is pretty affordable - think $30-60 in very slightly lower grade. I've seen maybe 5-8 sold in the last 3 years since I bought mine.