Finn235

I've actually been meaning to get around to that one since it's the only coin ever(?) struck for Drusus after his untimely death - let me know and I'm sure I could buy it off of you or we can work out a trade! I already have the matching Germanicus from the set 🙂

Fun finds! IMO, the last coin is Marcus Aurelius. Is there anything engraved on that ring?

My obligatory two Athens tets

That's good news and looks promising - I hope I was just being too skeptical!

In truth, I've reached the point where I have very serious doubts that Julius Nepos monogram AE4s are even a legitimate type that existed. Looking on ACSearch, I see this one that *might* be real, but the overall refined style gives me significant pause: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1645495 The rest? 80% are EH fakes, and the rest are either matches to the fakes, or obviously misattributed coins 🤮 https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=Julius+nepos+AE+monogram&category=1-2&lot=&date_from=&date_to=&thesaurus=1&images=1&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=usd&order=0

Emporium Hamburg was also considered to be trustworthy, and unfortunately many of their fakes ended up getting their provenance whitewashed by consignment them through other auction houses. Here's an example of two "Julius Nepos" AE4s that I put together last time this came up on CT Left is E.H., right is CNG: https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=329426 Makes me sick to think about the damage they did to the hobby.

Not genuine, IMO. Style reminds me a bit of the Emporium Hamburg fakes from a few years ago. At any rate, the fabric is way off - genuine AEs of this period are never this refined.

Private companies make these. This is the more commonly encountered repro of the type: https://www.amazon.com/Widows-Coins-Reproduction-Antique-Bronze/dp/B00NVOFJ44/ref=asc_df_B00NVOFJ44&mcid=9d8f7335b35d346b925aec1c9fbde613?tag=bngsmtphsnus-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=79852149838132&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=t&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583451676491427&psc=1 They are one of the more common "coins of the Bible" - from the parable in Luke 21 in which a destitute widow puts in two of the lowest value coin in circulation and everyone mocks her but Jesus explains that the monetary value isn't what is important. "Mite" is an anachronism from the KJV translation - the correct term is lepton, a denomination only made in large numbers by Alexander Jannaeus, and thus assumed to be the coin referenced. Companies make them as props, usually to give to young kids. Very frequently, said kid will grow up, forget they had the fake widow's mite, and then inquire about it on forums like this one. Of the ones I provided an Amazon link for, I usually see minimum 5 ID threads a year!

It's a repro widow's mite - haven't seen this particular one before, but there are at least a few companies that sell them. People give them to kids for Sunday school or similar.

Good luck with these

Banana peel, obviously.

If the airport isn't helpful about how to declare the coins, I would probably just mail them to yourself. Probably much less likely that they'll get seized that way.

What's that Julia Domna at the top? I've never seen one struck on such a large flan!

I saw a similar (same?) thing where a college professor shared an email in which an undergrad was writing a research paper and was asking if it was permissible to use a source "from the late 1900s" referring of course to a study published in 1997.

Not sure how I missed this one before! I have spent the last 6 years knee-deep in trying to provide these coins with a consistent, logical attribution scheme. This belongs to Track 1 (Gadhaiya Paisa family), Series 1 (Earliest types) - I'm taking the types back to the drawing board, but it's the "Hunnic Portrait" type, which generally shows: - Refined artistic style - Abysmal technical execution (faces rarely have any detail) - Nose is usually large and aquiline, jaw is small and weak, and often depicted as more or less clean shaven - Head is usually elongated with a thin, tall skull - Attendants are not very standardized and come in a large variety of styles, but rarely/never have any traces of the legend - No flower behind the ear Here's a reverse die match to yours Close reverse by likely the same hand Close obverse but I'm not sure its a match - probably the same hand And some others

It sure as heck looks like an extra I above the V! Is that a feature in the handful of known coins? I made the cardinal sin of bidding not entirely sober on this one - totally missed that it was a fourree until it hammered! Thought it was horn silver, nor copper. Thankfully all the other bidders had their wits, so I won it at a reasonable price for a fourree of a nice issue.

I tend to grab any double struck Indo Sassanian coins that I see - it did happen with some frequency Flipped over and rotated 90° Rotated Obverse shifted up, reverse rotated 90° Double struck obverse, reverse shifted slightly I think this one might have been struck 3 times before they gave up? I see 3 separate eyes Rotated Dramatic obverse double strike! Reverse unaffected This one has puzzled me - I can't tell what happened to the obverse die here? Either Sri Ma or Proto Sri Vigra...

From time to time, I like to scour the random "large lots" of various auction houses, looking for that diamond in the rough that can find a home in my permanent collection, or at least something I can flip for hopefully enough scratch to buy one of my bigger targets. A couple months ago I spotted this lot, and put in a calculated bid at no more than $2 per coin - what I assumed was a safe bid. The lot finally arrived and to my horror, it was almost all coins like this - A dozen really, really bad tourist fakes (the description did mention reproductions, but I assumed "a few" not 10% of the lot) and the rest of the coins were genuine but zapped to within an inch of their life! I put the whole lot away and decided a couple days ago to dig it back out, go through it, lick my wounds and cut my losses on the sale. There was fortunately a silver lining, as the lot coughed up a rather nice Marcus Aurelius as Caesar denarius with a more mature bust - a type I had actually been looking for. And the irony - a personal white whale that I had just caved and spent nearly $200 on at the last Leu sale. These were initially attributed to Commodus, but recent scholarship has confirmed that these coins were struck for Lucius Verus as a young lad during the reign of Antoninus Pius - a curious thing indeed because Verus never held the title of Caesar - only Marcus Aurelius did! This one RPC IV.2 10785, Ares standing right Quite a rare coin apparently, only one other in RPC https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/4/10785 Hideous, and like the others completely stripped of its patina, but I'll still be keeping it! I am still certain that I will not come out ahead on this lot at all, but at least I'm not coming up completely empty handed!

Nice example! I picked up a matching set of Bela III rezpenz a few years ago- the pseudo-fals And he also made another inspired by Byzantine trachea, which he probably enjoyed during his stay in Constantinople.

Nice pickup! The tags are the "Vitangelo collection" which I think was mostly auctioned through Roma a few years ago. Really incredibly diverse collection; I still have a few that I've kept.

Constantine's family is a lot of fun to collect. I've bought a lot (tens of thousands) of coins in lots of varying sizes, and I tend to pull the nicest ones out for myself. A few of my favorite Constantine II coins: This one is I think overstruck on a coin of Constantine - the busts aren't exactly the same, with the less complete bust having a larger nose and more prominent chin And coins of Constantine II as Augustus ought to be common, but I have always struggled to find good examples. When I organized and took inventory of my collection, I was shocked that I didn't have any! It took me several months to find this one on ebay - SR flanking standard is Alexandria mint, and laureate bust lets us know it's Constantine II and not his father Constantine II only has a few of his own types, and the types shared with his father can be fairly ambiguous as he often used the same obverse legends at the same mints!

Thanks for that - missed it because I forget the Meander River is also sometimes spelled Maeander! I can't find any other examples and no reference given on that - I assume it's safe to say we're probably dealing with a very small issue. The head on the two examples is definitely different... I'll dig a little more at Antioch ad Maeandrum and reply here if I find anything!

I'm usually pretty adept at IDing tough coins, but this one's had me stumped for a while - calling on the hivemind! AE 10mm, 0.88g Obv: Male head right (king's?) Rev: Eagle standing left, AN-TI(...) / XE Ive checked all cities named Antioch, all kings named Antiochus... nada! Anyone recognize it?

And I wanted to make a second post for Indo Sassanian coins, which can get a little confusing. I own a bunch of these coins which are known from fewer than 10 specimens, but since these aren't as popular as Western coins, there are probably a lot of "dark" specimens which are in collections, but neither attributed nor documented. From track 1 This very early imitation has an unknown object in front of the bust - probably a sankh shell. In every other coin from this series, this is just a blank field This one has a hoop earring with 3 pearls - supposed to be a 3-stranded dangly earring This one replaces the Korymbos above the helmet with a trident - an important symbol of Shiva worship There are not many definite imitations within track 1 - curiously they all seem to be imitations of some indeterminate step between series 1.2 and 1.3. I am aware of 4 in existence, I own 2. All are very different styles A type called the "distinctive nose" variety is demonstrably the first in the Malwa series, not the last as previously suggested by Maheshwari - 7 specimens of this type exist; I own 6 of them An intermediate step where the face is gone but the nose is still present - and the moon is on the wrong side! I believe there are 2 specimens and I own 1 The popular malwa "Om" type - An early calligraphy variant - I believe 3 exist and I own 2 One mistakenly engraved retrograde - maybe 4 or 5 exist and I own 1 This weird coin doesn't have a visible eye symbol and is almost 30% overweight. It is unique Sri Omkara with a Crescent eye opening toward 3:00 - also unique This one has the letter MA behind the head instead of Ja, and a simple dot for the eye - I think 3 exist and I own 1 The popular "battle scene" type This one has a star eye and a star instead of a circle above the horse rider - 2 exist, I own 1 These have two dots for an eye and the horse has a "bushy" tail - 3 exist, I own 2 The "circle lips" type was discovered by me in 2017 and a large hoard of ~100 came to market early this year - I picked up a few highly unusual specimens These two have two eyes, and the top one was struck on a flan prepared by casting(?) And may have the moon on the wrong side! Two exist, I own both This one has an open circle for the mouth - most probably made using the "punch" for the moon by accident - unique This one's mouth is off the flan and the moon is on the wrong side These two were from an earlier hoard (2018) and the ribbon is engraved too far down on the coin - 2 exist and I own both Stephen Album released a hoard of ~750 unrecorded Gadhaiya in lots of about 110 each - I was able to buy 3 lots. The rarest by far was die pairing I/B - only 7 specimens And just discovered a month ago - these Gadhaiya have a star instead of a mouth! 10 have come to light, I bought all 10

I've owned a lot of coins that were unique, but no longer are due to other specimens coming to light. This I think still is unique Claudius II / FIDES EXERCITI (EXERC and EXERCI are known types, but not EXERCITI) This one I have attributed as something Kushan-adjacent; I got it in a large lot of very low grade coins more than 8 years ago, and I've never seen another coin even remotely like it since. I see helmeted Athena bust right / Standing figure in Kushan dress holding thunderbolt and unknown other object? A few coins I regrettably sold (way too cheaply) I think are still unique Cilicia, Nagidos AR hemiobol (obol denomination is common) Troas, Dardanos AR hemitartemorion (tetartemorion is rare - at 0.08g this was unambiguously a half tetrartemorion) This was a unique imitation of an Indo Greek drachm - Apollodotus or Menander? And a unique imitation of a Parthian Phraates IV drachm, struck in copper And some coins that I once considered unique or exceptionally rare, but others have surfaced since Cilicia, Kelenderis obol, Athena left / goat kneeling, unique until this year: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=11029309 Kyme, Aiolis AR trihemiobol or diobol, Unique when I got it in 2017, but I think 2 more have surfaced since Lucius Caesar AE of Antioch ad Maeandrum, second known when I bought it, but I think the number is up to about 10 now? Marcus Aurelius denarius, with rare combination TRP XXXI + IMP VIIII which dates it to October/November 177 - it was recorded in RIC but I didn't see a picture of a second specimen until this one showed up https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=7317148