Finn235

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.

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 

3 hours ago, O-Towner said:

Do I think those three pieces are genuine. No. Perfectly centered with sharp monograms and portraits. That's a warning sign right there.

Do I think that there are genuine Nepos monograms. Yep. I've seen some and I have one that I pulled out of an uncleaned lot about 25+ years ago. It is a struck coin, not cast, and it looks exactly like other types of the period, Here it is (10.3mm, 1.0gms):

 

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

3 hours ago, Tejas said:

It is shocking to see that CNG thought that this was genuine.

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

53 minutes ago, Tejas said:

Yes, I would like to stress that CGB is a respectable auction house. If the coins are fakes, it is an untypical lapsus.

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.

1 hour ago, DerrickTA said:

Interesting! Thank you for the response. 

Could you give me more information? Or send me to a link? I've never heard of that before. 

Who makes them? Where did were they "minted"? Etc. 

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!

5 hours ago, sand said:

Ha. I read something today, in an article or something, in which someone talked about "the 1900s". As if everything that happened from 1901 to 1999 was all equally old.

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?