Deinomenid

There's something about that coin, assuming you mean the alliance coin. It was unsold in a 2022 auction by them, and had a strange comment about some upcoming publication that as far as I know never happened. Also, the last time they tried to sell it it did not have the "no US purchase" caveat. Despite supposedly being from a pre-1945 collection. Not for me!

I bought one coin in the recent auction and was told the bank account had changed yet again. That's not a great sign. Of course they could have had 3 banks in a year for other reasons, but....

Whoops, I just saw you only mentioned a few books of Diodorus. If you didn't mind his style, there are quite a few other surviving ones too. For western Greek cities (my "area") there are very few strong works that discuss mostly one polis. Taylor's Ancient Naples is excellent but stronger for later years. Redfield's Locrian Maidens for Epizephyrian Lokri is interesting, though he, like most, tends to fall down Orphic rabbit holes. Some of the modern Syracuse ones are awful - the tyrants seem to attract all sorts of speculative rubbish. Noe and Johnston are as good as you'll find on Metapontum. All other major Western poleis have no one superb book on their Greek period (I'd love to learn otherwise, as that's a sweeping statement.) Otherwise it's piecing together a more detailed history from many separate articles on a wide range of themes. Dunbabin - the Western Greeks is "required" general reading though. Finlay and Freeman are both worth a read on general Sicily. Finlay is worth a read on anything. Genius of a man. Elsewhere - Thebes, Cartledge is often recommended, but one of his weakest in my view. His Very Short History of Greece is written in city chapters, so is of some limited use for Massalia, Miletus, Syracuse and a few others. And the coin specialist books can be great for history too, as they (if good) place everything in context. Williams, Phokians, Lorber, Amphipolis, Williams Velia, May for Abdera. For Macedonia there's a strangely good one -Sovereignty and Coinage, by TR Martin. Athens you have plenty of choices, though Seltman is a good start. Sheedy is as good as it gets for the Cyclades. This may sound pretentious, but to get a good overall feel for say Syracuse, reading commentaries on Pindar are often a great source. Or on Empedokles for Akragas or Selinus. It generally seems university output on literature or philosophy is a better source for some of these places as they tend to place their subjects in a proper background context. Ditto say Zeno for Velia or even Pythagoros for Kroton, Archytas for Tarentum etc. And for the possibly risible but actually a good read, there's an old "schoolbook" called A Day in Old Athens, by Davis, where he imagines he wanders around the city and its suburbs, harbour, temples, the nearby hills, the Academy etc. There's something about it that brought that polis to life. For novels @DonnaML recommended Mary Renault in another context, and I read some of her books as a result. One of Renault's lesser-known ones, The Mask of Apollo, has for much of its setting Syracuse from the last days of Dionsyius to Dion and Dionsyius the Younger. And Plato's frequent interaction with the 3. I can't of course tell how accurate it is, but it comes across well. That whole period is fairly confused but it helped me. (Her 2 main books on Theseus are very readable too.) Your The Consolation of Philosophy - Boethius made me smile as that's the book of choice for Ignatius in the wonderful Confederacy of Dunces. "“I suspect that beneath your offensively and vulgarly effeminate façade there may be a soul of sorts. Have you read widely in Boethius?" "Who? Oh, heavens no. I never even read newspapers." "Then you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age," Ignatius said solemnly. "Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. " Now that's a reading list!

If there's one to read that is not on that list, it has to be Thucydides. Not city-specific but a fascinating read.

That's a really lovely portrait. An example below but in case of interest the ruins in the Procul Harum video are of an old stately home you can visit called Witley Court, in Worcestershire. When a younger (even younger) man I've listened to that song late/early in (!) the fountain it shows at around the 1.15 mark, and, aided by other stimuli, it was quite the experience. Some fantastic really old pubs nearby too. Fountain used to be drained - I wasn't entirely gone. (It's also known as the Perseus fountain.) Anyway, a coin! - Campania, Neapolis AR Didrachm. Circa 275-250 BC. Head of nymph to left; TAP below neck, EYΞ behind / Man-headed bull walking to right, head facing, crowned by Nike flying to right above; EΠI below, NЄOΠOΛITΩN in exergue. Sambon 485; HN Italy 586; SNG BnF 767; HGC 1, 454 var. (obv. legends not listed).

Yes, absolutely. Heritage - at least for me - defaults to this https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/greek/ancients-sicily-syracuse-agathocles-317-289-bc-el-50-or-25-litrai-15mm-355-gm-9h-ngc-au-5-5-4-5-fine-style-edge-marks-/a/3115-32013.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

I've looked at all my saved articles on the stars on Greek coins, from Sicily to Thrace, and can't find anything that has Hermes and the 9 pointed star. There are a few specific lengthy ones on the star and symbolism, but nothing, including one with pages of the types but nothing close. I'd love to hear what the answer is.

A lunar rather than solar eclipse arguably cost Athens more dearly than most of her many other aggressions. In 414, Nicias finally realized the Sicilian Expedition he'd been reluctant to lead was a failure and agreed to leave. A lunar eclipse though unnerved him, so he asked his priests what to do. Wait 27 days, he was told. Syracuse attacked his fleet, destroyed it, and with it the only real escape route which led to a rolling series of further military disasters for the aggressors. Plutarch -It is said that the Athenians would not believe their loss, in a great degree because of the person who first brought them news of it. For a certain stranger, it seems, coming to Piraeus, and there sitting in a barber's shop, began to talk of what had happened, as if the Athenians already knew all that had passed; which the barber hearing, before he acquainted anybody else, ran as fast as he could up into the city, addressed himself to the Archons, and presently spread it about in the marketplace. On which, there being everywhere, as may be imagined, terror and consternation, the Archons summoned a general assembly, and there brought in the man and questioned him how he came to know. And he, giving no satisfactory account, was taken for a spreader of false intelligence and a disturber of the city, and was, therefore, fastened to the wheel and racked a long time, till other messengers arrived that related the whole disaster particularly. So hardly was Nicias believed to have suffered the calamity which he had often predicted. A coin likely celebrating the victory - Evans - Upon the reverse Persephone appears guiding with her left hand the reins of her galloping steeds, and in the other holding aloft a flaming torch in place of the usual goad of the charioteer, while Nike, who flies forward to greet her, holds in her left hand the Αφλαστον, or aplustre, the ornament of the poop of one of the captured vessels. The appearance of the Chthonic Goddess on this piece and the manner in which Nike holds the naval trophy towards the burning torch may, perhaps, suggest a reference to a wholesale devotion of the spoils of war by fire to the deities of the Nether World, to which we find more than one reference in ancient writers. SICILY. Syracuse. Second Democracy, 466-405 BC. Tetradrachm, obverse die unsigned, but by Euarchidas; reverse die signed by the engraver Phrygillos, circa 415-405. Quadriga galloping to left, driven by a goddess (Persephone?) holding the reins in her left hand and a torch in her right; above, Nike flying right to crown Persephone with a wreath held in her right hand, while holding an aplustre in her left; in the exergue, grain ear to left. Rev. ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΩΝ Head of Arethusa to left, wearing ampyx and sphendone, triple pendant earring and simple necklace; on ampyx signature of engraver, ΦPΥ; before her head, dolphin swimming downward to right; behind her head and under her neck, three dolphins swimming downwards to left.

I've seen Sasanian gold coinage at the BM, and there's a lot of it online there. Eg https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1848-0803-272

This one didn't exactly go for close to the gold spot price but the 1867 auction record, that it was a Vlasto coin, a Fischer-Bossert junior example, and a Berlin plate (albeit one of very many) etc made me sell a kidney for it, so here it is (to show and tell??). Taras. AU-1/2 Stater, around 280 BC. BC; 4.26g. Head of Heracles in lion skin right//Taras in Biga right, two amphoras below. Fischer-Bossert G 31 j (this example); Ravel, Vlasto 32 (this copy); Rutter, Historia Numorum 985. R Small scratches, otherwise very nice Specimen from the Michel Pandély Vlasto collection; the M. Prosper Dupré collection, Hofffmann auction Paris 1867, No. 17; the Royal Coin Cabinet Berlin No 18, auction Jacob Hirsch 26, Munich 1910, No 15. The piece is also described and illustrated in Dressel, Heinrich, Royal Museums in Berlin - Description of the Ancient Coins (Third Volume, Section I), Berlin 1894, Plate X, No. 157.

Fascinating write up. When I first read about Aphrodite Porne I assumed it was an error! Here's quite a nice coin from Abydos that I just saw in the new NAC sale. Lot 2212. I'd be tempted but Artemis is a little off-center. And so is her portrait here. Under/over is apparently $800k.

There’s a long -and quite odd - poem in part about this called the Dionysiaca of Nonnus. @kirispupis posted about it recently. Great coin. Never seen one related to it.

I worry that answers here on such important questions are not what you need, no matter how well-intended. You need someone with detailed specific knowledge, not hearsay, with no offense to anyone. So hypocritically, here's my own hearsay. There are not infrequently nightmarish conversations on Italian (one of your two main choices) boards about the huge problems collectors can have with ancients there. They appear to have a common thread of a presumption of guilt, or at least seizure of relevant assets and a quest to prove innocence. I'd ask one of the Italian members of this board as it sounds alarming if at all true. I have no idea about Luxembourg, other than that I nearly went mad with boredom after a week training there. Admittedly from London, but egad. 2 week course, and I went home early. The BBC for some reason feels a need to say it is not boring and in a recent article points to free wifi as an example of why it is not. Case closed. (Yes I know it is quite pretty, usefully located to escape from and is safe and prosperous! 😀) Good luck!

Do you have any more on this please as that suggests a lot of different types? Here's one of the better-known types, a tripod-lebes from Kroton. An early version, incuse and with the koppa. Stater. Circa 530-505 BC. Tripod-lebes, legs terminating in lion paws, with ornaments on and serpents rising from the bowl; ϘPO upwards to left / Incuse tripod, legs terminating in lion paws, ornaments and serpents in relief.

I was taught it was called classical transliteration, but can find almost no proof of that with the modern god of etymology, Google.

I've been trying to train up Claude on Magna Graecia. He is a polite but average student. Very confident in his errors until called out. Eg Kaulonia recently - You're absolutely right, my previous assessment was incorrect. After taking a closer look, these are indeed ancient Greek coins, not Roman denarii. The style, iconography, and legends identify them as being struck in Kaulonia, an important Greek city in ancient Magna Graecia (southern Italy) during the 6th-5th centuries BCE. The obverse depicts a nude male figure, likely the hero Kaulos or a representation of the river god Achalos, in a crouching archer pose - a symbol associated with the city's founding myth. The reverse shows a stag or doe standing upright, which was another common symbolic badge on Kaulonia's coinage. Thank you for the correction. I clearly made a mistake in properly attributing the cultural origin and minting location of these coins based solely on the visual elements. Identifying Greek colonial issues from southern Italy requires nuanced numismatic expertise. I appreciate you taking the time to ensure I update my understanding accurately. I also tried him on a couple of @kirispupis's mystery coins, but he practically wept in despair!

In case no-one can help one is available for 10 euros on MA Shops. Might even get a photo of it for free from the seller if you ask.

With the understanding I'm no expert, just a couple of things. Hill seemed to vacillate a bit on the purpose of the sphere, and also was made to say in Koinon as follows - As Hill surmised, a globe of metal retains heat longer than a flatter disk, thus making it easier to achieve a well-struck coin. Sellwood though WAS a metallurgist and described all sorts of different heat combinations. He repeats the value of retaining some heat to make a less stressful strike but also says a sphere is valuable because there is much less surface area subject to oxidation. He also was a little concerned at numismatists opining on the subject - So fanciful were some of the ideas about coins held by the early antiquarians, and so far at odds with common sense and ascertained historical fact, that it is little wonder that students of other disciplines still have no time for the opinions and theories of numismatists. So with that warning, his main interest was in making sure the "flan" was sufficiently soft to allow easy hammering, for mass production, with a side order of lower oxidation. He was getting good results with one or two strikes, and some literature at the time was claiming a dozen were needed. He was also particularly concerned about heat as it impacts the die itself and discusses much of it here . The extensive experiment was mostly run with hot-striking for what it is worth, though he acknowledges cold was used too. It's quite a fun article, taking you through the whole process, metal contents, exact heats used, even his efforts to engrave a die with a Metapontine ear of corn only for it to come out looking more like a scorpion. The overall conclusion though seems to be it helps make a well-struck coin, akin to @JAZ Numismatics comment above.

Fingers crossed for a Greek version of this as I hate being left out of such a great deal.

Apparently it's a highly effective way of maintaining the heat in the flan-to-be. Making it more workable and giving slightly more time to manipulate it. Hill said similar and adds that it didn't exactly catch on elsewhere! The fact that a globe of metal retains heat longer than a disk may explain the fact that the blanks were made of a shape that would seem to place so much strain on the dies, instead of something more -like the shape of the finished coin. The latter method was certainly employed by most other parts of the Greek world. The lentoid shape of the blanks of the early electrum of Asia Minor, for instance, has hardly been altered under the pressure of the dies. Other areas had unusual techniques too - incuse in Southern Italy for example - but not for as long.

I just read an excellent article in the 2023 Koinon which summarises far more intelligibly some of the key misconceptions on minting "problems" there. Some of it has been explained before, but not as clearly and there are often comments today on issues like so-called sprues or gaps in coins, or what appear to be forgeries based on a second coin imprints on a flan. (The coins are mine, but the photos of the clay models are taken from the article -if that's wrong I will delete them and model my own. ) There are at least two excellent articles on this, both free in the Numismatic Chronicle, one from Hill back in 1922 and another, more amusing but a good read from 1963 by Sellwood (of Parthian coinage fame) where he figuratively turned himself into Greek smelting specialist/engraver/minter. Indeed his obituary says that the workshops of his college, Kingston Polytechnic - "became a branch of the mint of ancient Athens where David applied practical methods to answer the question of ‘not what was produced, but how much was produced’. Re-establishing the technology and metallurgy of antiquity, he made dies and struck coins to the extinction of the dies.... " There are 3 key minting points explained in the article. The first is sprues, which are not sprues at all, but the product of an unusual flan technique whereby the "flan" was a sphere, comprised of 2 pieces with a thick line around the equator. Below left. When hit by a hammer at the intended this produces above right. Image from the Numismatic Chronicle. And below, on my coin. What I hadn't understood was that if those halves of the sphere are aligned but the sphere is placed at the wrong angle then they can produce this gap, which has vexed me on a number of my coins. Five o'clock on the front hooves. The article's author, William Daehn, demonstrates it as follows. I know it's clay not silver, but... And the last one, the one that most often gets called out as a poor forgery, but which perplexed me as the coins I have seem fine, is a raised or stepped secondary flan. Sellwood had explained it, but without the visualisation offered in Koinon, I had been flummoxed. This stepped circle issue - - from say 8 o'clock around to 4 clockwise. In case of any confusion this is my coin and/but the author of the article also uses it as his example. I'm not taking someone else's coin and claiming as my own. The Koinon article demonstrated how this came about - I just thought it was fascinating. None of it is my own work, It's all Hill, Sellwood and Daehn, and if it's in any way poor form to show the latter's clay models I will remove them and make my own. I only hope that as he used a coin I now own as a main example there might be some leeway! These 3 issues come up so often in Sicilian coinage though that it is a pleasure to have it more fully demystified.

My major argument against is the auction houses rarely adjust their listings and deign to even just reply only on occasion. Just look at all the auctions up at the moment with known forgeries which are actively being called out on the European forums and sweet nothing is done there. Let alone with the lesser "crime" of wrong attributions. Right now there are even ones on numisbid I'm half thinking of buying as they come from (in reality but not admitted as such) such fantastic forgers as Caprara and Christodoulos. Should sell them as plate coins in Kinns' book of forgeries! Listing them here might make a marginal difference to the final prices and help save a few misguided or unlucky souls but generally trying to right these wrongs by calling them out doesn't work. I've wholly given up trying to get a fakes section here, and only sometimes privately point out with reasons very likely fakes to members who post such. I say this only because if there's so much inertia about fakes there's going to be even more about misattributions. That said, educationally it's great to see such posts and it is at the margin a positive service. I just wouldn't expect much back for it. Your post won't reach most bidders (just based on our members relative to the reported purchasing base) and some members won't see the post and some will dispute it or assume worse.

@maridvnvm if your father was the landlord at Gresham's pub/club in London this story would be one the best ever on this site!

Not to teach you to suck eggs, but I just wanted to make sure you were familiar with r numis (rnumis.com) and its superb collection of catalogues. Looking through similarly dated ones might help you locate your coin. Occasionally of course attributions such as the one for your coin were willfully or accidentally made, but here's hoping that's not the case. Good luck!

The John Spring 1880-1980 Ancient Coin Auction Catalogues mentions only those two Webers and cross-references only the auctions you say. That doesn't 100% prove there weren't other Webers or other auctions, but should help.