Deinomenid

Well I'm the least qualified to opine but from the list I was given, if it doesn't match any of those images (there's more than 1 page of them, not just the one on the link) and is off-centre and crystallised you have a better chance! It's absolutely not every coin, apologies if I gave that impression. Here are a number at the British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/search?keyword=coin&keyword=neapolis&image=true&view=grid&sort=object_name__asc&page=1

@ambr0zie I am probably throwing the baby out with the bathwater now in my newfound fear of these coins, but on that German forum link there is a long series of images of the various fakes to check your coin against. I also posted some of the reasons here literally just now - but in summary they include 1) A strange ratio of obverse to reverse dies, inconsistent with minting at the time, ie reverse v obv survival rates. 2) There are no proven genuine pieces of these and no connections to genuine pieces. 3) Related, the forgeries are always connected to each. 4) Centering and preservation, this may or may not be normal depending on the series (which is putting it kindly!) and in real Neapolis hemidrachms there is often crystallized silver. 5) Apparently a lot of these Neapolis counterfeits were sold by counterfeit sellers who only had counterfeits on offer! Please don't take my suffering as reason to doubt yours - I think the answer should be found on those Numismatikforum images.

As we still don't have a fakes section, I thought it would be helpful to post this here. I recently posted an admittedly risky coin on this thread - https://www.numisforums.com/topic/5996-coinweek-article-not-just-a-pretty-face-10-beautiful-women-on-ancient-coins This type is very well-known for fakes yet I fell for it. As these coins come up for sale very often (and are sometimes extremely attractive) I thought I should highlight the error. There is an excellent discussion of the coins here - https://www.numismatikforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=53721&start=1185 by an expert (Amentia) whose experience is beyond reproach. After @Nemo suggested I was mistaken in thinking my coin somehow alright, despite these MANY examples, I spoke with Amentia who provided more than enough examples of my error. In short, it really looks like you cannot beat the system here, and to be exceptionally wary of the type, which are hand cut Bulgarian dies with a number of small variations. I now have a very long list now of WHY these are bad, but they include 1) A strange ratio of obverse to reverse dies, inconsistent with minting at the time, ie reverse v obv survival rates. 2) There are no proven genuine pieces of these and no connections to genuine pieces. 3) Related, the forgeries are always connected to each. 4) Centering and preservation, this may or may not be normal depending on the series (which is putting it kindly!) and in real Neapolis hemidrachms there is often crystallized silver. 5) Apparently a lot of these Neapolis counterfeits were sold by counterfeit sellers who only had counterfeits on offer! Since these are not casts or transfer stamp forgeries, the only thing left is forgeries of modern hand-cut stamps. Back to Magna Graecia I go, tail between my legs. This is my (quite lovely) fake -

Thank you @Dwarf I have actually been speaking with Amentia about the coin. I greatly appreciate your comment though. He was kind enough to go through in some detail why it was wrong (I had seen his posts on it, even had saved them to a file on Neapolis fakes, so more fool me!). I follow his posts and opinions carefully, with this idiotic exception where I let my heart (and a slightly poor photo from an old Martin Price pamphlet) persuade me I contacted Leu to find out the process for refund or explanation, and I am well-armed thanks to Amentia. I was going to wait for their reply before posting separately on the coin, but I think I should do it now.

Rand, thank you for advice/encouragement to persist. The thesis (first-rate as expected) is in my inbox now. Re embargo there were a few forms to fill out, promises not to share and a suggestion - which quickly passed - of a need for a credit card. But that was all. And free was a lot cheaper than the one that sold on Saturday!

THIS COIN IS FAKE. I AM LEAVING UP THE POST AS A WARNING This is the only coin I ever bought solely because I thought the image touchingly beautiful. MACEDON. Neapolis. Circa 424-350 BC. Hemidrachm I am not referring to the obverse...

I think there are some small communities there that still speak a form of Greek, which is amazing! Just re the olive trees, when I was last in Akragas/Agrigento there were beautiful groves not far from the temples. I was gently told off for saying "old olive tree" as apparently they planted several trees on the same rough spot. I may be completely wrong, but something like tree sisters, so the huge thick intertwined trunks are several trees. Perfectly possible it was a joke at my expense!

This thesis is not available on this repository until the author agrees to make it public. If you are the author of this thesis and would like to make your work openly available, please contact us: thesis@repository.cam.ac.uk. Cambridge University Library can make a copy of this work available only for the purposes of private study and non-commercial research. Copies should not be shared or saved in any shared facilities. Copyright over the content of these works is with their authors. Theses from the Library collection are considered unpublished works and according to UK legislation quoting from them is not allowed without permission from their author. If you can commit to these terms, please complete the request form which you can find through this link: https://imagingservices.lib.cam.ac.uk/ Trying again!

Is this definitely so? I really hope so as I've struggled several times to access them. @rNumiss there a general academic rule of thumb about access? For example I couldn't access the Kinns one at Cambridge a while ago. STUDIES IN THE COINAGE OF IONIA: ERYTHRAE, TEOS, LEBEDUS, COLOPHON, C. 400–30 B.C. Cambridge: A Dissertation Submitted for the Degree of Ph.D. in the University of Cambridge, August 1980 Ironically that too sold at BCD, for ~$2k. I kept getting please ask for special permission, this thesis is locked, and then nothing back. I'll try again, as it was slightly annoying especially given how Cambridge is partly taxpayer-funded. https://www.biddr.com/auctions/kolbefanning/browse?a=4277&l=5056664

Or here for $1,000 😀 https://www.biddr.com/auctions/kolbefanning/browse?a=4277&l=5056641

The large bound series of BM Greek was sold for way less at $1,000 and I agree that $5k seemed high. I assume they were going for a big pickup over “market” for the BCD provenance either by memory or by that plus the the distinctive leather on some as a future marker of provenance. For standard works though that seems odd. Eg the fairly recent PhD thesis on Corinth discussed over on the Greek forum recently is freely available but sold for a lot. Cambridge makes the Philip Kinns thesis (copy also sold yesterday for $$$) a pain to access but not the former. I’d love to know why that Delphi book was so valuable to 2 bidders!

An extraordinary event. So many fascinating books, many incredibly rare. Some of the more recent/less rare served as useful reminder to me of their existence (and availability at rather lower prices on abebooks etc where I therefore had a busy afternoon too!). I must admit I struggled to price quite a few of them, as did the "estimates". I picked up a few wonderful ones, so I absolutely cannot complain, including one owned by a 17th century antiquarian after whom one of the older of my college's history societies (aka dining & drinking clubs) was named and - no doubt falsely - claimed direct lineage from. As I had the honour to preside over it "back in the day" it was all the better! Anyway this is how I'm rationalising the cost. This one in particular amazed me. I am sure there's a good reason for the final cost (owners and author of course are of great renown) but a $300 estimate going for north of $20,000...

Congratulations on this @kirispupis! I'm having lots of fun on the site, and learning plenty. Some of the pithy commentaries are brilliant. eg Among the most illustrious rulers in history, Ptolemy Keraunos is pretty far down the stack.....Ptolemy Keraunos was now persona-non-grata pretty much everywhere, but he upped the stakes by marrying his half-sister Arsinoe II, then murdering her two youngest children on their wedding day. Arsinoe, who felt this an inappropriate wedding present, fled.

May not help at all but I am a rare user of Firefox and it works fine now. Also good with Chrome. Outside my wheelhouse though I'm sorry. It's linked through that silver project site too - the one that tried to isolate silver ore sources more precisely, funded by the EU but that ran into a bit of a brick wall when the world's curators said no to drilling or scraping their coins. http://geology.ens-lyon.fr/silver/ Can't locate the direct link though so here are some other links in just in case it helps. https://silver.knowledge.wiki/Greek_Overstrikes https://silver.knowledge.wiki/Greek_Overstrikes_Literature https://silver.knowledge.wiki/Special:BrowseData/Die_Study

There's a large database of Greek overstrikes that I thought would be helpful to mention to those interested but possibly unaware of it - I was until it was mentioned to me after an ANS presentation that referenced it. https://silver.knowledge.wiki/Greek_Overstrikes_Database It is fairly easy to use and often shows clear undertypes, and looks useful for training the eye for the less obvious ones. The map shows all inputted and while some areas such as Crete and Cyprus have a huge number other large areas might be more a reflection of the sheer volume of output rather than percentage of overstrikes. Still... Once you've selected a city it will show you all uploaded coins like this - and then you can drill down to the coins after hovering over the spiral icons. Agrigentum (AE Zeus/eagles) over Syracuse (Agathocles) (Artemis/thunderbolt) (CNG, EA 199, Nov. 2008, 18) or Gela (tetradrachm biga/man-faced bull) over Catana (man-faced-bull/Nike) (New York Sign., 3021, Jan. 2013, 21470) Not all the "dots" have clear links or explanations, but it's something. It's also filterable by type, weight, issuer etc, and has links to a lot of related literature. Please feel free to post any overstrikes/anything related- I believe they'd like them sent there too. Though how anyone could have overstruck those amazing Catana coins is beyond me!

That's an assumption (unless you know in which case do tell!) and it could suggest HJB uses such a system to put buyers at a greater disadvantage that others won't use it as a result. Though I've seen enough shady dealers around to know that quite a few would leap on any opportunity to shaft a customer. At risk of it making it seem I work there (I don't/didn't/won't!) I think they are one of the better guys. And I've also been able to use their system to get some great deals. You've just got to know how it works and be comfortable with it. Which absolutely does agree with your point on less-experienced buyers, unless they do their homework on the system. At the expensive (to me) end of my collection my 2 fairest prices of everything I have were post auction purchases from them so. My interest here was largely academic in that if there's something to the system that makes it better to use, on the working assumption it's not because they are exploitative or possibly just hide-bound to something introduced a good while ago. Guess I'll ask at the next show and report back🙂

Of course! But I wonder why HJB persists. Maybe it works more broadly for them somehow. It's certainly curious.

There are many ways we can overpay, and the frenzy of a real (not Dutch) auction has parted many more "fools" from their money than the HJB auctions! For some, a high starting price is instead a great way of making them step away having truly assessed what something is worth to them, rather than being tempted low and then getting caught up in the resulting bidding war. It's probably also a good way for HJB to demonstrate to clients who are selling through them whether their own views of value are too much, but that is mere supposition. If you know the nature of the beast, you can do well from HJB sales. Especially the after-sale. And if your desired coins are sold by then, there's no reason to complain, as the market made its decision. One way of looking at whether it's a terrible way for buyers (as I assume you are writing as or worrying on behalf of a buyer) to buy, as in making them overpay is that IF it were such a good way to fleece the sheep then many others would do the same. Other auction houses are no less merciless. To me it's not hugely different from say many VCoin sellers who list high prices for their wares, and if no-one takes it, are often perfectly prepared to negotiate down. The nuance seems mostly in the details. The biggest curiosity for me is - if the HJB system works well, and they aren't exactly new to it - why more haven't directly copied it. Amen!

The vast archive of free British Numismatic Journals (1836-2020) on that link's list has specific highlighted medieval sections. It's a treasure trove, though the very early stuff is a little though understandably confused in parts (one article on the celebrated Syracuse reverse showing ~Arethusa and dolphins discusses a "Goddess with fish".)

Death rates are calculated in an arcane way, which I know too much about having once briefly shared a flat with a trainee actuary (not recommended at all) But roughly you take if from a given cohort, not the population as shown. Australia's the lucky country, despite its alarming insect life, but not that lucky 🙂. For the average convict, (5 years for a tiny fraction of the total transported is way off that) it wasn't bad at all compared with the theoretical alternatives. There are even cases of crimes deliberately committed to get transported, though this was unlikely to be the direct result of mortality stat analysis! This is (sadly) from too much time on analysis of likely grave site numbers in certain east Sicilian necropolises/necropoleis.

Death rates per 1000 in early Botany Bay were pretty low. After the first 30 years or so they weren't hugely different from today. (10). And looked good in comparison with much of Europe and the UK. Why this was used as a comp for Greeks slugging it out for territory against each other and entrenched Sikels around marshy Syracuse is beyond me. The author was a leading light of All Souls, Oxford though so I suppose I should quite possibly defer. Btw our criminal (or monomaniac as you prefer) in the original report (the Greek labourer) apparently decided to stay, moved to Sydney and was married as a "gentleman of Trieste". Possibly self-described.

Survival rates of early colonists there are used as a proxy for survival rates and likely population trends in the earliest days of the Greek colonies in 8th century Sicily. I thought the comparison a little odd, but I've seen it several times.

That's what I discovered once there. It's only mentioned a few times a week now....and I see I still can't get the name right!

In a low point for my life as a parent (well, really as a human in general) I took my children and wife to see the famous stone circles and henge there at Aylesbury. Pleasant enough area, but apparently I should have headed to Avesbury. Still living it down.

With all due apologies to our Antipodean colleagues at Numisforums this tale struck me as both odd and interesting. I got it into my head that looking through the earliest regular numismatic magazines might throw light on some interesting coins that have been subsequently lost. Amongst the articles in the Numismatic Journal/Chronicles from the 1830's- 50's are plenty of these, though I suspect some are just invented types. Amongst the articles, endless warnings about forgeries (including English forgers flooding the Turkish market!), and various diatribes I came across a thief with the almost fantastical name of Timoleon Vlasto. Timoleon of course was the saviour of Greek Sicily, and Vlasto was THE collector par excellence of the coins of Taras. The article is here, and below. It is an interesting defence that, as collecting was his passion, he should be let off. For a name as wonderful as Timoleon Vlasto, the sentence should have been halved, but he was, indeed, sent to Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania) as one of 250 convicts. (Maryland and Virginia having been inconveniently closed to English convicts somewhat earlier...) MISCELLANEA. THE ROBBERY AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM. Central Criminal Court, May 9 (1849). - New Court. - Timoleon Vlasto, aged twenty-four, described in the calendar as a labourer , was indicted for stealing 266 coins, valued at £500, the property of the trustees of the British Museum. The prisoner, a gentlemanly-looking man, is by birth a Greek, and of good family, and seemed but imperfectly acquainted with the English language. Upon the various indictments being read over, he pleaded "Guilty." There was also a further charge against him for stealing 71 coins, valued at £150, the property of Charles Richard Fox, in his dwelling-house. To this indictment the prisoner also pleaded " Guilty." Mr. Clarkson, who appeared on behalf of the prisoner, applied to the Court to defer passing sentence until the next day, when he (the learned counsel) would call witnesses to show his highly respectable position in society , and also that he had not possessed himself of the coins for the purpose of either selling or raising money on them ; and, but that he (the learned counsel), thought the Court would ridicule the idea, he should say that the act was that of a monomaniac , and had arisen out of the prisoner's passion for collecting coins, there being in his possession a great number of other valuable coins besides those stolen, and which could be proved to be the prisoner's own property. Mr. Bodkin, who appeared for the prosecution, said he had no opposition to offer to the application, and wished the Court to understand that the prosecution had been fairly got up. It was the Court who felt at a loss how to proceed . They had but one duty to perform ; and although the prisoner was a young man of good family, he must be dealt with by the Court as all others were. After some further conversation, the Common-Serjeant said that he should postpone passing sentence until a future day of Session. [We call the attention of our readers to the passages in italics reserving for the present our own comments. Sentence has since been pronounced on this man ; namely, transportation for seven years. Great interest, it is reported, will be made to procure a mitigation of his punishment -Ed.]