dougsmit

Re: Akerman: I have had his book set for many years and find it interesting since it dates to a time two centuries ago when rarity was what made a coin collectable. Akerman does not even list the common coins of Rome but gives the ones to be sought out as rarities and ranks the most rare type for that ruler. Of the Severans he notes as most rare, I have only one (a Geta). I don't agree with all of his choices but it is interesting today when more people want condition rather than rarity. I would have sold mine long ago were it not for the fact that a previous owner had the pair rebound with a pair of signed letters from Akerman tipped in. I suspect that makes my volumes as rare and valueless as the books themselves. The plate drawings are pretty but not especially accurate.

My page on fakes from 1998 showed a group shot of what I was told were 'Slaveis' but they were not marked as to maker. These were most obviously bad from unreal fabric (being a bit on the thin side). The later ones were made from the same grade silver (old Bulgarian silver coins) as the earlier ones. That is, unless you count style and none would fool anyone who specialized in the individual series but might The Septimius is left column of the third row. I paid $4 each as fakes. https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/fake.html To me, the 3rd century ones are hilariously bad while I might have been more easily fooled by the coins in the first row since I know nothing about them. The auction should be named and crucified for impersonating a dealer.

This is not an entry! However it doe have a very close match to the kirispupis coin in that it is an Athena that is not recognizable as an Athena unless you really know what was supposed to be there. Mine is a 1/4 obol of Athens denominationally marked by the single crescent but the obverse head of Athena shows only the crested helmet. A better specimen might have included some face. Striking these little coins required more care than the mint was able to muster that day. I have seen worse and feel lucky to have any one of this denomination. I return the game to the posting of reasonable coins by reasonable people.

One of my favorite Rome mint Constantius II coins is this tiny scrap from late in the reign when copper coins were not worth much in the market then or now. Still it is relatively high grade 'for these'.

Carausius from the C mint

I think this would be better if we did not return to a link just used so I'll offer an Akragas but not one that is cast or a crab/eagle type. It is hard not to double up on eagle from this city so I'll pick one with Apollo head and two eagles on hare suggesting that the next one could be one of those things but not Akragas. Will this make it too hard? Akragas AE21 287-279 BC

Elizabeth's coronation was special to me as a child because my grandmother was a huge fan of hers and travelled to England for the coronation. She returned with a souvenir die cast golden carriage pulled by white horses that I was allowed to handle when I visited her but spent most of its time on her mantle. When she passed, it went to my late aunt so I have no idea what happened to it. The new Prime Minister referred to Charles III but that is the only reference to the name of the new king (some change it) I have heard. I do not have a coin of Charles I and my half crown of Charles II is a bit ratty. Charles I was beheaded. Charles II suffered a great deal of turmoil at the start of his reign during the Cromwell era. May Charles III be spared the troubles of the first two of the name.

I am particularly happy to see the Postumus undertype. In confirms my suspicion that Carausius made a habit of overstriking the lower silver Gallic coins. I have not seen any of his on early Postumus or other coins with more silver content. Have you? Mine over Victorinus / Salus has been shown many times but is repeated here. The other regular overstriker was in the late reign of Trajan Decius (and family) where Severan denarii like my Geta became antoniniani. The profit in doing this seems obvious. I am not as clear on why Carausius did his.

As you know, I am a fan of the denominationally marked coins. Beta is less common and this is a fine example. There are other cities with denominations marked (but the halves make Tomis the best). My oddball offering here is a Commodus AE19 from Dionysopolis with B reversed serving double duty as Herakles' bow. Of Tomis, the hard one will be the 1 1/2 assarion (>A) of Philip II. While not rare, the 4 1/2 denomination needs to be shown with the half (<) as a separate character and ligate with the delta. Finally my favorite Tomis is the Gordian reverse die with the denomination erased I would really love to see a coin of this die before the denomination was dug out leaving this raised bump on the coin. I have seen two from this die. I'd like to show coins I have forgotten but I am afraid I have forgotten what I have forgotten.

On what evidence do you base the assumption that the fate of Valerian was announced at Rome? We know of some details from contemporary Persian sources but I doubt the start of Gallienus' sole reign was trumpeted and paraded in the streets.

Sometimes it seems that Byzantines without overstriking are the scarce ones. I still like them and messier is better. This one finished with Heraclius but the rest of its story is less certain to me. I have posted it several times in other places but would enjoy new opinions on the steps of its journey. It is always nice to determine which details belonged to which use. The Photo is oriented to show the use by Phocas at least on the reverse).

For those having trouble reading zumbly's obverse: It makes a great deal of difference if we turn the coin upside down to restore the bull to 'right side up' orientation. That is why I often do photos shot with the undertype up as well as in 'final' orientation. Sometimes it is enough just to rotate the same photo but it can make it easier to see if the lighting comes from the top making the under-subject pop out as 'normal. To me, the left facing bust of the Constantius II undertype is more clear in the top photo below than it is in the lower pair oriented to favor the second use by Gallus. To me, the Shanna Schmidt coin is a great Crete coin but a marginal overstrike. I prefer them bold and messy. The reverse incuse from the undertype is obvious but I have not studied it enough to swear that Aegina is the only possibility and I am not seeing traces of the obverse turtle. Aegina coins come with several different style reverse punches and I only know the ones I have. If you are not tired of seeing my turtles, you must be new here. I might also point out that I see the type as a turtle swimming left rather than up. The 'normal' up description is based on the majority of coins lacking good head detail with a clear beak on the turtle. We will never know how it was seen by the original designer of the type. I am a big fan of 'seeing' things in clouds, inkblots and oddball coins that sane humans might deny. Dr. Rorschach invented his inkblot test to diagnose mental illness back in the days (1921) when 'normal' was a great deal more expected of everyone than it is today. I might go so far as to say not that the inkblot resembles an object but that we are seeing a representation of that object pretending to be an inkblot. It is like asking about that die break under my second turtle above. I see a killer whale. If you don't, you may not be my definition of 'normal'. I enjoy learning new things. Today I learned a word 'Klecksography' (technically in violation of what I expect of a proper term since it combines roots from two different languages). As a child, the inventor of the inkblot test was considered strange by 'normal' kids and nicknamed accordingly. Who said collecting coins is not educational? 'Normal'? Maybe not??? https://www.simplypsychology.org/what-is-the-rorschach-inkblot-test.html

https://coinweek.com/dealers-companies/shanna-schmidt/numismatic-grab-bag-five-ancient-coins-with-shanna-schmidt/ Regulars here might be interested in a Coin Week video last month featuring a discussion with dealer Shanna Schmidt (aka daughter of Harlan Berk) where she discusses five coin of interest to her. In all honesty, I found four of them rather ordinary examples of very interesting coins which surprised me since I had pegged her as a specialist of only the finest coins (the ones I could not afford). The video is worth a watch if you have not seen it. HOWEVER, the other coin was really special to me and would be especially to anyone here who counts as a friend our member zumbly who has a VERY similar coin of Gortyna and has posted it here (and over at the other place) every time someone asks about our favorite coins. If I owned his coin, it would be very high on my favorite list as well. If you don't know what I'm talking about, see this: The BIG thing here is the Shanna Schmidt coin is also overstruck but it was struck much harder the second time so the undertype was almost completely erased. There is where my question comes up. Which of the two coins is 'better' by your definition of that word. Those who know me might suspect that I prefer the ugly scrap of silver belonging to zumbly exactly because it shows the undertype so much better. I have no doubt that 99% of people who have the kind of money to buy coins like anything from Gortyna would pay much more for the coin Shanna Schmidt showed but those of us who like coins that are ugly for good reason never care that much about that segment of the hobby. Seeing this second overstruck Gortyna drives me to wonder if they may have had a bucket of the coins that needed to be 'converted' into the new type. Will we see more? Perhaps we all need to pay attention and se what we see. Note that zumbly admitted to showing his coin every chance he gets (please post it here) so I will post the coins I always post exactly because of their over or double striking and invite the rest of you to show your oddball examples of the sort. Mine are (search for previous discussions of them if these are not in your memory): 1. The anonymous Class A3 overstruck on an as of Gordian III that was nearly 800 years old when it was overstruck. 2. The flip over double strike of Magnentius where the first strike was a brockage. 3. A rather worn nomos of Sybaris that was doublestruck leaving tell tale 'extra' lines. I bought this for a little over half of what I had paid (and sold for no profit) for a slightly less worn but 'undamaged' one. I like faulty coins. 4. Finally, one of my worst coins: A rough 'ghost' of a falling horseman double struck using one die of Constantius II and one of Constantius Gallus merged on the obverse in such a way we see a wreath on the portrait and legend ending NOB CAES. ALL coins of Gallus have bare heads; horsemen of Constantius II end in AVG. How should this be catalogued? Easy answer: a piece of junk not worth the $5 I paid for it. While I'm here, I'd like to suggest you listed to the Drachmas and Denarii video on YouTube where the discussion on slabs or not ventures the opinion (which I obviously share) that there are things more important in selecting ancient coins that being a mint state starred super coin in plastic. They discuss style. I have no idea if the could love my oddballs. There is a lot of good stuff online for the student of ancient coins. I suspect people here are mostly like me in not being able to keep up with it.

Am I the only one: When I won something for less than my top bid, I had to wonder why no one else wanted the thing that I thought was worth more. Are bargains bargains? I say it is OK to buy bargains but I suspect that those will be the coins hard for my heirs to sell at any price. If they were easy sellers, someone would have outbid me.

When I was active in the purchasing phase of the hobby, the first thing on my want list was 'things I did not know to exist'. Second spot went to anything in my area of interest that I did not already have but I had rather few things that I knew I did not have and had any reasonable expectation of seeing for sale. In December 2020, I made the last addition to my Severan collection. It is an Alexandria mint denarius I previously lacked. There are still a few I know I don't have but not looking means I won't find them unless they are looking for me. In late 2021, I went to a show and saw an early Alexandria Nero tetradrachm. I like Alexandria and found the young Nero 'different' enough to make it desirable. I did not previously know that Nero had this snake reverse so it fit the requirements. Want list can be very specific or very loose. The old answer is 'Coins I like that I can afford'.

I'm 76 and in all honesty hope I'm not alive in 35 years. I've had family that made 104 and I don't want to go there. To all considering this question: A lot depends on how large you collection is. I started, and still maintain, a 3x5 card file for each coin when I had only 40 coins. At a later point, I entered those cards (by then a couple hundred) into my first IBM computer. Since then several computers and software have been tasked with reading and translating those files into a format of their choice. I now am using Open Office which is free and reads Microsoft files if required. I really believe you each should do this when your collection is small enough to input with some ease. It is easier to start with a couple hundred and input new additions as they arrive than it is to start from scratch when you have several thousand. The software I use has a serious flaw in one sense. It displays at the bottom of the 'cost' column the total I have spent on coins for all the coins listed. That may not be a number you want to know. I do not have a column for what I would expect to be able to get if I sold the coin (considering dealer commissions etc.). That could be depressing.

There are as many ways as there are collectors (or so it seems). My workshop has a large vise in which I place a towel wrapped slab edgewise and slowly exert pressure until I hear a crack. This does not destroy the plastic and is more refined that the hammer or saw methods but I realize not everyone has a vise they inherited from ancestors. Mine is ~100 years old but I understand they still make them. I don't have a photo of one in action but the vise is shown here. The chicken is not required for this operation. 😀

My spreadsheet ordering was based on assumptions I made about the collection as it was when I started the computer file around 1988. I followed the Sear Greek order for Greek dividing them into G0 through G9 and Romans R0 through RZ based on my estimations of how many coins fit in the periods. My numbers would be meaningless for most people because I allowed RE through RJ dividing up Septimius Severus as fit my interest but lumped all the Augustus through Domitian coin to RB. Other two letter codes divided up 'Other' coins in an order that made sense then to me (the only viewer of the codes). These letter codes were divided into four digit numbers that followed and coins were assigned meaningless numbers that sorted them as I wanted for that type. I wish I had used five digits because things got tight when I started buying late Romans. Sorting on these fields that need not show on a report allowed things to be in an order as I chose for that period. As you are facing now, I had to make guesses as to what I would want in 35 years. Overall I was happy with most but new books reassigning some things like Parthians made a mess of my coins ordered by Sellwood. Every coin got a number based on its position in the sort scheme followed by a separator that distinguished the photo type and a four digit accession number (thank goodness I never approached 9999 coins). Below is one coin known to me as rk5210bb2446 or rk (eastern mint Domna) 5210 is mostly meaningless but over 5000 were all Syrian while under that was Alexandria and all the Venus reverses had numbers together. bb separated the sets allowing sorting out the accession numbers since there was no accession group using bb. It was the 2446th coin bought. Had the coin been Rome mint, the number would have been prefixed RL. Caracalla and Geta shared RM while RE through RJ divided up the issues of Septimius. The same second letter preceded by a P rather than an R divided up Provincials so Domna Provincials were PK. This was pk1180xx1318 but the xx tells me that I no longer own that coin. This made sense to me then and still does. Your system need only make sense to you.

438MG plate 38. Unfortunately, I did not save the full size files for images of the coins one or the other of us did not see as special so this one was reduced for the disk that accompanied the book. It is rather embarrassing now to see the photos I thought were good 20 years ago. The coding on the disk confirms that both of these coins were Tory's property at the time when shot. Of this period, 437MG made the cut and was presented larger as shot. I have no recollection of why one was picked over the other but we tried to do a representative selection of nicer coins in one respect or the other. When we did that book, the idea of supplying a disk of the images shown in the plates was considered silly by most including the publisher. Tory humored me to get free photos of the coins but most sellers of the book declined the disks. If we did it today, the disk would have been distributed as a website link which would have been much more easily distributed.

I was unaware of the Magnentius connection of the N series from Rome. Was this related? My favorite Magnentius type is the big Chi-Rho but my AE1 of Amiens was on a small flan as were too many of that issue. Of course there are several other Magnentius types not seen as often. My best Decentius is a common type but gets extra credit for the clear Chi-Rho. Lest anyone ever forget what A fool i am: Years ago, I found this one sided coin in a junk box and mounted it in a quarter size ring mount as a neckless. My wife still wears it on occasion. At a dinner at Victor Failmezger's house while we were discussing his upcoming book, Warren Esty pointed out it was a barbarous copy of something that does not exist. There are no coins of Magnentius from Siscia. I'd feel much worse if I had made jewelry out of the only 'real' coin from a mint. I not seen another like it so I still assume it is unique and probably as meaningless as most barbarous culls.

Mine was in Don Zauche's half price box and I thought I needed a few representative later coins. Our coins differ somewhat in terms of strike, flan, wear and surface but neither would interest 95% of collectors (which is fine with me).

I have no Syrian tet of Septimius. I always wanted one but not badly enough to pay the price for the ones I ran across. As this thread shows, there are quite a few of them. In art, there is a lot of room for opinions. I have chosen to spend my tet-cash on those of Alexandria. If anyone else has any, I would enjoy seeing them. I doubt these will ever be as [popular as the Syrians because their average grade tends to be lower. Mine are not the worst. Severans from Alexandria are less common than coins of the century before, I believe, partly due to the fact that Commodus issued these in large quantities as did the earlier rulers of his century. There must have been sufficient coinage in circulation that it was not necessary to make many. They become more numerous in the time of Elagabalus and become very common through the rest of the century as their size and metal declined at an alarming rate. ou will not agree but I prfer the portrait style of Alexandria over that of Syria.

I agree with all of your style assessments but beauty is in the eye of the guy with more money than sense according to current realizations. I would love to have your $373.00 coin. The others are for people who do not see as I do. Wrong? Right? Just taste?

My best Saturn is this 18.06g semis. The slash at the top shows where his kid Jupiter threw a thunderbolt at him making this a rare variety. 🤑

I'll propose a term yottaderp for worse than can be imagined. I suppose that would include slugs of the lowest order that even a specialist could not love. I believe the one here is the worst coin I ever purchased separately but it never got accessed into my collection. It came back in the early 90's when I was new at Alexandria mint denarii and was overly impressed by the fact that the type was not recognized by RIC/BMC. It turned out that these were the most common of Julia's Alexandria mint types making it the worst $2 I ever spent on a coin. Perhaps under 2022 standards I might describe it and about VF portrait???