wittwolff

I bought an uncleaned lot only once. It came from an croatian museum and included this Denarius. The portrait looks like Trajan but the reverse looks like its never had been stuck.

Not exactly ancient or medieval but here a thing I did lately: I normally only collect coins and medals minted under the reign of the ruler they are depicting but when a ruler rules so short that nearly no items are issued in his name I have a gap in my collection. This was the case with my collection of the french monarchy so I bought this later made medal to fill the gap of King Francois II. I will have to do a similar thing with Queen Jane of England once I see a fitting medal for a good price. Adding a reproduction of a coin or a fantasy coin is not really my thing.

Awesome! Sadly I'am still missing a coin of Friedrich Christian in my collection but here a coin from the long reign of his son: Electorate of Saxony - 2/3 Taler (Vikariatstaler) - 1792 - Elector Friedrich August III. And here a later Taler: Kingdom of Saxony - Taler - 1870 - King Johann

Thx for posting your wonderful coins everyone! Seeing those shiny solidi I remember having read that a new hoard of solidi from around the reign of Heraclius has just been discovered in Israel. It seems to have been hidden there during the Arab invasion. At this time Rome lost vast amounts of land so hoards like that might be the answer to @Steppenfools question. https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/gold-coin-hoard-israel-0017353

Today marks the day when Emperor Phocas the first "tyrant" of byzantine history gets toppled by a revolt in favor of Heraclius. Phocas reign is painted in a very bad light today. Its starts with the murder of his predecessor and his whole family and ends in disaster with a Persian invasion ravaging though the Empire, Africa in revolt and the important campagnes of his predecessor set on halt. Modern depiction of the murder of Emperor Maurice and his family on the orders of Phokas. The Emperor himself seems to have no answer for the problems of the Empire, instead he seemed to have acted like a cruel, incompetent drunkard. While parts of the stories about Phokas surely are propaganda from his successors it seems to be sure that Phokas was a bad ruler. The only part of the world where Phokas seemed to have been popular was in Italy. He made peace with the Langobards, saved the Pantheon by gifting it to the pope and possibly even tried to unite the church under the pope. All this brought him much praise by said Pope who called him a great peacemaker and defender of freedom. The Romans even erected a column with a golden statue on top in his honor. This was the last column of its kind erected in Rome. The column of Phokas in Rome. The golden statue of the Emperor is missing today. As said above Phokas meet his end today in the year 610. The Exarch of Karthage Heraclius the elder revolted together with his son Heraclius in quickly got control over Africa. This cut of the grain supply of Constantinople and also brought the imperial fleet under control of Heraclius. Soon after this a naval invasion of Greece was started, followed by an attack on Constantinople. But before Heraclius even had to lay siege to the city an revolt already toppled Phokas. The disgraced Emperor was dragged unto the flagship of Heraclius waiting before the city and executed there. Modern depiction of the downfall of Phokas. Phokas left us an interesting numismatic legacy by his use of roman numerals on his coinage instead of the Greek ones used mostly on byzantine coins. This has been done before on coins of Tiberius II. and Maurice but not in the scale as under Phokas. He also brought back the fashion of imperial beards which lasted from that point onward till the end of the byzantine Empire. The last Emperor before him sporting a beard has been Julian (well and lets not forget Procopius, Eugenius and Johannes - one has to wonder if their beards where part of their rebellion against their beardless foes.) Here a coin from my collection from the reign of Phokas: Emperor Phokas - Follis / 40 Nummi - Cyzikus mint - Year 5 of the reign of Phokas Obv.: DN FOCAS PERP AVG Rev.: ANNO U And here a coin from todays victor: Emperor Heraclius - Follis / 40 Nummi - Nicomedia mint - Year 1 of the reign of Heraclius Obv.: DN HERACLI PERP AVG Rev.: ANNO I An interesting little detail about this Heraclius coin is the mintmark "NIKO" where the engraver ran out of space in the exergue. Feel free to add your coins and opinions from and about the reign of Phokas and Heraclius to this thread!

The big man in some of his imposing poses: "The Avenger" Emperor Gallienus - Antoninianus - Rome mint Obv.: GALLIENVS AVG Rev.: IOVI VLTORI "The King" Emperor Diocletian - Tetradrachm - Alexandria mint Obv.: ΔDIOKΛETIANOC CEB Rev.: L H (=Year 😎 "The Protector" Emperor Maximinus (II.) "Daia" - Nummus - Siscia mint Obv.: IMP MAXIMINVS P F AVG Rev.: IOVI CONSERVATORI AVGG NN

Here one of me where the engraver did a not so bad job. The reverse features a Pax that doesnt look much worse than the official coins:

Nice coins, I have an Marcus Aurelius As with the same message but in much worse condition: Emperor Marcus Aurelius - As - Rome mint Obv.: IMP CAES M AVREL ANTONINVS AVG P M Rev.: CONCORD AVGVSTOR TR P XV - COS III And here another Concordia coin from me: Empress Salonina - Antoninianus - Unknown eastern mint Obv.: CORN SALONINA AVG Rev.: CONCORDIA AVGG

Looks more like a bust of Julius Caesar but I'll just add my worn Augustus here: Emperor Augustus - As - 9-14 A.D. - Lugdunum mint Obv.: CAESAR PONT MAX Rev.: ROM ET AVG

Happy birthday to the restorer of the world! Emperor Aurelian - Antoninianus - 272-74 A.D. - Cyzikus mint Obv.: IMP AVRELIANVS AVG Rev.: RESTITVT ORIENTIS Emperor Aurelian - Antoninianus - 274-75 A.D. - Serdica mint Obv.: IMP C AVRELIANVS P F AVG Rev.: RESTITVT ORBIS

Great coins, here my very worn example of the riding Domitian: Domitian Caesar - Denarius - 73 A.D. - Rome mint Obv.: CAES AVG F DOMIT COS II Rev.: -

May she rest in peace. I hope the monarchy will not die with her.

First I want to thank @Ocatarinetabellatchitchixagain for organizing his quiz and giving out these generous prizes! The two prize coins arrived here safely and pretty fast making a trip of around 6000 Km in around a week. To add a little funfact: that is around the distance you would have to drive if you would want to drive your ancient mule cart from the Hadrians Wall to Egypt. Both coins are good quality pieces from the reign of Emperor Postumus who increased the silver quality of his coinage quite noticibly after his breakaway from the central empire from 5-8% to around 15%. Postumus seems to have been a competent man with honest goals and his usurpation didnt have the goal to depose Gallienus but to stabilize the western provinces and this is what he did. Two themes return often on his coinage and those are: The defense of the Rhine frontier and Hercules - and this is also what my two new Postumus coins are all about: 1. The return of Neptune So based on my research the first coin comes from the early part of his reign and was minted in Treverorum (Modern day Trier - Germany). The coin is dedicated to the Return of Neptune so possibly celebrates success against German incursions over the Rhine or against Pirates. Postumus made his main objective to protect the Rhine frontier so he was able to do a much better job here than Gallienus who constantly had to travel from battle to battle throughout the whole Empire. A little but interesting detail on the coin is the ships prow to Neptunes feet. It is speculated that this is meant to be a Navis Lusoria - so a roman river warship like it was used on the Rhine. Today there are some replicas of those ships in museums and some are even in use. Looking a some pictures of those ships its more likely to depict the stern of such a ship in my opinion: (Not my picture but here one of those replicas with a good look on the stern) 2. Hercules the Peacemaker The second coin features the most prominent god on the coinage of Postumus: Hecules. Instead of declaring himself the newly reborn Hercules like Commodus did Postumus did suggest a strong partnership between himself and Hecules on his coinage and the half god is appearing often with various messages. In this case Hercules is not here to crush the enemies of Postumus but to declare peace. I have seen the suggestion that these coins where struck after Gallienus had to abandon his war against Postumus and where minted in Lugdunum (Modern day Lyon - France) For some extra information I'll add the two data cards I created for these coins: Thanks again to Ocatarinetabellatchitchix for gifting me these coins and everyone may feel free to post some Postumus coins of themselves here.

In the year 250 Constans was murdered after trying to escape the man of Magnentius Here Magnentius and his brother and co-ruler Decentius Constantius had to make peace with the persians and to march back from east to west to meet Magnentius... I guess he was in a quite disgruntled mood and not willing to negotiate with Magnentius. The general Vetranio (Of whom I sadly dont own a coin yet) staged somekind of a pro-constantius revolt in Pannonia and Illyricum and by this denying Magnentius some important Legions. Vetranio will also mint coins in the name of Constantius II. like the following one before he abdicates in his favor once he arrived on the scene.

Nice Siliqua. I was able to add another Constantius II. coin to my collection this week aswell: Emperor Constantius II. - AE3 - Constantinople mint Obv.: DN CONSTANTIVS P F AVG Rev.: FEL TEMP REPARATIO (Phoenix standing on globe)

Fortuna smiles upon me today so here a coin post in her honor 🙂 : Sadly I dont have space for the Ferrari 😭

I dont have a quinarius but I have a denarius celebrating the distribution of quinarii under Alexander Severus (His 4th Liberalitas) Emperor Severus Alexander - Denarius - Rome mint Obv.: IMP SEV ALEXAND AVG Rev.: LIBERALITAS AVG IIII

I do have the same medal for my collection of british monarchs:

Nice Idea, just submitted my answers - may Minerva bless me with the wisdom to answer them right 🙂

Thats a really nice example you got there, my only Carinus coin yet is quite a dirty boy: Emperor Carinus - Antoninianus - Tripolis mint Obv.: IMP C M AVR CARINVS P F AVG Rev.: VIRTVS AVGG

I only use eBay yet and have to say you can get prices no professional auction house will ever offer if you are lucky and watchful. But your big sacrifice will be all the time you have to scroll through hundrets of fakes that get listed everyday anew. But the fact that the same fakes get listed everyday at least shows that noone buys that stuff. You can learn alot about fakes scrolling through ebay and the few fakes I did buy throughout my time all where very low priced so the loss wasnt to big. My biggest win yet has been a big lot of silver coins that was so badly described and pictured that noone bid on it. So I won around 300€s in german silver coins from 1923-1938 for the starting bid of 10€

I think the only one I got yet is this one: VIRTAS instead of VIRTVS Emperor Gallienus - Antoninianus - Antioch mint Obv.: GALLIENVS AVG Rev.: VIRTAS AVG

Beautiful medals, I am somewhat of a British coronation medal collector too but not as successful yet. My favorite is the Pistrucci medal for the coronation of King George IV.

Emperor Gallienus - Antoninianus - Antioch mint Obv.: GALLIENVS PF AVG Rev.: ROMAE AETERNAE Emperor Gratian - Follis - Antioch mint Obv.: DN GRATIANVS P F AVG Rev.: CONCORDIA AVGGG

I only got the male members of the family yet: Emperor Trajan Decius - Antoninianus - Rome mint Obv.: IMP C M Q TRAIANVS DECIVS AVG Rev.: DACIA Herennius Etruscus Caesar - Antoninianus - Rome mint Obv.: Q HER ETR MES DECIVS NOB C Rev.: PIETAS AVGG Hostilianus Caesar - Provinical bronze - Viminacium mint Obv.: C VAL HOST QVINTVS CAE Rev.: PMS COL VIM - AN XII