ewomack

After trying to visit CT, it appears that their HTTPS certificate has expired. As @DonnaML said above, it's happened before. They need to obtain a new one and upload it to get the site working again.

I'm really fascinated by your posts on these topics, but I have to admit very little knowledge. I'm curious to learn more, especially about the patination process of copper, since I seem to have a larger interest in old copper coins (including US Half Cents). Your post did inspire to me look up "liver of sulphur." (and this) My single Justinian Follis contains quite a few green sprinklings, which the photos de-emphasize somewhat. It looks slightly more green in hand. Justinian I Follis (540/1 - Year 14), Constantinople mint, Obv: DN IVSTINIANVS PP AVG, helmeted, cuirassed bust facing holding cross on globe and shield; cross to right. Rev: Large M, ANNO to left, cross above, XIIII (date) to right, A below, CON in exergue, Sear 163

"Marble tabletop" appeals the most to me because I think that's how the coin would likely appear if I saw it in person. The shadows and backgrounds of the other formats do look great, I won't deny it, but they seem slightly gimmicky to me. Unless there's something I don't know (always a possibility), were I to actually see these coins, they wouldn't be "floating" in mid-air with small shadows below them. The coins would very likely look more like the simple "marble tabletop" format of #2 and that's how I would prefer to see them online as well. The other formats come across as "a little too much" for me personally. For me, a great photo of the coin itself matters the most, you've definitely accomplished that, but the rest is window dressing.

If this is the book that you're referring to, @Simon, I found a copy online and ordered it. I don't know if was the same one you found, but there were a few for sale out there. I'm looking forward to reading it. Thanks for the reference to a book that I had not heard about before.

Thanks for the rundown, @sand. I suspected that the "large module" likely occurred in the 6th century. I looked in Sear under Anastasius I and that book has a section titled "Pre-reform copper coinage, A.D. 491 - 498" that includes only a single nummus (Sear 13, @ela126 posted one above). Then, immediately after, a section titled "Post-reform copper coinage, A.D. 498 - 518" follows. It sounds like your source (I think you said possibly Grierson?) had more detailed dates, but even Sear suggests that the "large module" version (the one I posted above is 33 mm) didn't appear until after 500. I recently purchased a copy of Grierson, so I should have a look. So, as you suggested, I'll need to go looking for a "true" 5th century coin. I would love to go backwards into Zeno, but I haven't yet seen many nice and affordable Zeno Æ coins. And thanks everyone for the comments and coins. Keep them coming!

About a week ago, I posted, as a sanity check, the dealer's pictures of this Anastasius I follis and it ended up arriving pretty quickly. Not surprisingly, it looks just as good as it did in the previous pictures. Below are my own pictures. I still really like the coin, especially for the price, but having the ability to roll it around under a light, the wear changes with the angle. The photo shows pretty much what it looks like straight on, with light above. If I tilt the coin back, more directly into the light, shiny areas appear and the coin looks more worn than the picture below. Nonetheless, the features still remain even in harsh light, but they wash out a bit. So this angle-relative wear, which some might find less attractive in certain dispositions, might explain the lower price of this coin. I'm still perfectly happy with it as-is. The details of the portrait remain visible, along with a fair amount of detail on the clothing and crown. All of the letters look perfectly legible as well. So, for the price, I'm pretty happy overall. Plus, I finally have a coin from the first Emperor that begins all of these Byzantine books I'm reading. Also, I'm not sure if this technically counts as a 5th century coin? I have a gap in my collection, which runs from the 1st century to the 4th, then picks up again in the 6th. Maybe I have the gap half filled? Or 1/10th filled... hmmm... Anastasius I (491-518), Æ follis-17.41g, 33 mm, Constantinople mint; Obv: DN ANASTASIVS PP AVG, Diademed, draped and cuirassed bust of Anastasius right; rev: Large "M", delta below, cross above, star to each side, "COM" in exergue; Sear 19 Please post your Anastasius I coins!

Not everyone has the "collecting gene," or whatever one would call it. As the old worn saying goes, "collectors are born, not made." Though I don't see that as a timeless, inviolable truth, I think it rings true for a lot of people. My parents never collected anything, yet they produced two virulent, almost ravenous, collectors. My nephew, now barely in his 20s, has absolutely no interest in collecting anything. Any talk of collecting leads to glazed-over eyes and yawns. A friend of mine saw some of my coins, ones from his country of birth, and he looked at me and said "I've never collected anything. I'm not sure I understand why people do." He seemed confused that I would bother collecting things. So dealers may or may not have that quality. I don't know. I can imagine that a deep desire to "buy and keep" could probably get in the way of a successful coin dealership, especially if it's one's sole source of income. But I'm also guessing that even dealers keep a few here and there, when the situation allows for it.

Thank you for this information. A lot of it is new to me. I'm guessing "Ren Wax" refers to "Renaissance Wax?" Are there sources from which I could learn more about these topics? Or does this come mostly from experience? Also, I received a shipping notice for the Anastasius, so hopefully it will arrive within a week or so.

Very nice coins @voulgaroktonou! Constans II is a fascinating, if not, like many Byzantine rulers, an altogether impressive Emperor. I have not purchased any Byzantine gold or silver yet (my Byzantine collection only dates from summer 2022, so I'm still relatively a beginner). My entire collection consists of bronze. My only Constans II is a relatively humble bronze follis from Syracuse. Constans II (641-668), AE Follis / 40 Nummi, Syracuse, 652-3, AE 23-27mm. 6g. Constans standing facing, wearing crown and chlamys, holding globus cruciger in right hand; I/H/Δ to l., I/A to right / Large M; cross above; SCL. MIB 208; DOC 179; S. 1108. I am very glad that this forum has a contingent of Byzantine appreciators. They probably represent the pinnacle of "acquired taste" in ancient/medieval coinage.

Wow! I must have seen it right after it appeared then. I just happened to look at VCoins and it was there. I thought about buying it for maybe 5 - 7 minutes, if not more, before taking the plunge. Thanks for your input. I do think it looks nice for the price, but I worried it looked too nice. I'll be curious to see it in hand. I'll post my own photos of it on this forum when it arrives.

Hello - this Anastasius I follis is now on its way to me. The price was lower than I expected, so I've been looking for anything "off" with it. I can see the reverse has some gritty wear on it in places, and the portrait could be better, but it does have some visible features. Does anyone see anything "up" with this follis? I'm not trying to accuse the seller of anything, I'm just curious why it may have been priced so low.

This 11th century Byzantine Anonymous follis probably qualifies more as a medieval than an ancient, so, though I've also shared it a few times already on this forum, I'll put it in this thread. It's also the latest coin I've purchased period. Romanus IV Diogenes AD (1068-1071); Constantinople; Æ Anonymous Follis, Class G, Obv: IC-XC to left and right of bust of Christ, nimbate, facing, right hand raised, scroll in left, all within border of large dots; Rev: MP-ΘV to left and right of Mary, nimbate, ands raised, all inside border of large dots; 26-28 mm. 10.2 gm.; Sear 1867

I have loved coins, I love coins, and I probably will always love coins. But I really hate spending money on them. They represent mostly guilty pleasures and luxuries. I went through times when I knew, absolutely, that I had a serious coin addiction. If I returned from a coin show empty handed, I went into a temporary depression, or something very close to it. I often bought coins merely for the sake of buying them. The vast majority of those purchases now sit in the "regrets" pile. I still need to sell them. Instead of giving up the hobby altogether, which I didn't really want to do, I started tracking every purchase. Looking at the cumulative total periodically provided an early warning sign for over-spending. It worked. I also forced myself to become extremely picky. As others have said, if I don't think I will enjoy a coin in 5 years time or more (which isn't an easy thing to estimate, of course, but the exercise helps inspire a different kind of thinking), then I won't buy it. No more impulse buys. So no auctions. My most recent purchases took days, and one took weeks, of deliberation, research, and thinking before clicking the "buy" button. If the coin vanished in the interim that just made the situation easier. If I lost interest in the coin in the interim, which happens, then all the better I didn't buy it. Now a coin needs to "speak to me" in some kind of ineffable way for me to even consider buying it. This "speaking" doesn't always make sense, but I know it when I feel it. No more buying to impress other collectors, either. Some above also mentioned that forums can, for some people, feed a sort of "peer pressure" to buy and show off the nicest possible coins. I'm not saying that forums are trying to do this, I don't know, but that is definitely one impact that they can have on some collectors. It's something to be extremely careful about, especially when one sees posts of expensive coins, usually gold, receiving mounds of attention and congratulations and more modest examples receive only a few simple "likes." For those susceptible to these psychological situations - I have been - buy as if forums don't exist. Or, in other words, would you still buy the coin if you had absolutely no one to show it to? All of these thoughts, and others, have kept my coin buying mostly under control in recent times. I still think I buy too many, but I know I would buy many more without keeping these thoughts in mind. I also never want to buy a coin that would prove a financial burden all by itself. As such, I could never spend $5,000 or $10,000 on a single coin, no matter how much I liked it. Something like that would end up locked away safe in a vault and likely never seen again. I would be too worried to bring it home. That's not fun at all, at least not to me (if purchased as a true investment, that's another story). To provide some kind of borderline for budgetary "safe" purchases, I've decided on a rough limit of somewhere between $250 to $300. Purchasing something above that amount feels too uncomfortable for a hobby. I can also easily shelter against that amount of loss were something to happen to the coin. Of course, I would go a little above that for the right coin, but it would have to be a blazing specimen. For example, I recently saw a coin on a dealer's site for $350 that I would love to buy, but it's over the specified limit and it's not "nice enough" for me to pursue, or so I tell myself. A few years ago, I would have already bought it, likely without having thought too much at all. Coin buying can easily become addictive, just like any other collecting hobby. Rationalizations can cause further out of control buying. Threads like this help people like me stay within safe boundaries. It's good to revisit this topic once in a while, which this forum seems to do a few times a year.

I too have received many packages, not only ones containing coins, with old stamps plastered on them. I usually don't keep them, but i take photos for reference. The upside is the fun is seeing the stamps, some of which go back a decade or more. A lot of stamps had amazing designs and themes. The downside is that many stamps now have more value as postage than they have as collectibles. That market has, for the most part, crashed (with exceptions, of course). I guess they at least still have some value.

The Elongated Collectors is a serious group of people who collect and study elongated coins: https://tecnews.org/ They publish an impressive newsletter and send members elongated coins a few times a year. I know firsthand because I joined them a few years ago. Though I did enjoy being a member, I gradually found that I didn't enjoy elongated coins enough to continue (i.e., not my thing), so I dropped after a year or two. But anyone who has more than a passing interest in this subject will learn oodles by joining and reading their newsletter.

I recently acquired my first coin depicting Jesus. So, I guess I could consider it my own "Personal Jesus." I mean, it is mine, after all, at least for a while. Romanus IV Diogenes AD (1068-1071); Constantinople; Æ Anonymous Follis, Class G, Obv: IC-XC to left and right of bust of Christ, nimbate, facing, right hand raised, scroll in left, all within border of large dots; Rev: MP-ΘV to left and right of Mary, nimbate, ands raised, all inside border of large dots; 26-28 mm. 10.2 gm.; Sear 1867

Thanks for the suggestions for sources! I did recently secure a larger-than-I-expected copy of the Grierson book. Just freshly arrived, I have yet to begin to read it. I will also have to explore the ANS Monogram series - I have seen the Bellinger article sited elsewhere, so this recent citation makes it even more interesting. The link to augustuscoins is also very helpful as well. I'll give that a good read. I would also love to have physical copies of the Dumbarton Oaks books, but they come at quite the premium. So perhaps I'll deal with the digital versions for now.

Thank you for all of the comments and for sharing all of the great examples of this type. I'm glad that the coin I picked up is a decent example, because I'm never really sure with Byzantines. I almost didn't buy it because of the wear on Mary's head on the reverse. The obverse does look amazing in hand, so I'm not regretting adding it to my pile. What I do regret is not going to the local ancient coin club's meeting some months ago. The presentation that night was called "depictions of Jesus on Byzantine coins" and, being on a weeknight, I just felt too tired to go. I wish I had dragged myself there. Oh well, next time they present something interesting I will drag myself there. Is there a definitive source on the Anonymous Folles? Sear and Sayles have sections in their books on them, though somewhat brief. I'm curious if other sources exist, because they are very fascinating coins.

In my little over a year of Byzantine collecting, I had not stumbled across an Anonymous Follis for a decent price with what I considered a decent portrait of Christ. I expected to first pick up a Class A and move my way up the alphabet of classes, but this Class G's obverse stuck out to me, so I started there instead. If only the portrait of Mary on the reverse didn't have the wear on it, but, especially for a Byzantine, it's fairly acceptable. The historical element of these coins fascinates me because of the history of iconoclasm within Byzantium a few centuries prior to this type's appearance. The iconodules clearly won that messy and sometimes violent battle, as this coin demonstrates. It also helps manifest the intriguing and still largely unappreciated history of a fascinating and highly religious empire, complete with all of its ensuing pros and cons. As I've said before, I'm not a particularly religious person, but I find coins like this an endless source of interest and fascination. Romanus IV Diogenes AD (1068-1071); Constantinople; Æ Anonymous Follis, Class G, Obv: IC-XC to left and right of bust of Christ, nimbate, facing, right hand raised, scroll in left, all within border of large dots; Rev: MP-ΘV to left and right of Mary, nimbate, ands raised, all inside border of large dots; 26-28 mm. 10.2 gm.; Sear 1867

I'm guessing that this thread, just like the Byzantine empire itself back in 1453, has come to an end? I'm going to miss all of the fantastic Byzantine coins that appeared in constant streams over the past few months. I wish I had had more to contribute, but my Byzantine acquisitions only began about a year ago. I haven't reached even twenty specimens in my entire collection yet. I'm also happy that more Byzantine collectors exist on this site than I realized. Byzantine coins seem like the "secret back room" of ancients that only a few brave (and possibly eccentric) folk tread into and stay for any length of time. I still don't know why they have captured my interest so fervently, but I'm still looking at them and buying them. An Anonymous Follis of Class G should appear in my mailbox within the next week, I hope. Thanks again for a great ride! I hope to see more Byzantine posts here in the future!

Fantastic octopus! Love it!

Definitely! Let the archeologists to be ponder this one... That one likely won't last another 20 years, though... in fact, I should probably check on it... it may have dissolved away already...

This comment applies to just about every auction site, not just those for coins: I generally dislike the "irrational exuberance" that seems to often go with auctions. @kirispupis comments about the high auction bid above triggered that thought in me. Sometimes one can find bargains and under bids, but, in my experience, coins (or other things) I want generally skyrocket to prices that I would never have even considered paying for them. I don't know if people get competitive, or exhilarated by the process itself, but in general I find that many auctions seem to bring out the irrational in people. I'm speaking from experience, because it's also happened to me at least once or twice. So, I tend to, or try to, avoid them.

A part of me definitely misses the days of driving to the local coin shop, deciding on something tasty in their inventory, buying it, and then taking it home with me instantaneously. If anything happened to the item(s) in transit, I had no one to blame but myself. One can still take this course, obviously, but the Internet offers so much more choice, sometimes to a nearly stultifying degree, that perusing and clicking "buy" online can manifest wonders often otherwise unavailable. A month or two ago, when my surprise import duty appeared one day via email, at least after a week following ordering that particular coin, my frustration reached a hobby-ending intensity. Not to mention the agonizing times that I chased down the postal truck to avoid having to wait an entire weekend to obtain a shipped item that required a signature. 90% of the time, I received the "delivery" notification either via email or text after the truck had already departed down the street, despite leaving a phone number to call in the mailbox. More than once I literally ran after the truck. I have never lost anything of significant value in the mail. The one thing I did lose wasn't worth squawking over: a 5$ 1930s Thelma Todd cigarette card from the UK. It never showed up, I just let the dealer know. But losing something of immense value would be a vastly deflating experience. I'm not sure how I would react to that. After the import duty experience, I vowed to stop buying coins. But I've purchased two more since, one of them overseas, which risked yet another negative experience. But the duty only set me back $50, so the sting wore off quicker than I expected. But losing $1,000, $2,000, or even more would probably send me into paroxysms of anger. I'm not sure what I would do in that situation. I've only made orders that large a few times, always for gold. At least one of those orders found me sprinting after the postal truck. Had I lost one of those hefty orders, I may never have ordered such things again. Or at least it would have taken a long time for the agony to cease. I guess, in the end, one either accepts or doesn't accept the tradeoffs and risks of various methods of acquiring things. I've reacted to those by cutting back. So far it's worked for me, but the probability of something nasty still occurring remains greater than 0.

I'll happily wait longer as long as they don't slap an import duty on it. That hurt.