lordmarcovan

SEVEN leaves! Wow.

Seems likely. I don’t do Reddit much, but I figured it came from somewhere like that.

Aha. I’m not surprised to find it’s already made the rounds.

Brilliant! What a wonderful, one-of-a-kind artifact! (And I love pasta.) His Verdun battlefield sestertius was already amazing enough!

(Sorry, don’t know the source)

Must be rare indeed- I can’t imagine very many of those survived their own time! (Edit- yeah, I guess “unique” is something more than just “rare indeed”.)

What is the craziest item you’ve ever owned that other people rarely have? I was asked to answer this on Quora. Here’s my answer. (Not coin-related.) What’s yours? What’s the most interesting, unusual, weird, wacky, or rare object you’ve ever owned, which few other people ever have? Considering our demographic here, I would imagine that for many of you it might be some kind of ancient artifact. If so, great, let’s hear about that! But what else have you had that might fit the bill?

The ideal theme song for that alligator: https://youtu.be/dBN86y30Ufc?si=ZvuFzIy8OJu_fHpi

Heee’s baaack!

I don’t pay enough attention to shipping details, but my feeling is that as long as all the terms and costs are clearly described up front for me to base my decisions on (i.e., factor into the cost of the coin), then it’s up to the seller what they want to charge. I can either accept that, or walk away and shop somewhere else. (I do agree, however, that it is shady for a seller to charge a high price for a basic, slow service and not be transparent about it.) Here is my most recent purchase, from Ritter via MA-Shops. Shipped from Germany to USA for $21.40 USD. As I recall, it was shipped via UPS. It arrived quickly, within 2 or 3 days. Regular post for $20+ would seem a bit high to me, but for 2-3 day transatlantic shipping it seems pretty reasonable. (Whether the price I paid for the coin itself seems reasonable to you is an entirely different question.)

Note to self: when browsing, always look for the same coin on other platforms or on the dealer’s own site for comparison-shopping. (I instinctively already knew this, and have done it a few times, but I don’t always do it. I need to make that a matter of routine.)

Well, since we started with a Tribute penny, I’ll share two sets of comparisons between my the Tiberius and Claudius coins of my first Twelve Caesars set (completed in 2013 on a modest budget), and my present, slightly more ambitious set (which is now 75% complete): Tiberius Tribute pennies: Then Now Claudius Æs: Then Now (I know, this second pair was kind of an apples-to-oranges comparison.) Say what you will about the relative merits of each coin, but I think it’s safe to say (at least from a technical standpoint) that both scenarios show an upgrade.

I would imagine the convex scyphate shape of the coin in the OP also likely caused some challenges with lighting? Then again, the second one looked OK. I’m a pretty lousy photographer (mediocre to adequate on my best days), so I usually repurpose the seller photos or have PCGS or NGC image my coins for me. So the photographs in my collection come from a variety of sources, but I edit them all into a standard template for a matching format. Sourced from CNG images: Sourced from PCGS TrueView images (I was a big fan of Trueviews during the tenure of Phil Arnold at PCGS. Nowadays, less so. I don’t think Phil did this one.): Sourced from my own wretched cellphone shots through the slab plastic (lighting is the bugaboo that bedevils me the most): Sourced from NGC Photovision images (NGC’s Doug Plascencia does great work, and I’m sold on their Photovision service. I have them/him shoot all my ancients now): So, my unhelpful tip for good gold coin photography? Let the pros do it for you, unless you just enjoy the process and experimentation of coin photography for its own sake, as I suspect most of you here do. For me, good photography is vital, as my coins are shared mostly online and spend all their time locked in a safe deposit box. But the process of photographing them is more like a chore and less like fun for me, so I take the lazy man’s way out and pay the pros 90% of the time.

Excellent. Added to my Spotify playlist. Thanks.

PS- I had to Google your acronym to see what “BDE” stands for. Not sure what that says about me.

If we were on CoinTalk and I was wearing my moderator hat, I’d have to censor you. 😉 Since we’re not, and I’m hatless here, I can say, “cool thread, bro!” 😛 I, alas, have nothing in the ithyphallic department. I wonder if that makes me less of a man? How to treat my problem? Meds? Hmm. Maybe I just need to buy one. This is the only thing in my current collection that has any naughty bits showing, and you’ve gotta squint through your loupe to see it.

This happens fairly often when I’m texting or typing in bed, and lay my phone down for a moment.

Nice. Before upgrading to the MS64 above, my other example was an AU53 like yours. I find they tend to look good in almost any grade.

Color me jealous on that one!

Amazing shots! Thank you! The tulips in particular are stunning.

Very cool! I always wanted to do this. If I did it here, it would really stand out, as we do not have local rocks (our coastal soil is all sand or clay).

Thank you for the detailed commentary! You have quite an impressive array there. The Claudius cistophorus... that razor-sharp Tribute penny... the big Nero tet... the Judaea Capta... wow. Thanks! I do try to go beyond the simple "someone standing there" reverses, sometimes (not that there's anything wrong with those basic personifications). You too have a sharp Tribute Penny. I also like the Nero denarius. Is that Otho a fourree? I'll bet any and all of those really made some detectorist or archaeologist's day when they popped up! Pretty remarkable that they're all British finds. (Or maybe not, on the other hand- Britain's a big place, after all- but I think it's an interesting theme, nonetheless.) Thanks. I'd consider swapping it for your avatar. 😉 I appreciate it. I'm bidding on a pretty nice JC (lifetime, portrait) denarius. If I win, it's gonna cost me four figures. But I knew I wasn't gonna get a lifetime portrait denarius of JC for under 500 bucks, like I did the first time I collected the Twelve Caesars, a decade ago. It was an ugly duckling, but had its redeeming qualities, too...

I have an orange cat who looks very much like yours! Of course we have 14 cats, so the odds of my having one similar to yours were fairly reasonable, anyway... 😆

Your sleeping cats are dreaming of ways to get up on the furniture and scatter all those coins! Bean says he’s up to the task, if they aren’t…

@CPK - urban alligator sightings here are not exactly common- but they’re not entirely unknown, either. Love the lake pic!