Ed Snible

Gold is very hard to photograph! Here are six professional pictures of the same coin: These pictures appeared on the auction catalog or web sites of numismatic auctioneers Harlan J Berk, Classical Numismatic Group (twice), Heritage, Stack's Bowers, and the coin grading company Numismatic Guaranty Corporation. These images were taken over the span of eighteen years. The version with the red background was scanned from a printed auction catalog. All of the other images are taken directly from auction sites or the slab company's slab verification image. This coin did not change color in the last 18 years. Something about the lighting situation and the camera's color profile was different enough that each of these pictures is different.

ANACS guarentees the authenticity of ancient coins in their slabs. Note that they only slab ancients valued less than $1000. @John Conduitt, Davissons is an IAPN dealer. All IAPN dealers have real guarentees.

Those aren’t his own pictures, they are from the NGC Slab Verification page, e.g. https://www.ngccoin.com/certlookup/6060752-001/NGCAncients/ vs https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/numistrade/329/product/lydia_el_hecte_walwet_c620560_bc_ngc_ch_xf_strike_55_surface_35/2037552/Default.aspx NGC slab photos are not the best, perhaps because improving those photos would reduce interest in their PhotoVision service, and its $8 fee. With their current photos I can't see the stab, its grade, or the coin. A montage such as this might give the buyer a rough idea of the size, grade, and the coin itself.

These coins are have a special dating system, the "PYE" or Post-Yazdgard Era, where year 1 = 652/3 AD. Luckily, Sa‘īd only governed for three years. The page https://www.zeno.ru/showgallery.php?cat=5617 shows 18 examples of his coinage. You should be able to find a match with a coin a that collector on Zeno has supplied the date PYE date for. From their you may be able to calculate a 12-month period of issue for your example.

Interesting overstrike of Pantikapeion on Pontos Amisos aegis/Nike type: THRACE, Pantikapaion, 85-75 BC, AE21, 8.22g Jean Elsen, auction 68, December 2001, lot 231 The obverse head is usually described as Apollo or Dionysos, but I wonder if it could be a young Pharnaces II?

The industrial revolution was good for people. Jobs for horses still haven't recovered. I am sure new kinds of work will open up, but will those jobs go to humans or machines?

Could it be the same as this coin, which just closed on Aphrodite Art Coins auction? https://www.biddr.com/auctions/aphroditeartcoins/browse?a=4434&l=5273526

I use Tom Mallon's guide at http://grifterrec.org/coins/sasania/sas_mint/sas_mint_table.html when I get stuck. The first and third are AW. The second one confuses me. It might be AHM, because it reminds me of lettering on a coin where I called in an expert for help, and was told it was AHM. The Parthian is Ecbatana [= Hamadān, Iran]

You titled this post "Tiny Treasures" but put the cutoff at 13mm. I consider 13mm to be medium size. Here is an 8mm: THRACE, Thasos, 411 - 404 BC. AR Tritartemorion. 8mm, 0.42 g Here's a 6mm: Pamphylia, Side Circa 300 BC, Tetartemorion. 0.15g, 6mm Ref: Unpublished denomination. cf. SNG Von Aulock 4774 (obol), cf. SNG Paris 731-739 (obol)

Sikyon hemidrachms look quite good, and cost $100-$200. For example: Sikyon, circa 330/20-280 BC, hemidrachm, 2.82g, 15mm Obv: ΣΙ; Chimaira advancing left, paw raised ex-Stacks/Coin Galleries, December 2005 auction, lot 71 I believe the auction house called it “Attractively toned. Good VF”

Insisting on not buying something you won’t like in ten years implies a commitment to not growing and learning for the next ten years. I was talking with a friend who has collected for more than 60 years last week. We both bought coins with holes in them in the beginning — and no longer like those coins. So don’t do that! Don’t worry about a few dud purchases. You are doing the right thing by browsing price lists. If you live within a few hours of a coin show that has ancients, visit and inspect actual coins. Don’t just look at the display coins under glass; find a dealer who lets you riffle through entire boxes. Usually, when you pick the one favorite item out of an entire catalog or entire coin show you’ll still believe the coin is above-average ten years later. As your handle is "Typhon" probably you should collect coins whose reverses feature monsters and snakes.

Thanks! Long time mystery solved. A few years ago I worked with Tom Mallon's widow to restore grifterrec from backups. We couldn't get the old domain so we used grifterrec.org, for example http://grifterrec.org/coins/par_rel/par_rel.html

Here is an Orodes II drachm that I need some help on: 18.5mm, 3.32g I bought this unattributed six years ago at an ANA show. I tried to attribute it with web sites and Shore's book and apparently decided that it was an Eastern Imitation, cf. Sellwood 47.29-34, cf. Shore 239-262. I can't recall which web site or book lead me to that conclusion. Can any experts confirm this attribution?

Here is an example from the AWH Ahwaz Mint: Yazdgard I, 399-420, AWH Ahwaz Mint 4.08 gm; 29 mm. From Frank Robinson auction 121, lot 423 The above is a cellphone picture. I will attach two auction photos to show how difficult these are to photograph: same coin! same coin!

I have checked my photo file of Neapolis hemidrachms. I cannot find earlier examples from these dies than the examples reported by Amentia I have never seen coins from these dies in less than high grade. Congrats to Amentia.

Some US postal employees do not recognize foreign tracking bar codes and don't know to scan them. That's why the coin can be delivered without tracking being aware of it. If your coin is still in Customs it is likely safe. I have had coins leave ISC New York and never get scanned again. They can fall off Postal trucks, somehow. I received a Guyana 1967 1 cent coin yesterday. This is an AU coin with face value of 0.005 of a US cent and collector value of 20 cents. It had International Customs Form 22 on the envelope and was declared as a button. (The seller knew it was a coin.) The seller declared it as a button without my knowledge. If customs had inspected it, it would look like I was colluding with the seller. The system is broken if sellers feel a need to do this. (I received the coin by mistake. I was trying to obtain a Guyana 1970 1 cent coin. These are much more difficult than the 1967, which is why I was willing to pay overseas shipping for one.)

The site is working for me now. I went to the Apollonia Pontika page, https://silver.knowledge.wiki/Apollonia_Pontica , and saw two overstruck coins with unknown undertypes. I suspect I know the undertypes, but the site provides no way for the public to comment on the coins.

Thanks for posting! I was briefly able to access it, but it is now returning errors Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties. Try waiting a few minutes and reloading. (Cannot access the database) Backtrace: #0 /var/www/silver/1.35.8/includes/libs/rdbms/loadbalancer/LoadBalancer.php(937): Wikimedia\Rdbms\LoadBalancer->reportConnectionError()

This mint liked to use really long inscriptions. Half the inscription is missing on this AE22, but notice the small lettering: Obv: ΑΥΤοΚΡ ΚƐСΑΡ ΤΙΤ Ɛ[ΛΙ(sic) (ΑΔΡΙ) ΑΝΤωΝΙΝΟС С(Β ƐΥ(СƐ))]; Antoninus Pius laureate head right Rev: [ΔΙΟΣ ΚΑΤΕΒΑΤΟΥ] ΚΥΡΡΗΣΤΩΝ and numeral letter Α in right field; Zeus Kataibates seated left on rock, holding thunderbolt over eagle and long scepter; A to right. RPC Volume IV 8539 (temporary) Acquired from Sam Sloat coins, 2015, NYINC Cyrrhus was founded by Seleucus Nicator.

New style owl: ATTICA, Athens, Tetradrachm (16.49g, 27mm), month of Skirophorion (June 13 - July 13), 97 BC. Rev: Magistrates Niketes, Dionysios, and "Embi-". Owl; gorgoneion to right; M (= month 12) on amphora, MH (who probably supplied the silver) below ex Dr. Reinhard Fischer, Auction 165, Nov 2018, lot 52 Ref: Seems to match the obverse die for Thompson 961, reverse die of 958a) The dating is usually given as 98/97 BC but this one has the month M -- which is the last month of the year. Thus June/July 97 BC? The coins use a lunar calendar. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attic_calendar for the calender system; see http://astropixels.com/ephemeris/phasescat/phases-0099.html the showing the moon was new on Jun 13, 97 BC and on Jul 13, 97 BC. I wish I know how to get rid of the black corrosion.

Margherita Bassi's article in Smithsonian includes more details and an animation of the CAT scan. For background, the New York Times article from last year by Nicholas Wade gives details of the contest.

HJB catalogs 1-197 can be found at https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctioncompanydetail/510329 and the later ones at issuu.com. CNG catalogs 1-56 can be found at https://digitalhn.blogspot.com/2020/03/older-cng-catalogs.html . Coins in catalogs after 60 are available on the cngcoins.com site (excluding unsolds).

Colosseum Coin Exchange did have a web site. Portions of it can be accessed through the Internet Archive, e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20071223184640/http://www.colocoinex.com/ . There isn't enough archived to reconstruct the sales. They had mail bid sales with printed catalogs from the 1980s through the 2000s. I bought several coins from Ira at shows that had been unsold in those sales. The sale catalogs are small and the ANS library has most of of them. (I donated a few to the library). You are likely to find your coin photographed in one of those sales.

This is a very rare type. Here is another example: 1.28g, AE11 The above example was in CNG, Triton VI, January 2003, lot 1563, a group lot from the David Freedman collection. Described as 'Uncertain, possibly Selge'. It took me several years to find a published example. This coin looks exactly like the example in the Pozzi collection (Boutin's catalog, not the auction), Pozzi 3359ter. ("Ter" means third -- they needed two put two coins between 3359 and 3360; these were cataloged as 3359 2nd and 3359 third.) Boutin's catalog described the coin as Euboea, Chalkis (?). I assume only on the basis of the X (Chi). I don't really buy this because typically tiny bronzes are from Asia Minor, not Euboea. If we are going to attribute based on a single letter perhaps Caria Chalketor which at least has other coins this size. It is irresponsible to catalog this as anything other than uncertain until we find an example with a findspot. Another example was sold as Concordia Numismatic, auction 4, May 2023, lot 330. The anonymous Concordia cataloger did not even bother to suggest a continent.

Bronze coins of Mithradates the Great were often poorly struck. Here we see two strikes, each with the obverse so badly off center that the impressions barely overlap. Pontos, Komana. 85-65 BC. 5.50g AE21 O: 2x aegis with facing Gorgon in the centre. R: [Κ]OMA-Ν[ΩΝ], Nike advancing right, holding palm over shoulder, monogram to left Acquired Calgary Coin (Robert Kokotailo)