akeady

Here's one I've posted before, but I like it, so...

Next - Heracles/Hercules

Here's a recent small coin - Metapontum obol - it's one "in the pipeline", but at least I've taken photos.

Naville's description:

Lucania, Metapontum Obol circa 430-400, AR 9.00 mm., 0.41 g.
Head of Heracles r., wearing lion skin. Rev. Grain ear. Historia Numorum Italy 1506. SNG Ahmolean 1802.

Old cabinet tone and Very fine

From the collection of a Mentor.

ATB,
Aidan.

3 hours ago, Heliodromus said:

That coin has been through a lot of hands! One might wonder what has it not been used for?!

When monetary standards remained unchanged, then coins could circulate for a very long time. It reminds me of growing up in pre-decimal England, where it was not that uncommon in the late 1960's to find 100-year old Victorian pennies in change, worn to almost the same point.

 

I got an 1826 shilling in change in the 1980s - before the 5p and 10p were reduced in size, shillings and florins were fairly common, but I only ever found two silver ones - this and a 1917 shilling.

I wonder how it stayed in circulation so long - anyway, I rescued it 😄

ATB,
Aidan.

1 hour ago, Hesiod said:

I think the image embed failed, but congrats!

Thanks - I had copied and pasted from Google Photos, now I've uploaded them.

ATB,

Adan.

These are waiting to be photographed.

Some of these have already been photographed but haven't moved very far thereafter!

These have already been added to Tantalus but not yet made it to a final home in a tray somewhere:

It's hard to keep up and an endless process of reorganising 😄

Happy collecting!

ATB,
Aidan.

I got a few books from LAC in their recent auction, including all of Spink's monthly Numismatic Circulars from 1901 to 1910:

Also, last month I got the 1933 sale catalogue of the Haeberlin Collection - I think I've only one coin from it, but will look more closely now.

I need more shelf space now 🙂

ATB,
Aidan.

Here's one.

Next - Pegasus

The Microdisney documentary was shown on BBC4 last week and I managed to watch it using a VPN to the UK, logging into my BBC account and clicking a button saying I had a TV licence! (I do, but not a UK one!).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001x9fs

Here's one from their second-last ever gig, the night before their Cork swansong.

Here's a coin that came recently - posthumous denarius of Faustina I.   I liked the toning and it was cheap 🙂

From the seller's description:

Diva Faustina I Denarius Rome circa 146-161, AR 17.00 mm., 2.92 g.
Draped bust r. Rev. Aeternitas (or Juno) standing l., raising hand and holding sceptre. C 26. RIC A.Pius 344.

Old cabinet tone and Good Very fine

From the collection of a Mentor.

ATB,
Aidan.

This is a coin that means a lot to me - one of my late aunt's best coins, which she gave me more than 40 years ago.

ATB,
Aidan.

23 minutes ago, Ryro said:

Next: attractive LRB

Funny - I was just looking at an example of the same Fausta to post 😄

Here's a Constantius II I like.

Ruler:	Constantius II (Augustus)
Coin:	Bronze AE2 D N CONSTANTIVS P F AVG - Diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right FEL TEMP REPARATIO - Soldier standing left, spearing fallen horseman
Exergue:
Mint:	Constantinople (ca. 348-351 AD)
Wt./Size/Axis:	4.65g / 24mm / 0h
References:	RIC 82 (Vol. VIII, Constantinople)
Acquisition:	Naville Numismatics Online auction NN Live 59 #814 26-Jul-2020

Next - something else with a horse.

Thanks, Octarine and all for your kind comments!

ATB,
Aidan.

I just read that Karl Wallinger has died.   One of the original Waterboys - playing keyboard here and later the main guy behind World Party.   The last one has Sinéad O'Connor on backing vocals.   I was introduced to World Party by some girls I met at a party in 1988 - I looked up one of them on Facebook tonight and she had posted the news of Karl's death just 25 minutes before 😞

I wasn't sure what coin to use, but maybe this is appropriate as WP had an album "Goodbye Jumbo"

ATB,
Aidan.

P.S. I just read that there's a numismatic link to Wallinger - his wife, Suzie Zamit, has designed coins for the UK, including the Darwin £2 and the reverses of some of the Britannia bullion coins.

I don't have any of them, but here's a link to a Numista page for one of them Britannia 1 ounce silver

On 3/9/2024 at 4:46 PM, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

Hmm, I guess my assumptions were mistaken.  I was under the impression that it was a little bit scarce, although not super scarce.  There are only 4 examples of the portrait type on vcoins, and all are expensive.

I thought it was scarcer than that too, but I see 151 of them on acsearch and nothing is really rare when there are several examples on Vcoins to choose from at any one time.

Not as common as the Julius Caesar elephant denarius, of course 😄

ATB,
Aidan.

On 3/6/2024 at 3:40 AM, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

Some lovely examples are shown.

I don't have Crawford or Sydenham.  How scarce is the type? 

I consider mine 'good enough' to tick off the box.  Personal enjoyment and the learning experience are the things important to me.  I'm rather enjoying the Gallus.

Crawford estimates 51 obverse dies and 57 reverse dies for the three varieties of Cr. 450/3 (/3a, /3b, /3c) together.   This makes it fairly common, though divided between three varieties, not too common.

Sydenham has separate rarity estimates for the three versions - 943, 943a, 943b - this is 943a and he rates it 2 on his 1-9 scale, making it "Very common".

ATB,
Aidan.

I have a couple of coins with numbers written on them, but it would take me a while to locate photos.

Here are mine of Cr. 450.

Cr. 450/1:

Cr. 450/2:

Cr. 450/3b:

ATB,
Aidan.

Here's a chubby Nero.

Next - some other Roman Imperial coin missing from RIC.

There's a great small museum in Dublin, the Chester Beatty Library - Alfred Chester Beatty didn't collect coins, he mostly collected Eastern manuscripts and Islamic art, but the museum of the collection he left the state is well worth a visit even by coin collectors:

https://chesterbeatty.ie/

He's quoted as saying "It is no good keeping things that are not first class, they simply keep the collection down."

I can't claim to collecy by his standards or motto, but I certainly enjoy an occasional nice coin 😄

I haven't broken it free!

ATB,
Aidan.

I hope you're on the mend soon, Donna.

ATB,
Aidan.

Next - 3 or more heads on a coin.

I bought this because it's a lovely shade of green - it deserves a re-shoot!

Next - Zeus

I took a few coin photos today - the first in 2024.   Here's a coin from NYINC -

ATB,
Aidan.

34 minutes ago, robinjojo said:

Not for me.  If I were to work in that capacity, the first thing I'd do is slab myself (Cause of death: self slabbing).

For some reason, I'm reminded of the Hungarian film Taxidermia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxidermia

Perhaps not a film for the squeamish 😄

ATB,

Aidan.

I've bought a lot of coins from Artemide over quite a few years and like them.

I once got a fairly obvious cast fake from them, back in 2011.   I had no problem returning it.   It was a late night bid - when I looked the next day I remember thinking "Hmm, that's well off, why did I bid on it?!".   Of course, I won it and it was cast - light weight, casting pearls and the serrations (it was a denarius serratus) were interrupted by a seam!   Anyway, they agreed with me it was a cast and refunded me when I sent it back.

It's still up on deamoneta:

https://www.deamoneta.com/auctions/view/48/8161

Deamonta has its own database of old sales - access is cheap (something like €10 a year?, I'm a subscriber), but it's limited to deamoneta auctions.

Artemide sold a very odd RR sestertius a few years ago (completely new type) that was afterwards sold twice by Roma - I'd be somewhat sceptical of it 😄

https://www.deamoneta.com/auctions/view/665/212 - apparently hammerd for €20,000.

https://romanumismatics.com/221-lot-416-c-licinius-l-f-macer-ar-sestertius?auction_id=75&view=lot_detail - hammered for £15,000 and in 2023 (Auction XXVIII, lot 494) at £12,000.

Anyway, I like them - they sell lots of RR coins.   I don't know if they look too closely at what they sell - but the buyer should always be more of an expert than the auction house in what he/she's buying.

ATB,
Aidan.

22 hours ago, JeandAcre said:

(Polisyllabic expletive of choice,) before hearing any of this, I was already saying, 'there's Irish music, and there's most of other white music.' 

--Am I being racist?  Well, Slap Both my Freaking Hands.  But I really need the way in which, for instance on this track, the band (never Once heard of 'em before) have internalized Punk to the point where it's just part of the ongoing subtext.  Really needing this (monosyllabic expletive).

I'm a huge fan of the FMs - I'd bought Valhalla Avenue before seeing them and afterwards devoured everything by them and Cathal Coughlan's previous group - Microdisney - and his later solo efforts and finally Telefís.   Microdisney reformed after 30 years in 2018 and played a gig in Dublin to accept a "Trailblazer" award at the National Concert Hall and returned in 2019 for gigs in Dublin and Cork.   I got to both the Dublin gigs.

Microdisney had groovy guitar sounds from Sean O'Hagan and vitriolic lyrics from Cathal Coughlan.   In the apartheid era they released an album "We Hate You South African Bastards" - their record company helpfully added "White" after "You" and finally changed the name to "Love Your Enemies" 😄

"Viva Dead Ponies" and "Valhalla Avenue" and maybe "Come Back My Children" (a rehash of "Against Nature" + other tracks) for the older stuff are the essential FMs albums.   "Lost In The Former West" and "Bertie's Brochures" are worth a listen too.

Retrospective of Valhalla Avenue

https://louderthanwar.com/the-fatima-mansions-valhalla-avenue-1992-2022-30-years-on/

I'd hoped the Mansions would reform even for a couple of gigs like Microdisney, but it's not to be, as Cathal died in 2022.

https://rockandrollglobe.com/punk/remembering-irish-punk-legend-cathal-coughlan/

Here's something older, a pared-down Microdisney from just before their Dublin and Barbican gigs in June 2018:

I'd better include a coin - a Valerian II CONSECRATIO issue.

Keep music evil 🙂
Aidan.

The only time I saw the Fatima Mansions play, this was their second encore - a much longer version (at least one verse is missing here and live it was 10+ minutes long) than this which sent us all home satisfied - more than 30 years ago at this stage.   Plenty of righteous anger and snipes at scandals which have still to be fully exposed, decades on...

Here's an old coin for no particular reason - I don't think I've posted it before.   An issue of three moneyers of 118 or 117 BC - a Q. Marcius, C. Fabius, L. Roscius (probably, anyway).   There are two versions of Cr. 283/1, differing in the order of the initials of the moneyers in the exergue; this variety, Cr. 283/1b, is scarcer with about 13 obverse and 16 reverse dies according to Crawford.