akeady

Drool 😀

I've been listening to more Fatima Mansions, so here are a couple of tracks - from the brilliant "Viva Dead Ponies", here's "Look What I stold For Us, Darling".   (For those who don't speak the Klingon, the intro. starts with some Irish language news story about a 15 year old girl being taken by Air Corps helicopter from Sherkin Island, presumably after an accident)

And from two years later, the title track on "Valhalla Avenue".

Here's a coin I picked up this year that I'd wanted for a while...

ATB,

Aidan.

9 minutes ago, CPK said:

@akeady You have an amazing collection! That Trajan bridge sestertius in particular caught my eye. I'd love to get one someday but they are not cheap!

Thanks - I've organised things by reign/RIC number since then, rather than the jumble there.   I got the Trajan bridge coin back in 2010 from Kuenker, when things were cheaper.

ATB,

Aidan.

I think the stackable Lindner or Lighthouse trays are a good idea.   They're more scalable than the four tray case which you'll surely outgrow in time.

I've gone down the Abafil route for Roman Republican coins and a mixture of Abafil trays and a couple of cabinets for the rest - a 28-tray Peter Nichols cabinet and a nice small 3-tray Swann cabinet I got secondhand.   Abafil does a nice case which holds 20 trays.   Alberto Zecchi also make very nice trays and cabinets in various sizes - I'm tempted to move my Greek coins into one, though many of them live in a safety deposit box.

As far as cost, when a tray is full of coins, its cost is insignificant compared to the coins in it, so get something you like to look at!

Here are some photos.

Small Abafil case for 20 coins (they do one with 2 trays too) - handy for carrying around a few coins to show to people or bringing to/from SDB (bad pic!).   This has a lid:

A couple of Abafil trays with 35mm slots, just big enough for sestertii (most of them, anyway):

The Marmotta case which holds 20 Abafil trays and most of my RR coins (apart from a deep tray for Aes Grave which doesn't fit the case):

A Peter Nichols 28-tray case - this is good for thin coins, not so much for very thick coins - I had to remove some trays to prevent rubbing of sestertii and eventually moved the thicker coins to Abafil trays:

One of three trays in a small Swann cabinet - this has double-pierced trays and I've now moved the labels under the felts.   This was made for a collection of farthing tokens and the trays are perfect for denarius-sized coins too.

ATB,
Aidan.

We haven't had any Rory Gallagher here yet - here with Gerry McAvoy, Lou Martin and Rod de'Ath. 

Or this, a bit later:

Here's a coin that came today from a recent Naville auction - "I have enough Piso Frugi denarii"... said no one, ever 😄

From the auction description:

C. Calpurnius L. f. Frugi. Denarius circa 67, AR 17.50 mm., 3.92 g.
Head of Apollo r., hair bound with fillet; behind, fractional sign. Rev. Horseman galloping r., holding palm-branch over shoulder; above monogram and below, C·PISO·L·F·FRVG. Babelon Calpurnia 24. Sydenham 851f. C. Hersh, NC 1976, 304. Crawford 408/1b.

Attractive old cabinet tone, About Extremely Fine/Good Very Fine.

Privately purchased from M.M Basel. From the E.E. Clain-Stefanelli Collection. Ex Naville sale 35, 2017, 542. From the M.N. Collection.

It came with a tag from M&M and I got it for slightly less than its 2017 price, which isn't a bad result in 2022 🙂

ATB,

Aidan.

11 minutes ago, John Conduitt said:

Excellent coin. Chris Rudd is a great dealer for Iron Age British coins, which made up a lot of this hoard.

Yes - I subscribe to their lists and have bought a good few coins from them over the years, though Celtic coins aren't my main collecting interest.   I got one of my favourite RR denarii from one of their auctions too!

ATB,
Aidan.

This needs new pics - ex-Quidenham Hoard, sold by Chris Rudd a few years ago.

The coin is no. 6 in the PAS report: https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/634521

ATB,

Aidan.

3 hours ago, DonnaML said:

Does anyone know if Naville Numismatics is actually located in London, as stated on its website? I bought and paid for a coin at the Naville auction that took place on June 19 (one week ago), and received an email from one of its proprietors a couple of days ago stating the following: "we will send your lot on Monday, sorry but this week we are experiencing 3 day of strike on national transports and it's extremely difficult to reach the office. I will forward anyway the tracking once it's sent."

Is there such a strike ongoing in the UK? The only one I had heard of was in Spain. But if Naville's inventory is actually located in Spain, wouldn't they need an export permit?

Signed,

Confused in New York City

 

 

Naville are in London.   There have been rail strikes in the UK in recent days.   For shipping to the EU, they ship through NAC's Belgium office.

ATB,

Aidan.

39 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

I've never bid in a Leu auction -- is that a different company from the old Bank Leu? But I looked through both auctions 20 and 21 on Numisbids, and put a half-dozen coins on my watch list. A number of Gallienus coins I've never seen offered before. Hopefully there's time for me to register. Even though I promised myself yesterday not to buy any more new coins until I catch up on my backlog of writing up coins I've already bought, and reorganizing my trays to make room for them!

Also, is Leu known for super-low opening bids? What's with the $25 and $50 starting prices for many Roman Republican and other coins?

They are not related to Bank Leu.

ATB,
Aidan.

I'm still waiting on a coin won from CNG in January.   Just as I'd given it up as lost, it reappeared on the USPS radar and was returned to CNG.   They sent it again, this time to my Ireland address.   It is in Ireland now and was held for ransom by the Customs people, who extracted a further €600.48 from me and the current status (unchanged since 20th June) is "Custom charges have been paid. Your item will be processed and delivered to you as soon as possible. Please hold tight while we work through high volumes."

So, I'm holding tight 😄   The last time I got this status message, it persisted for a week or more - I enquired about when I would receive the coin and a few days later it arrived.   A further couple of weeks and I got a response to the query asking if i had received the package, so was happy to say that it had been delivered!

Attached is the near 3-month expedition the coin was on until earlier this month.   I paid for this coin on 1st Feb. (auction was in late January and received the invoice on 28th Jan.).   I paid by bank transfer via Revolut and it apparently lost the information I'd attached with my transfer with my name and details (I had also emailed at the same time, with my mailing address - home, rather than work - and to say I'd paid by bank transfer and they replied to the email within 11 minutes!).

So, no progress until early March, when they looked for payment again and then recognised my payment when I again emailed to say I'd paid.   I was due to be in San Diego for a few weeks from mid-March, so asked it be sent to the office there.   So, they sent it there and it wasn't delivered - I don't know why - we did move floors in the building and a colleague there called them to give them the suite no. (in the end my trip was delayed and I didn't get there until May).

It was supposedly forwarded a couple of times (to where, they wouldn't tell me or the colleague at the ofice) and never delivered, disappeared from the radar for a while and then popped up in NJ as I'd given up on it.

Unfortunately, Customs here is imposing a blanket 23% charge on things from outside the EU - the correct rate for antiquities (defined as objects over 100 years old) is 13.5%, but I've had no success getting them to change their minds so far.   I am not going to buy anything from outside the EU any more, unless I can get them at a considerable discount, to account for a 23% charge on import.   Naville is an exception - they import to the EU via Belgium and so incur only a 6% charge.   The problem is that there are significant delays - still waiting on coins from their 8th May auction - they were delayed for various reasons, the last of which was that the Belgians had imposed an incorrect VAT rate, but that was resolved - those coins are now somewhere in the postal system - left Belgian tracking on Wednesday and still haven't appeared on the Irish radar 😄

Also waiting on some from Spain, come to think of it... export licence needed.   Bah!

Thanks for the vent outlet!

Aidan.

June 9, 2022, 6:52 am
Delivered, PO Box
LANCASTER, PA 17608 
Your item has been delivered and is available at a PO Box at 6:52 am on June 9, 2022 in LANCASTER, PA 17608.

June 9, 2022, 6:52 am
Arrived at Post Office
LANCASTER, PA 17603 

June 8, 2022, 8:58 pm
Departed USPS Regional Origin Facility
LANCASTER PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

June 8, 2022, 7:08 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
LANCASTER PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

June 8, 2022, 6:51 pm
In Transit to Next Facility

June 8, 2022, 3:26 pm
Departed USPS Regional Facility
HARRISBURG PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

June 8, 2022, 3:23 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
HARRISBURG PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

May 31, 2022, 1:32 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
JERSEY CITY NJ NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 13, 2022, 9:40 am
Forwarded
SAN DIEGO, CA 

April 13, 2022, 6:33 am
Out for Delivery
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

April 13, 2022, 6:22 am
Arrived at Post Office
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

April 12, 2022, 1:21 pm
Arrived at USPS Facility
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

April 12, 2022, 12:54 pm
Departed USPS Regional Facility
SAN DIEGO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 12, 2022, 8:30 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
SAN DIEGO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 12, 2022, 5:34 am
Departed USPS Regional Facility
ANAHEIM CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 11, 2022, 2:15 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
ANAHEIM CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 7, 2022
In Transit to Next Facility

April 3, 2022, 5:46 pm
Departed USPS Facility
PASADENA, CA 91109 

April 3, 2022, 10:49 am
Arrived at USPS Facility
PASADENA, CA 91109 

March 31, 2022, 11:01 am
Forwarded
SAN DIEGO, CA 

March 30, 2022, 6:32 pm
Rescheduled to Next Delivery Day
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

March 29, 2022, 2:24 pm
Delivery Attempted - No Access to Delivery Location
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

March 29, 2022, 6:18 am
Out for Delivery
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

March 29, 2022, 6:07 am
Arrived at Post Office
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

March 29, 2022, 5:10 am
Arrived at USPS Facility
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

March 29, 2022, 1:41 am
Departed USPS Regional Destination Facility
SAN DIEGO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

March 28, 2022, 1:28 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Destination Facility
SAN DIEGO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

March 26, 2022, 8:58 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
ANAHEIM CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

March 18, 2022, 4:58 pm
Forwarded
SAN DIEGO, CA 

March 17, 2022, 5:08 pm
Delivery Attempted - No Access to Delivery Location
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

March 17, 2022, 6:10 am
Out for Delivery
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

March 17, 2022, 5:50 am
Arrived at Post Office
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

March 17, 2022, 4:39 am
Arrived at USPS Facility
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126 

March 17, 2022, 4:25 am
Departed USPS Regional Facility
SAN DIEGO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

March 17, 2022, 1:36 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Destination Facility
SAN DIEGO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

March 15, 2022, 6:44 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
LANCASTER PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

March 15, 2022, 5:29 pm
Accepted at USPS Origin Facility
LANCASTER, PA 17608 

March 15, 2022, 4:02 pm
Shipment Received, Package Acceptance Pending
MOUNTVILLE, PA 17554 

March 15, 2022, 3:34 pm
Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item
LANCASTER, PA 17608 

March 15, 2022
Pre-Shipment Info Sent to USPS, USPS Awaiting Item

I'm waiting on many coins at the moment - I hope some will arrive next week.   This is the latest one I've added to Tantalus.

It's a diobol of a Thraco-Macedonian tribe - the Mygodonians or Krestonians, possibly.   These coins with the goat were attributed to Aigai, a city established bu Perdikkas, founder of the Macedonian monarchy.   Perdikkas had been instructed by the Delphic Oracle that he would found the capital of a great kingdom where he found a herd of nanny goats.   The coins were attributed to Agiai as they feature a goat, though as it's a billy goat rather than a nanny goat, they're likely not from Aigai.

This particular coin has an interesting provenance daating back to 1971 and it belonged to the late Sheik Saud al Thani, who famously spent billions on artworks for himself and museums in Qatar.   He spent $20 million on coins from the Prospero Collection (and then didn't pay).   He was sued eventually by a number of auction houses for being slow to pay up the very large bills he was accumulating - apparently, a satisfactory outcome was reached for all concerned!   This little coin would have been a very minor treasure for the Sheik, but it's an interesting piece.

Next - man-headed bull

Wait! - I'm too slow - whatever Steve says for next...

On 6/17/2022 at 10:31 PM, dougsmit said:

I appreciate the minority who use their name but understand some reasons not to do so.  When I got my first email address, the provider only allowed 8 letters and dougsmith got chopped of its last letter.  Later on, when they changed that rule, another Doug Smith got there first and took the h.  During the heyday of my web pages, he regretted that because people kept sending him coin questions meant for me. 

If your name is relatively common, it can be fun to Google yourself and see how many villains use your name.  Doug Smith number one today is a retire hockey player most noted for having excessive penalty minutes.  I'm amazed that, today, I am half way down on page six of 80 million hits.   I know there are not THAT many of  us.  I have only personally known two others.  I should be glad my parents selected a relatively uncommon first name.  John Smith returns 1.7 billion results.

I do occasionally Google myself and other Keadys - in my early online days, the only Keadys I could find (of any first name) were a mathematician in Australia, an astronomer in the US and a US university basketball coach.   Since everyone in the world acquired an online presence, many more potential long-lost cousins have cropped up - I just searched again and two others  with the same name as me show up.   I see 963 hits for "Aidan Keady" (better to use quotes, otherwise you'll get all pages containing each name, not necessarily next to each other) - all entries on the first two pages refer to me 😮, so I'm not hard to find, but my coins are c/o Sentinel Vaults 😄

ATB,

Aidan.

I use my initial plus surname as my name here and in other places - the first email address I had was akeady@somethingorother.ie, so I've stuck with akeady.   As there aren't too many of us, there usually aren't any other akeadys.

The avatar is a pic I took of an Augustus denarius - it looks vaguely like a stylised me when I was younger, which is probably its relationship to how Augustus looked too.

ATB,

Aidan.

Mr Lydon & PIL played in Dublin last week and unfortunately I couldn't go - found out about it too late 😞

A classic tune needs a classic coin. so here's an owl - I need to take a new photo' of it.

Kroll 8, came from CNG in 2014 - would be cheaper today 🙂

ATB,

Aidan.

Wow! - great!- it seems to have cleaned up very well.

One for my bucket list 🙂

ATB,
Aidan.

On 6/13/2022 at 2:45 PM, Al Kowsky said:

I found another interesting photo this morning in my files this morning that I must share 😊.

Brutus, 42 BC. Fourree Denarius: 3.00gm, 18 mm, 4 h. Crawford 508/3. Very rare. Photo courtesy of CNG 355, lot 465.

Plated contemporary counterfeits like this coin mat be more rare than the genuine examples. This coin sold for $5,175.00 😲!

I remember that coin - I'd bid on it when it appeared in a CNG eAuction in 2015 and got an email from them saying that "some severe corrosion has sprouted up" on it.   I withdrew my bid - I wouldn't have won anyway unless I'd bid again and didn't feel confident it could be saved from the spreading bronze disease (at least not by me!).

I saved the original photos and those with the extra corrosion - as shown above.   This is how it looked when initially listed:

I wonder what happened to it?!

ATB,

Aidan.

I collected British & Irish farthings as a kid in the late 70s and still have them.

E.g.:

And an Irish one:

I still occasionally pick up one or two at a fair or from eBay, wherever.

Seeing this thread, I dug up a lot of 46 farthings, half farthings and third farthings I bought back in 2013 and still haven't photographed:

17th, 18th 19th and 20th century - the last is a 1902 third farthing.   They must be near the top of the list to be photographed 😄

ATB,
Aidan.

I don't intentionally buy duplicates - different symbols on some RR issues don't count as duplicates, of course! - hence 11 of Cr. 340/1 and so on.

However, I'm not always good at keeping on top of what I've got and have unintentionally ended up with duplicates.   By not keeping track of what I was bidding on, I ended up with three of the same type with the space of about 3 weeks in 2020 (Cr. 244/1).

17th September, H.D. Rauch:

27th September, Naville:

Finally, on 7th October I got a nice one from NAC:

I've still got the three, but I suppose in the long term I might just keep the last one.

ATB,

Aidan.

26 minutes ago, rNumis said:

Arrived today. Some great looking chapters! Thanks again @akeady

Great!   I hope you enjoy it.

ATB,

Aidan.

On 6/9/2022 at 4:55 AM, JeandAcre said:

 

Hey Aidan,

I finally listened to this, and am liking how, as contemporary Irish rock, it's still got some of the vibe from Trad.

...This will date me, but I'm a fan of some of Van Morrison's stuff.  Especially Hard Nose the Highway (especially for the title track), and some of the later ones, partly of a more mystical, ostensibly New Age bent (...which, if memory serves, were summarily panned by the critiics), Common One, Into the Music, and Beautiful Vision.

...None of which I've heard in a long time.  I'm about to.  Thank you for being the catalyst of that.

Well, glad it got you back into Van the man.

I'm not sure about the vibes you're hearing in the MD song - it's a cover of a Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, but I liked it and, as it was their swansong on the night, seemed suitable!   There's a video on YT of their last-ever gig in 1988 (they reformed for two gigs in 2018 and two more in 2019) where they were introduced by Billy Connolly who reads out a description: "Microdisney are an MOR band who make sardonic, humorous records about torture, corruption and human misery".   They had groovy tunes from O'Hagan and vicious lyrics from Coughlan.   After MD broke up, they went in opposite directions... Sean O'Hagan went to form The High Llamas:

and Cathal Coughlan to The Fatima Mansions:

I've fallen behind in photographing and recording new coins, but here's one from a few months ago of a type I'd wanted for some years.

ATB,

Aidan.

I thought this was lost to me - won from CNG in January, finally posted in March (it seems my bank transfer lost my message saying from where it was coming) to my company's office in San Diego as I was supposed to be there in mid-March.   Then my trip was delayed (I didn't go until mid-May and returned on Sunday); worse, the coin wasn't delivered and wandered around California until being "Forwarded" on 13th April.   Just when I'd given up hope, it reappeared on the USPS radar on 31st May in New Jersey and was delivered back to CNG this morning!

They're sending it to me in Ireland today - all's well that ends well - though I'm tempting fate by posting it again (I posted it on CT in late January or early February when I originally won it).

Assuming this arrives, I haven't had any coin go missing in the post 🙂

ATB,

Aidan.

Ah - thanks @JeandAcre!

I liked the equivalent thread to this on CT and made many posts.   Many of them featured the music of Cathal Coughlan - in Microdisney, Fatima Mansions and solo.   Sadly, the news was announced last month that Cathal had died at 61 after a long illness.   He had continued releasing music until very recently - "Song of Co-Aklan" album last year and Telefís "A hAon" this year, with a second Telefís album having just been recorded.

So - here's the encore from the last time I saw Microdisney - their very last gig was the following night in Cork.

Irish Times Obituary

Anyway, that was a downer, but on the positive side I'm just back from 3 weeks in San Diego on a work trip and there were a few coins waiting for me 🙂

Here's one I haven't put on Tantalus yet - Cr. 263/1b - from the sale description -

"M. Metellus Q. f. Denarius circa 127, AR 17.40 mm., 3.87 g.
Helmeted head of Roma r.; behind, ROMA downwards, below chin *. Rev. M METELLIVS Q F around Macedonian shield decorated with elephant's head. All within laurel wreath. Babelon Caecilia 29. Sydenham 480a. RBW –. Crawford 263/1b.

Nice old cabinet tone, Good Very Fine.

Ex Vico sale 2009, lot 647."

I already had one of Cr. 263/1a - from a CNG group lot in 2010.   The difference is the direction of ROMA on the obverse 😄

ATB,

Aidan.

How does one insert a YouTube link in a post?

Thanks,

Aidan.

21 hours ago, Constantivs said:

If we are talking pure beginner then I suggest NOT spending your money on Reference books (RIC/Sear) - this information is widely available online... I would suggest you spend your money on new coins!

If you are interested in LEARNING about ancient coins and ancient coin collecting then I suggest Wayne Sales books. They are very reasonably priced used and so enjoyable to read.

Also one of my favorite books to this day is  "Coinage In the Roman World" by Andrew Burnett. Its an incredibly book that is so well written, engaging and accessible that I cannot recommend it enough.

I second the recommendation for this book - a great read - it has much information and analysis not found in catalogues of coins.   There are companion volumes for the Celtic World and the Greek World.   The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage is also good, though larger and more expensive:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Handbook-Greek-Coinage-Handbooks/dp/0199372187/ref=sr_1_1?crid=EU8L8KE4KWF&keywords=Oxford+Handbook+of+Greek+and+Roman+coinage&qid=1654649358&sprefix=oxford+handbook+of+greek+and+roman+coinage%2Caps%2C40&sr=8-1

ATB,

Aidan.