mcwyler

A happy couple.

Tranquillina. Caesarea Cappadocia Æ (22mm 6.67g) CΑΒ ΤΡΑΝΚVΛΛΙΝΑ AVG Diademed and draped bust right / MHTP KAI B NE six grain ears bound together, date ET-Z (243-244) across fields. Sydenham Caesarea 618, SNG von Aulock 6534.

Gordian III. Caesarea, Cappadocia.Æ (22mm, 6.51g). AV KAI M ANT ΓOΡΔIANOC, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right / MHTΡ KAI B NE, six ears of corn bound together, in lower field date ET-Z (243-244) across fields. BMC 346-349, SGI 3778.

Belated congratulations!

This is Sol, sort of

INDIA. Kushan Empire. Kanishka I, ca. 127-152. Ae tetradrachm (8.41 g, 22 mm), Kapisha (Begram?). Kanishka, diademed and crowned, standing facing, head left, holding goad and scepter, sacrificing over altar to left; flame at shoulder. Rev. HΛIOC Radiate and diademed Helios, left hand on hip, standing left, raising right hand in benediction; tamgha to left. ANS Kushan 391-402. Gobl 766

And life begins at 40 Nummi

And life begins at 40 nummi

This type, Sear 1697, minted in Syracuse,  has a claim to be the last issued by the Roman Empire in Italy. If Byzantine counts, which of course it does.

5 hours ago, ewomack said:

Overstrikes are usually fun, and sometimes historically significant in determining the order of things. Sometimes they just create really cool abstract art. Sometimes they obliterate both coins into an incoherent mess. Byzantines seem to provide a wide array of overstrikes.

For example, this Anonymous Class B has pretty clear remnants of an Anonymous Class A2 beneath it. The obverse at least has a pretty coherent overstrike with good details, but the reverse became pretty garbled. This one was a late Christmas present to myself and it arrived in the mail on December 26th of last year.

Romanus III (1028-1034); Constantinople; Æ Anonymous Follis, Class B, Obv: IC to left, XC to right, to bust of Christ, nimbate, facing, holding book of Gospels; Rev: IS XS / BAS ILE / BAS ILE to left and right above and below cross on three steps; 29 mm. 10.2 gm.; Sear 1823

Nice overstrike. What I'm really impressed with, though, is that you got it on December 26th. Here in the UK you'd be lucky to get a delivery before New Year!

I have a high shame threshold, so the only coins I'm ashamed of are a couple of fakes I bought in the first few months of my collecting. Sometimes you need to pay for your lessons. Look, wait, and above all learn before you buy is the lesson. I can only hope I learnt it well enough...

Got a goat:-

Divus Vespasian, AR Denarius, 80-81, Rome. DIVVS AVGVSTVS VESPASIANVS, Laureate head right / S C, Legend on shield supported by two capricorns, globe below. 17. 66mm, 3.35g RIC II, 63 (Titus)
 

The type is popular, isn't it?. The janiform head is always cool. My example shows it's age a bit but I was happy to get it for £26.

Here's mine:-

There were several of these in the auction I won this in; I chose this because of the Officina. The ninth Officina would normally have been theta, but these superstitious pagans avoided it because it was the first letter of death in Greek. Instead they used epsilon delta (5 and 4) which kept the grim reaper at bay. 

My recent auction experiences follow (I should add I live in England) :-

Savoca €18 + 1%, immediate shipping, tracked, insured, very fast. 

Bucephalus €20 uninsured, tracked within a week which I'm OK with. Top end of what I would pay, but several wins so it spreads the load. 

Biga €5 uninsured within a week. 

Sol €6.50 uninsured within a week. 

Astarte CHF 15.50 + 1% insured within a week. 

They were all this year, some multiple times. 

I would also mention London Ancient Coins £6 uninsured within a week, and NN London who despite quoting £35 in their T&Cs did agree to ship for a much more reasonable £10 uninsured, both from last year. 

Happy with all the above. 

The booby prize goes to Aphrodite, who charged for DHL Express and sent it - eventually - by snail mail from London after presumably getting it there from Germany in someone's pocket. At any rate it took about a month, they saved a few euros and lost a customer. High buyer's premium too. 

22 hours ago, John Conduitt said:

Rarity is an artificial construct. It depends on what you and other collectors count as different coins. A different die, legend spacing, legend variant, issue mark, or a bust facing the other way may or may not make it a different coin and so rare or common. The more detail, the rarer the coins become. You get this a lot with Celtic coins. Chris Rudd lists 8 North East Coast staters, 4 South Ferriby staters and 4 similar staters, each anything from very common to excessively rare. But as they say, all these were "in fact one large series of coins which extended over many years." So if you count them all as one type of coin, they are very common.

Then, there are relative perceptions of rarity. With modern coins, 'rare' can mean there are 2,000 of them. With ancients, that is near to the most common. I think generally, rarity scales count a coin with under 50 known as rare, with any further adjectives depending on how many more categories the scale has (very rare, extremely rare, excessively rare, unique).

I created my own scale while trying to understand how this all worked 🤣 In doing so, I summarised other scales. As you can see, rarity is relative and depends on the subset being collected.

Interesting list. 

Rarity should be absolute and measurable, but it's not. 
My main focus at the moment is campgates. They're plentiful, normally easily found cheaply, and there are hundreds of types to search for, what more could a collector want? 

Just this morning I received this in the post:

Constantine I AE follis of Arles. AD 329. CONSTAN-TINVS AVG, pearl-diademed head right. / VIRTV-S AVGG, campgate, six rows, dots in arches in top row, 4 turrets, star above, no doors. T-F across fields. Mintmark PCONST. RIC VII Arles 336; Sear 16311.

If my attribution is correct, it's an R5 rarity in RIC, and it's by no means my first R5 campgate.  Are they really that rare? I do keep my eyes open but I see quite a few in auctions that are rated R3 or rarer. 

They were rated before the Internet, before ebay (the source of this coin) and before metal detecting was really a thing. And perhaps museums, the collections on which RIC was largely based, may be more interested in getting that aureus than collecting all the myriad variations of the fiddling small change of the Late Roman Empire. 

If the coin shown here happened to have open doors and S F across fields rather than T F, it would be rated common. Does anybody care? Apart from me, that is! Well yes I think many of us do, we're a strange lot...

1 hour ago, John Conduitt said:

Yes this is a problem with a lot of Roman coins. Was the emperor happy, blessed, successful, prosperous, fortunate? They're not synonyms. Which did they mean? The same with Felicitas (Felicium Temporum Reparatio).

I reckon if you're the emperor you're all of those. Until the likely assassination and  subsequent damnatio memoriae. 

Interesting coins, to add to the long "must get one of those" list. Your map represents the south as Arabie Heureuse, so I suppose those northeastern issues are from Arabie Triste. 

Carthaginian Domain, Sardinia, c. 264-241 BC. Æ (20mm, 4.88g, 3h). Wreathed head of Kore-Tanit l. R/ Head of horse r.; letter before. Piras 54; SNG Copenhagen (Africa) 151.

I can't help thinking the eating babies stuff is just another example of the victors writing  history to suit their narrative. Not saying they were angels mind you. Septimius Severus was born in the town of Leptis Magna and spoke Punic. Well he spoke Latin too but with a Punic accent. Just a bit of trivia for you! 

14 hours ago, Ryro said:

Congrats on the cool coins and thanks for the write up!

It's incredible to me just how much of Roman history is them being d-bags!? You'd think they'd keep it to themselves that their founder committed fratricide, they kidnapped a bunch of their neighbors women or the atrocities committed by Caesar. But nope. They bragged about them every chance they got.

Exactly! My very worn example

2 hours ago, Simon said:

Here is a lesser known article by an excellent researcher, he is talking about crusader coins but it is the same style for the tetartera.

https://www.academia.edu/39265926/NEW_FACTS_ON_MODERN_FAKE_COINS_OF_THE_CRUSADER_STATES

Currently on ebay, there are 6 under new listing's for tetarteron  that are all fake. The sellers are vintage items, coinhub, vallface.

I don't know if the sellers were duped, but the coins are clearly not right. One is very good that I question if it is fake or not. 

Know the coin or know the seller. 

I don't think the sellers were duped. The first and third are proud members of this useful list of fake sellers.-

http://augustuscoins.com/ed/fakesellers.html#U

2 hours ago, Valentinian said:

Anonymous folles are mostly very common, but most are worn or very worn, so one in really good shape is special (and, for this thread, "beautiful"). Here is good example of Class I, attributed to Nicephorus III (1078-1081):


Sear 1889. 25 mm. 6.18 grams.
Bust of Christ facing
Latin cross with X at center and large pellets at ends, crescents outwards in upper fields, and floral ornament at the base. 
DOC 3.2, plate LXIII and page 696, 64 examples, 5 photographed. This one is, I think, a tiny bit better than any of those. 

Nice! But to emphasise your point, this is what we get in the real world.. 

£10, so mustn't grumble. 

I'm starting to like little coins. Of course the bigger the better for ptolemaic bronzes etc. Or for that matter bars of gold. 

But there's something about those tiny coins. The artistry? The cuteness? More likely the price... 

On 4/9/2024 at 3:15 AM, ela126 said:

Quite like this thread!

Keeping with the recent theme of excellent strikes, here is one of my best billon scyphate coins. Nice amount of silver content (I’ve read about 7% at this time but I can’t cite that)

IMG_6850.mov 21.07 MB · 0 downloads  

Alexis 1 - 1081-1118

Billon Aspron Trachy

Constantinople

SB 1918

4.68g

Ela126 has the better face of Christ, but I like my example of SB1918 too. It's certainly my most attractive trachy, and it came in the post today!  28mm, 4.1g.

I was interested to read this today, thought I'd share it. (Trabzon is what we know as Trebizond.)

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/03/endangered-greek-dialect-living-bridge-ancient-world-romeyka?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Let's have some more... 

Campgates? Now you're talking! 

I'll have to stop there because I could literally post another hundred and I don't want to make this thread unreadable. But yes, I like a good campgate! Don't mind the bad ones come to that.. 

Just to prove how "good enough" yours are, here are mine. Swap? 

Mine is a bit worn and crusty but I like it, 34mm and 32.64g so not a record breaker but nice and chunky anyhow. 

On 3/9/2024 at 3:42 PM, Roman Collector said:

Maybe he really looked like this! 😂

What is a good portrait? If I were a lowly diecutter asked to create an image of the most powerfuL (and usually vainest) man in the world I think I would err on the side of handsome rather than ugly. I agree with romancollector, Val baby was probably what we would call in these parts a bit of a minger. Mine was maybe the best the guy in Samosata could do... 

That said, perhaps in this case he wasn't the most powerfuL, Shapur was? 

Zero feedback, what could go wrong? I note that, in the English translation, the "authenticity guaranteed" bit seems to have been omitted... Probably just an oversight.