AncientJoe

That hockey puck is gorgeous! Congratulations on a great year!

Only graded MS62? Just melt it 😉 An incredible example of an important type - I can certainly understand why it'd be your new favorite!

For me, there is a minimum threshold for each coin by type which is a combination of availability and price increase. If a coin is common, I'll wait for a truly exceptional example because I know there will statistically be one eventually. If a coin is very rare, I'll buy what I can and perhaps upgrade if the opportunity arises. As for the price difference between F/VF/EF: I think this is fine in most cases but I truly hope ancients never become what US coins are. Microscopic squabbling over MS66/MS67 resulting in a 30x price difference based on something that can't be seen without a 10x loupe is ridiculous. However, I can absolutely justify paying 30x more for < 1 square millimeter of superior artistry. We're all crazy.

I've owned a couple of the coins in that article, most recently acquiring this Zodiac bronze of Julia Maesa. I'm not normally a set collector but seeing all twelve Zodiac coins together in one auction at Kunker last year was compelling... that'd be an incredible and enjoyable set to build but it'd probably take another 20 years to find suitable examples of each major type. It perhaps says something about humans (or a coincidence) that we also have Twelve Caesars and Twelve Olympians.

Thanks; I can't miss an opportunity to share when summoned! ATTICA. Athens. AV Diobol (1.43 gms), ca. 407/6 B.C. Svoronos-pl. 15#7. Head of Athena facing right wearing crested Attic helmet adorned with palmette and olive leaves; Reverse: Two owls standing confronted, olive branch between, ethnic in exergue. Ex. John Whitney Walter Collection Athens was a prolific producer of silver coinage, minting millions of owl tetradrachms. Gold, however, was much scarcer in the region and Athens only minted gold coinage when in severe crisis. This gold diobol comes from the final years of the Peloponnesian War and is one of the most important and rarest Greek coins. Athens faced heavy losses against Sparta. Near the end of the war, they blocked Athens from accessing its silver mines, resulting in an economic emergency. After four years of being starved out, the need for funds became so dire, the authorities ordered the melting of seven of the eight massive gold statues of Nike which were standing around the Parthenon on the Acropolis. These statues were symbols of the city’s great economic reserves making this a true moment of desperation for Athens. The gold from these statues was minted into coins and used to construct a new fleet of ships to attempt a naval retaliation. Because of their value, to protect against forgeries, the dies used to strike the coins were stored in the Parthenon treasury in an alabaster box. Further indicating the importance of their minting, the historical context of these gold coins is exceptionally well documented by the playwright Aristophanes and by the Athenian treasury records. Unfortunately, even with the influx of funds, Athens was ultimately defeated at sea and surrendered to the Spartan general Lysander. While many thousands of coins were minted with the volume of gold from the statues, only a very small number survive today. This coin is one of only two diobols in private hands with the four others residing in museums. Other denominations are also known but exist in similar numbers, with only one or two examples of each available to private collectors.

That prawn on the reverse of your 156/1 is incredible. CoinArchives confirms how uncommon it is on denarii. Now I'm in the mood for seafood today...

If you haven't already tried it, give wget2 a spin: multi-threaded and HTTP2 support are a game changer for performance (and thank the full pantheon of gods that they kept backward compatibility with the commandline interface)

Well done! Those are an absolute match. It is a shame that these looted collections haven't been digitized and indexed using the similarity algorithms Ex-Numis and ACSearch use as that would be a great background process to weed out illegal coins prior to auction houses accepting consignments.

An excellent new purchase, @Kazuma78 and @Curtisimoand @kapphnwn's examples are also very attractive (especially the latter's centering which is uncommonly superb). Here's mine which had a premium for its toning which developed from it being on display at the Cincinnati Museum of Art for ~10 years where they clearly didn't control its conditions well as several coins from the displayed collection acquired vibrant toning:

Yes, there are several coins on my wantlist which have sat there for 10 years as there haven't been any up for sale. Collecting ancients ironically requires an increasing amount of patience as you learn more and specialize.

My wife researched and bought me reproductions as a gift before I added genuine examples. It's not hard to say which is more valuable to me from a sentimental perspective!

I missed this post the first time around but congratulations on a great example of a tough type, @red_spork!

Both are undeniably great coins. I personally prefer the art of one particular unsigned die to most signed examples but the Jongkees 1 is a masterpiece. Here's my Kimon for comparison; a grade lower than the NGSA coins but I'm happy with it for the strike/centering/style:

It's a shame because they do often have nice coins (at laughably low estimates). I have successfully bought one coin from their auctions before, albeit at a highly inflated price, but I wanted it and it was worth it to me.

I was pleasantly surprised by being able to purchase the one coin I most wanted in the sale. More to come when it arrives (although I'm woefully behind on posting coins so realistically it'll be in my end of year review).

Which branch/location are the coins on display? I'd be interested to see what they selected!

"Almost invisible marks" but otherwise nearly EF.

Thanks Q - Indeed, that Nektanebo is my coin. While I'd have preferred a better centered horse, the hieroglyphic side is the important side for the coin and this is a very well struck example. To include the mentioned Sphinx as well: Incidentally, the Halicarnassus tetradrachm above used to reside in my collection but I ultimately trimmed it as I wasn't as enthralled with some marks on the coin which are more visible in-person: And to add a couple more ancient wonders, here's my Lighthouse of Alexandria and Rhodes (which is just a drachm but of a very aesthetic style which I haven't seen in tetradrachm-form): And the Olympic Zeus which must have been quite the sight to see in the day!

Congratulations! That's a very attractive example and the warm gold tone likely means it has an earlier pedigree as well.

I'm sure they've studied it but I still would not be very comfortable placing a coin between flexible plastic for long term storage. They can survive for centuries underground but man-made polymers can be very dangerous (PVC being the most egregious offender). Lighthouse has a similar new offering - circular holders which can be re-opened with a flexible membrane touching the coin - and I nearly bought a bunch of them at the ANA show but their representative couldn't explain what variant of plastic was used for the part touching the coin.

I wouldn't worry too much: it's dollar cost averaging of exchange rates. If the GBP had skyrocketed today, you'd have felt like a genius for locking in your rate yesterday. As long as you buy somewhat evenly over time, you'll have as many wins as losses in exchange rates. And, if you do find a way to accurately predict exchange rates, I'd suggest dumping ancient coins and going all in on forex trading 🙂

Congrats, Phil! Did you manage to find any earlier pedigrees for any of the coins in this collection (or had you bumped into the collector before?) I was outbid on everything but would have gone considerably stronger on some had I seen a published pedigree.

A minor suggestion: it would be useful to hide the "Tell a friend" box and to perhaps have only a single pinned thread at the top rather than five as it stands today (which then links to the underlying threads). With most common default browser resolutions, only one real post is visible "above the fold", requiring an immediate scroll down to see anything new. I feel as if this reduces engagement and return visits as that one extra step takes a modicum of effort. It would be worth seeing if the "Tell a friend" box persists any metrics on-click as I'd guess that the conversion rate isn't worth the real estate it's taking up: sharing links is straightforward enough these days. Just my two sestertii worth!

Here's my Cleopatra/Antony. I haven't had any luck tracking it earlier than NGSA 2008 but won't give up the hunt. Having her full name visible is surprisingly tough to find and was one of my primary requirements:

I do understand this challenge. I use Lighthouse Quickslabs which can support most of my collection while still being able to open them on-demand. However, they aren't thick enough for some electrum staters, a couple tetradrachms, and my dekadrachm. I would like to unify under one storage approach which balances safety and ease of viewing. NGC slabs would perfectly meet the need... but the cost is exorbitant and I do like touching my coins (not to mention photography through slabs is awful). Double-thick Quickslabs would solve it entirely for me but they don't exist. So, for the time being, I have to use a hybrid approach where some coins are in flips, trays, and others in Quickslabs. My desire for consistency is not happy!