Kaleun96

You're good at this! I don't know how you managed to find it on that site, I was looking around on it yesterday but couldn't find it anywhere. Thanks for finding the footnote too. Here's the relevant paragraph from the main text translated: Here Nicolet-Pierre is referencing Price 3589, a type from Babylon that also has the M monogram. Babylon had many lifetime types with an M letter in various positions, this is the only one that has it below the throne with no other symbols. I had not bothered to mention or include it earlier in my initial discussion since the style is so obviously different but for the sake of completeness, here it is: Price 3589 from Babylon. A lifetime example but of quite different style to either Price 3216 or Price 3240. It is interesting to see that Newell differentiates the M of 3216, the M of 3589, and the M of 3239/3240: Newell's "M" for Price 3216 (left), Price 3239/3240 (middle), and Price 3589 (right) Basically a difference in size and with/without serifs. Not entirely sure why this difference is made, as on 3239/3240 the M can be a bit squashed and compact with the dots at intersecting lines giving an impression of serifs, but it can also be a bit more spread out and with less noticeable dots, more similar to the M on 3216. While Price 3589 doesn't seem to use dots at all for the intersecting lines and is of similar size and proportion (width relative to its height) to 3216. I can maybe understand why he made a point of differentiating them based on size but it definitely seems odd to give serifs to the Price 3589 "M", it seems less serif-like than the Price 3216 "M". Examples of the monogram from: Price 3216 (left), Price 3240 (middle x2), and Price 3589 (right).

Thanks again! Bit of a shame it's not plated but four Ptolemaic tetradrachms are, though I guess those are a bit more pertinent to the paper's topic given the hoard was found in Egypt. Still two avenues for tracking it down, though I'm unsuccessful so far: 1. Papers / resources in which Dattari's collection is published 2. Finding this paper on the hoard by Nicolet-Pierre and hoping that she mentions the coin: Nicolet-Pierre, H. 2001. “Retour sur le trésor de Tel el-Athrib 1903 (IGCH 1663) conservé à Athènes,” ArchEph 2001, pp. 173-187.

Thanks for finding that! I wonder if Dattari included it in the plates, unfortunately it seems most of the plates are missing from that online copy. But what is useful is that I can see Dattari attributed the coin to Müller 1315, which is the attribution that Price uses for 3216 (the Hierapolis Bambyke coin). What's interesting about this is that, according to Price, it seems Müller did not have an attribution for the types from Tyre (Price's Ake) with the M monogram beneath the throne. So without a plate of either Dattari or Müller's coin, we can't say for certain whether it's actually a Price 3216 example or a Price 3240 example. We know Newell at least to seemed to think they were different, given he attributed both the 3216 coin and examples of 3239 and 3240 in Demanhur. That was published in 1923, before this he published on the Sidon and Ake mints in 1916, where Price 3239 is known as Ake 2 and Price 3240 is Ake 3 but there's no mention of the Hierapolis Bambyke type, which I might've expected given its similarities. In fact, I don't think Newell explicitly comments on the similarities between these types at all, unless it's recorded elsewhere in his notes. It doesn't appear that Newell even commented on the Price 3216 type prior to Demanhur, so perhaps he could not find any examples but surely he must've known of it from Müller. I'm not sure if he used Müller for any of his attributions in general either, I can't really find any references to Müller's typology in his work so perhaps not? I did notice that the example of Price 3239 he plates in The Dated Alexander Coinage of Sidon and Ake is from the Dattari collection! I wonder if this is the same coin Dattari noted in his 1905 publication of the Egyptian hoard and which he attributed to Müller 1315. Possibly not given the globule is not mentioned by Müller but it's possible that this was missed - as is still the case for some Tarsos types - or Dattari figured they were close enough. An example of Ake 2 / Price 3239 from the Dattari collection and published in The Dated Alexander Coinage of Sidon and Ake To be more certain we'd need to know the weight of the Dattari example from the hoard but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be specified in either his article or in IGCH 1663. So in the end, we're left with Müller's 1315 type possibly being a known example of Price 3239 or 3240, Dattari's example possibly being 3239 or an a second 3216 example, and Newell with the only plated example of what became Price 3216. For Price himself, either he's inadvertently linked Müller's 1315 to his Price 3216 when it should be 3239 or 3240, or Müller's 1315 really is meant to be another example of 3216. We'll never know unless we can find the source of Müller's coin in the Vienna collection, and until we can find more info on the Dattari coin I'm inclined to think it's really just another example of 3239.

I was doing some digging lately into a certain Alexander tetradrachm type attributed to Hierapolis Bambyke and found myself going down a bit of a rabbit hole that left me questioning its attribution. Price 3216 is the only Alexander type attributed to this mint and is known by a single specimen that dates back to the 19th century. This certainly struck me as a bit odd but assumed it would be unlikely to be attributed to this mint without strong evidence, given how odd it would seem to make an attribution for an entirely new Alexander mint based on a single coin. Price 3216 - a tetradrachm attributed to Hierapolis Bambyke. Map showing definitive and possible Lifetime mints of Alexander. Hierapolis Bambyke is located just to the East of Myriandrus. I started by tracing the steps back from the main source, Martin Price's 1991 work "The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus" as it is the primary reference for coins of Alexander. Price leaned heavily on Edward Newell's attribution from his 1906 work on the Demanhur hoard, saying: Price recognises that the coin is likely Eastern in origin and that seems likely given the style of Herakles with the sharp, pointed mane of the lion headdress as well as the stiff Baal-like portrayal of Zeus with uncrossed legs, parallel and paired folds of the himation, large sepal leaves on the throne legs, lotus-tipped staff, and the Eastern rendering of the Xi letter in Alexander's name. An Eastern origin seems almost certain, but from which mint? There were many active at this time, Tarsos, Sidon, Ake (Tyre), Myriandros, and Arados would be likely candidates, so why does Price attribute it to Hierapolis Bambyke? Price continues: Here Price notes why Newell originally attributed it to this mint: the letter "M" below the throne. Price seems to somewhat accept this reasoning, weak as it sounds, but notes that he thinks this coin and the other type from this mint that Newell links it to are unlikely to have been contemporaneous. If that's the case, why then suppose they must be linked? The M perhaps could stand for the other name by which this city was known: Manbog. However, there are several mints that all start with M and could equally claim that relationship, such as: Mallos, Myriandros, and Marathus. To further understand exactly why Hierapolis Bambyke was chosen, we'll need to dig further. Price cites both Newell's Demanhur work and Müller's 1855 Numismatique d'Alexandre le Grand. Starting with Newell, as he was the first to make this attribution, we find that his reasoning does not go much further than what was explained by Price: There is a few bits of new information here to follow up on. First, Newell thought the style was too crude and dissimilar to other Eastern mints to belong there. Second, he also thinks the Alexander and Persian types known to be struck at Hierapolis Bambyke also imitated the types of Tarsos and Myriandros and were similarly crudely engraved. And thirdly, that there is no other possible alternative given the facts we know. Let's start with the earlier Persic stater issued at this mint in the name of Alexander that has the same "M" monogram. The coin comes from the collection of the British Museum and was plated in Warwick Worth's A Catalogue of Greek Coins in the British Museum in 1900. Plate XVII coin 7 is a Persic stater type issued from Hierapolis Bambyke after Alexander's arrival and in his name. The M monogram can be found below the horse on the obverse. The photo quality is not great so it's hard to draw any solid conclusions about the accuracy of the imitative iconography (e.g. the walking-lion reverse known from Tarsiote staters of this period). The "M" itself seems reasonably similar to that of Price 3216 but it also looks like a fairly standard Greek "M" - why should it be only similar to the M of this issue? For other tetradrachm types with an "M" monogram, Newell instead supposes they're representative of a magistrate instead of a city. In those cases, the mint attribution is more clear so there's no need to guess whether the M stands for the city or magistrate name but that fact only makes Newell's argument in favour of Bambyke for the 3216 coin weaker. The Persic stater from Bambyke Newell alludes too is the only example of its type, and as far as I can work out no other similar types from this mint carry the same monogram. Nathanael Andrade published new plates of this example (Plate 5, coin 53) in his article The Silver Coinage of Syrian Manbog (Hierapolis-Bambyke). However, the JSTOR copy of this article has low resolution so there's no use repeating the photos from the article of the coin again here. Nathanael does not dwell too much on this specific type (designated Series 12) as most other types struck in the name of Alexander from this mint are also known from only a couple of examples and are fairly divergent in iconography, so little can be drawn from this specifically. He does note that they must've been issued following the Battel of Issus in 333 BC and perhaps without strict supervision of Macedonian authorities given the different iconography versus the standard Alexander type and the fact that his name was written in Aramaic. This might point to a date closer to 333 BC than, say, 330 BC, and perhaps could be interesting if they were found to predate the standard Alexander tetradrachms altogether. These stater types must've halted production shortly after, however, given the low numbers by which they're known. The thread kind of dries up here as it doesn't seem there's much more we can say to link this specific stater with the "M" monogram to Price 3216. Turning our attention now to Müller, Price 3216 is designated as Müller 1315 and attributed to the mint of Mallos. His reasoning is translated from French somewhat roughly below: Müller is connecting many different Alexander types here based on the similarity of monograms to Persic issues he believe were struck at Mallos. It's worth noting that many of the Alexander types he has attributed this way have since been attributed to several other mints such as Myriandros and Sidon, or no known mint at all. These types are also all very different in style and must span a large timeframe given some are clearly early lifetime Alexanders, and others are later posthumous types. So in general, is his reasoning here seems very weak, but not much can be expected given the time he was working in and the information he had available. One thing that is worth following up on is his link to the Persic staters with the "M" monogram. I believe he may have been referencing the above type, a Persic Cilician stater with a seated Baaltars on the obverse and the Walls of Tarsos with a lion, bull, and club on the reverse. Leu Numismatik attributed the top coin to Tarsos under Mazaios, while CNG attributed the bottom coin to Mallos under Balakros. I haven't looked into this attribution specifically but my assumption was that this type is from Tarsos, not Mallos. CNG has attributed similar types with the "B" letter on the reverse to Tarsos under Balakros. I also think it's possible that the "M" is actually a rotated sigma, as this type is known to feature a retrograde or rotated sigma letter below the throne. If rotated 90 degrees, Σ would appear as an M. Whether Tarsos or Mallos, I don't think it helps us too much here unless we want to start speculating with the 3216 coin is from Mallos, but such an argument seems just as week as supposing it is from Manbog (Hierapolis Bambyke). So I don't think Müller's reasoning here is sound but it relies on roughly the same amount as evidence as does Newell's and Price's attribution to Hierapolis Bambyke, given both types they allude to with the "M" monogram were being issued at approximately the time of Alexander's arrival. Given we're running out of steam on where to look next, I'm going to touch on just two further points: the origin of the single example of Price 3216 and its similarities with types from other mints. Starting with the origin of the coin, I admit I have no dug too deeply but I did come across an interesting passage in Giovanni Dattari: un numismatico italiano al Cairo, a study of the life and work of famous numismatist Giovanni Dattari. The original is in Italian so I have translated it to English below: This makes it sound like Dattari possibly had a second example of this type, as Newell's was from the Demanhur hoard. I have been unable to find out where Müller's example came from, he only cites "Vienne" and I haven't found it in the Museum Wien's online collection. The source for this hoard of Dattari's is Comments on a Hoard of Athenian Tetradrachms found in Egypt, "Journal International d’Arche´ologie Numismatique" 8, pp. 103-114 but I have yet to find a copy available online for free. If anyone has it and can check, that would be very much appreciated! It would be especially interesting to see other examples of this type to better understand if it's really that unique in style or just expected variation of an existing type. Which brings me to my final point, does Price 3216 resemble any other Alexander tetradrachm types? Well, yes it does, quite closely too. Price 3239 and Price 3240 are early types attributed to Ake (Tyre) by Martin Price and both feature an "M" monogram beneath the throne but with 3239 having a globule below the M. Price actually has 3239 as having the M and globule in the left field but this appears to be a mistake as Newell has the M and globule below the throne for both types and I can only find examples like this in PELLA as well. Price 3240 Price 3216 again, for easy comparison Price 3239 and 3240 seem to be similar enough in style and execution to be considered together, and in fact most examples of 3239 in PELLA are actually 3240 and several examples of 3240 are actually 3239. We see the same Eastern style on these examples as we do for the Price 3216 example above: stiff posture of Zeus, parallel legs, paired folds of the himation, hint of a lotus-tipped staff, Eastern-style Xi letter, curved legend, and similar style of Herakles' lion headdress. These two examples in particular are indeed quite close, even down to the style of throne (note the placements of the sepal leaves, mouldings on the legs, crossbars between the legs, and decoration below the seat). You might even think they could be the same engraver, but from what I can tell there aren't any die matches between 3239/3240 and 3216. The portraits of Herakles on 3239/3240 are all slightly more "pointed" in the facial features than for the 3216 portrait, and tend to have a slight hint of a smirk. The "M" is also usually a bit different but not so much that I think it not explainable by expected variation of a type across engravers at a mint. So I don't think we can conclusively say 3216 is in fact from the Ake (Tyre) mint and an example of Price 3240 but it does seem just as likely as attributing it to Hierapolis Bambyke or Mallos, perhaps even much more likely given the number of similarities between the two types. However, I do think it worth dismissing Price 3216 as being attributed to Hierapolis Bambyke mint going forward, at least for my own purposes I think it is far too much of a stretch to uphold this attribution based on available evidence. If we can find photos of the other one (Dattari) or two (Müller) examples, that would definitely help clear things up. I'll wrap things up here as this is getting a bit long now. Hope you enjoyed the read, this was a bit of an ad hoc research effort from yesterday so I may have made some mistakes here and there. I'll probably tidy this up in another draft and publish it on my website as a short article too.

To continue documenting my findings (at the very least for myself in 12 months time when I inevitably revisit axial lighting for no apparent good reason), here's some quick comparisons of different lighting setups I have used vs. axial lighting. These are all unedited photos, straight from the camera, and I didn't bother to dial in the white balance or even get focus perfect, but nonetheless they're illustrative. "Pure" Axial Lighting "Pure" Axial Lighting w/ Diffuser on Light Source Pseudo-Axial Lighting (my normal setup) Pseudo-Axial Lighting w/ LED Ring The "pure" axial photo is my least favourite, no surprises there, due to the harshness, contrast, and "busyness". The LED ring does pretty well, this is a Laowa LED Ring that I used to use for all my photos about 2 years ago and it was a solid performer but worked better on some coins than others. It picks up more of the luster and toning than the current Pseudo Axial adapter I used (with camera flashes instead of LED) due to the diameter of the LED ring. The axial photo with diffuser is not too bad, somewhat close to the LED ring photo but with more toning and highlights from the luster. It's still a little too "busy" for me but I think it shows potential given all I did was stick a diffuser in front of the light - there's more I can do to modify the light to get a better photo. But there's also the question of whether messing about more with axial lighting is worth it, given the pseudo-axial setups I have do basically what I need to do and it seems I'd just be trying to make the axial setup more similar to the pseudo-axial photos. The axial setup is also more complicated and finnicky and noticeably reduces sharpness. Nonetheless, I'm going to continue playing around with it to see how good I can get it - it'll be nice to have it as an available method when needed for the right coin. And on that note, what I've realised after my tests with the 0.7mm filter is a few things: 1. Thinner glass is better 2. Filters are not ideal due to often being coated on both sides with anti-reflective coating. Very little light is reflected onto the coin. 3. Filters also seem to favour some wavelengths over others in their light transmission, meaning you often get a coloured hue unbalancing the photo. 4. A 67mm filter is barely big enough for large coins. The circle of light it reflects downwards is equal in diameter to the side opposite the hypotenuse of a 45-45-90 triangle, so about 47mm diameter. In reality, you probably aren't able to use that full diameter for various reasons, meaning the actual useable diameter of the "circle of light" is probably closer to 40mm, not leaving much room for coins 35mm in diameter or so. So I've picked up an 80mm x 80mm 50/50 beamsplitter that is 1.1mm thick. It has anti-reflective coating on one side (the side facing the camera) and reflective coating on the other (the side facing the coin). The thickness is not ideal but it's difficult to find thinner beamsplitter plates that don't cost a fortune. I think in the end if this still produces unsatisfactory spherical aberrations that decrease sharpness, the only alternatives are a ultra ultra thin pellicle mirror (2-5um thick!) or an infinity setup with the mirror between the infinity-corrected lens and tube lens. The former, buying a pellicle mirror, is expensive (~250 euro), and the latter is impractical. I don't think there are any macro lens meant to work in an infinity-corrected setup, only microscope objectives. Microscope objectives at 1x aren't ideal for macrophotography, they likely perform worse than a good macro lens, plus it would be expensive to buy one just for an axial setup.

The 0.7mm UV lens filter came in and I did a quick test. It definitely seems sharper than both the other lens filters I tried. The downside is that the anti-reflective coating on both sides is quite good and relatively little light is reflected onto the coin. Here's a comparison between the 0.7mm filter and the 1.2mm filter from above. 0.7mm filter 1.2mm filter

I ran some quick tests today changing two variables. My Laowa 100mm 2x comes with a lens filter pre-installed because the elements move back and forth inside an exposed tube and since the tube is greased, it would attract a lot of dust if a lens filter were not used. So I was curious if this filter was degrading the image IQ much. The second variable was the filter I was using as the "mirror" in the axial setup, I had a 49mm filter with 1.2mm thick glass and compared this to the 1.5mm of the 67mm B+W filter. Photos: 1. 1.2mm thick "mirror" without lens filter on the Laowa 2. 1.2mm thick "mirror" with lens filter on the Laowa 3. 1.5mm thick "mirror" without lens filter on the Laowa 4. 1.5mm thick "mirror" with lens filter on the Laowa Some quick conclusions: The Laowa filter only seems to reflect some additional light, brightening parts of the coin and reducing contrast. Effect on sharpness is minimal. Huge difference in sharpness between the 1.2mm and 1.5mm thick filters ("mirrors"). But still, the sharpness from the 1.2mm filter is still too low for me to consider using as an alternative method to my current setup. Note I wasn't aiming for any aesthetics in the test, the photos are quite horrible and harsh. I just needed a simple test to check the sharpness and nothing more. Photos are unedited aside from a slight colour and exposure correction. These are also stacks of multiple images, the DOF from a single shot is much lower than as seen here.

The JJC filter with a supposed 0.7mm thickness was only about $20 so have ordered one to test. I'm not hoping for miracles though, I can't imagine my B+W filter is hugely thicker. A quick measure with my digital callipers suggests it's about 1.5mm thick. Though, I know that the beamsplitter glass I mentioned earlier, which improved sharpness considerably, is about 1.2mm thick, so perhaps going down to 0.7mm will make a big difference after all.

I found a great thread on photomacrography.net from 10 years ago where the sharpness issue was brought up: https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15820 According to rjlittlefield (Rik, creator of Zerene Stacker), the thickness of the glass won't effect how likely you are to see ghosting but it will effect the amount of spherical aberration you see, resulting in sharpness loss. So thinner seems better in this regard. Angling the glass is also worse as it increases the "thickness", so as you say the loss in sharpness would vary with the angle. But it's surprising it changes so much based on the angle, given that adding a filter usually has a negligible affect on image quality. The exception is if the glass is placed in the "infinite section of the optical train", where thickness would then have no effect on aberrations. The simplest way of doing this would be to place it between an infinity-corrected objective and the tube lens, but I don't want to buy a 1x infinity corrected microscope objective. Could also maybe be done with a coupled/stacked lens setup but you'd need to find a good pair of lenses where the front lens works well focussed at infinity, as IIRC usually only the rear lens is focussed at infinity in such a setup. Another option would be putting it between lens and camera but that's not fun either. But going back to the lens filter. Let's say a typical UV filter is 1mm thick, is it then right to assume that as long as you have a piece of glass of similar quality that when angled at 45 degrees is <=1mm thick, that the loss in sharpness would be similar to placing a filter on your lens? That would equate to a piece of glass nominally 0.7mm thick or so and this filter would supposedly fit the bill: https://www.jjc.cc/index/goods/detail.html?id=158 "this filter features an incredibly slim design that the glass measures just 0.03" (0.7mm) thick" Something like this Thorlabs beamsplitter would probably cost the same but is 1mm thick, so would be 1.41mm at 45 degrees: https://www.thorlabs.com/thorproduct.cfm?partnumber=EBS2 I did get another idea from photomacrography.net and that was to use a pellicle mirror. Surprisingly they're not insanely expensive given they're 2 microns thick but (1) they're still expensive and (2) extremely fragile: https://www.thorlabs.com/thorproduct.cfm?partnumber=BP245B1 I would love to try one out though, surely 2 microns can't result in too many aberrations. Maybe one could be salvaged from an old DSLR for cheap. Btw cool astrophotography! I'd like to think that's what I'd be doing if not for macro. I've also seen some macro setups with a surprising amount of legos too. Before I was 3D printing I was also using this stuff a lot with reasonable success: https://www.amazon.com/Polly-Plastics-Moldable-Pellets-Resealable/dp/B01C559GC0

I don't exactly hide my dislike of the raw harshness of pure axial lighting and I largely shoot pseudo-axially with custom flash heads and various reflectors, modifiers, and diffusers (you can see some custom ones stuck to the whiteboard and on the table in this photo) to get more control over the light for the aesthetic I like - so yeah, it's a shared goal if that wasn't clear from my previous posts. This setup is just for testing. What I've hated about other setups I've tried for testing axial lighting is the size (particularly when using something like a pane of glass from a photo frame) and the difficulty in controlling all the variables. With this little rig, I can hone in on the problems and iterate from there to fix them and also to allow for more aesthetic control. This is what I love about 3D printing - I can go from prototype to prototype, testing small variations and changes, and end up with a more refined finished product that is built to my needs. But big setups take longer to print and of course use more material, so best start small and go bigger later once I've addressed the major problems and limitations. But the more important hurdle at the moment is the sharpness. I'm at least not getting any noticeable ghosting but the sharpness is a concern. The beam-splitter glass performed better than the filter but still not good enough for me to consider using this setup as an alternative to my pseudo-axial setup. Tomorrow I will try some other UV filters I have and also see if I can track down a small photo frame with a glass cover (2.5 x 3.5" would do). While I've heard opinions to the contrary on various forums, I've still actually yet to see a test demonstrate that axial illumination doesn't result in a noticeable drop-off in sharpness, so perhaps I'm trying to fix a problem that can't be solved. If a 1.7mm thick optical-grade 50/50 beam-splitter glass with AR coating on one side doesn't give me the results I need, I'm not too hopeful about other options.

Interesting, was it a GND filter that you used? Ideally they'd have something quite neutral with not much in the way of light loss like a UV filter as you mention but I'm also not finding anything like that. Perhaps something like the low contrast filter would even help with the harshness of axial lighting. I guess the B+W UV filter I'm currently using may be similar in terms of how a Lee UV filter would perform if they had them, but it could be that all the coatings of the B+W filter are working against me here, e.g. I think both sides have AR coating when I really only want one side to be AR coated. Would be more useful in a rectangular form like the Singh-Ray ones you found but given the massive drop in sharpness I experienced with the B+W is putting me off trying something similar. I have previously done tests where I've found the same piece of glass shot through when laid flat to the lens has no noticeable effect on sharpness compared to at 45 degrees and with axial illumination. Whether it's the mere fact of the glass being at 45 degrees that causes the biggest drop-off in sharpness, or the axial illumination itself, I'm not sure. Thanks for the info! Only a little disappointed in the sense that there doesn't appear to be a "right" answer to the glass question, just more trial and error. I have some picture frame glass that I used for my first tests a few years ago but I must look for something smaller - I'm enjoying this new small setup I've been testing today. Ideally I'd also have my light a bit further away, currently I'm using a 50mm fresnel lens placed about 20mm from the flash to help collimate the light into parallel rays but it's only another 60mm from the fresnel lens to the glass. I have noticed that using the fresnel lens does seem to help somewhat though.

So turns out I had much more non-axial light leakage than I expected! I was wondering why it didn't seem to take much flash power to get a properly exposed image as usually axial lighting requires A LOT of light power. After flocking the inner wall where the flash mounts to the housing things improved significantly but I was still getting some leakage. In the end I needed a bit of a "fence" between the flash and the lens filter, only about 1cm high, at the edge of the circle that allows light to go down to the coin. I had figured having the coin about 1.5cm below this opening would be enough to stop light from the flash making its way down there non-axially but apparently not. After putting up the "fence", leakage of non-axial light was practically zero. Where I started off after my post above - this is way too much leakage of non-axial light, the picture should be black. After flocking the inner wall where the flash mounts, things improved significantly but still some leakage hitting the bottom of the coin. And after adding the small "fence" to block direct light from the flash making it down to the coin chamber below the housing I achieved the desired result. And here's a non-edited photo (not a full stack like in my previous post) showing the familiar harshness of the axial lighting effect. You do get the surfaces and toning to "pop" like no tomorrow but in addition to the harsh contrast it also draws attention to surface defects (e.g. between the slinger's legs). This is typically why people will change the setup slightly to introduce some non-axial light or otherwise diffuse the main light to lessen the effect. If I recall correctly, this was at 1/32 on my flash (normally I'm at ~1/128), 80 ISO, 250 shutter speed, and f5.6 at 1x magnification...so yeah it requires a fair bit of light! Unfortunately the sharpness is still trash so I might once again embark on trying to find the perfect glass for axial illumination. @HipShot Photography I can't recall if you've mentioned before but what do you use as the glass/beamsplitter for your setup?

Following on from the discussion here: My axial lighting test rig finished printing (18 hours!) so I ran a few tests today. In general, I quite like the design of the rig as it leaves me a lot of flexibility in being able to use my existing coin platform with rotation and tilt stages and backlight illumination. It's also relatively small, simple, and robust. However, after flocking the inside of the rig, I'm still getting a lot of non-axial light illuminating the coin from the flash. I can test this by removing the lens filter, which is acting as the angled glass between light and lens, and when taking a photo I found I still get a pretty well-exposed photo of the coin. This doesn't seem to be ambient light, only light coming from the flash. It's possible it's still managing to reflect enough light off of the inside of the housing, even with the felt flocking. If so, that is fairly problematic. One solution is to make the housing larger and use a bigger piece of glass, then less light can reflect off the 45 degree supports that holds the glass in place and down into where the coin is. But that seems like an imperfect solution to me. It's also possible the light is reflecting off the flocked "chamber" the coin is inside but I think if this were the case it would be more obvious in the direction of the shadows. edit: I realised I forgot to flock the inner part of the "wall" that the flash attaches to. Hopefully I see an improvement after doing that. Here's a test stack, it turned out mostly OK but it is clear there's some non-axial light leakage and the sharpness of the photo is absolutely trash. I know this is partly caused by the lens filter, as when using some beamsplitter glass the sharpness increased substantially (though still noticeably below what I get from my pseudo-axial setup). Showing the lack of sharpness: The setup:

Will move this conversation to the photography tips thread so as not to derail this one further 🙂

First of all, WOW - that last shot with the proof coin! I love how you controlled the black areas to provide the contrast. It many places it fits in with where you might expect shadows to fall so it looks quite natural, rather than some other photos I've seen where less care has been taken to make the black areas look purposefully placed. I've been shooting predominantly pseudo-axially for nearly all my photos now, a couple may have been just regular off-axis lighting but most are pseudo, you can find some here. It's always a bit difficult to compare setups by using photos of different coins but the three ancients you posted all strike me as replicable with my setup, but less so the proof coins. I've had some success when shooting a Napoleonic medal but it was far from a proof coin and I couldn't get the consistent "reflection" around the entire surface so dialled the effect back a bit. Was also the first time I shot a coin with flat fields too. For most of my pseudo-axial photos, I'm using an off-axis light through some diffusion gel to lessen the effect as well. But I think you can still pick up the "axial effect" in most of my photos, for example this one you can see it in the surface reflection and around the devices and legends you have "shadows" on all sides, which is the drop-off in light due to it being reflected away from the angle surface of the device or legend's edge. Ah I see, that is interesting. I think I tried diffusion in my early tests of axial illumination but it was far from ideal, essential just some Lee 216 over the bowen reflector of my studio light. I'd love to have a similar axial setup in my arsenal for when I need it, as you say every coin is a bit different and behaves better with some setups than others. Your comments here have given me some inspiration to try a few more designs. Now that I have a 3D printer it's so much easier and faster to experiment with different setups and do testing through changing one variable at a time and seeing the result. In the past I've fluffed around with trying to find the best glass for an axial setup: thin, anti-reflective coating on one side, large enough, and cheap enough. But I've tried all sorts, from expensive optical-grade beamsplitter glass, to teleprompter glass, to regular glass, and as long as it's not overly thick they all seem to do about as well as each other, minus the differences in transmission. So this time I'm just going to try a clear B+W lens filter and see how that works. I had an idea to place the coin in a compartment below the main housing to help reduce stray light hitting it. I've also made an adapter for my Godox AD100 so I can attach that right to the housing and even add a fresnel lens in if needed to see how that effects things. This is just a prototype I've got printing now, will play around with it and see what can be changed for the next iteration. The black object on the left is the AD100, the circular bit in the middle is the filter, the "capsule" at the bottom hosts the coin, and the black cylinder at the top is where the lens will be positioned given the working distance at ~1x. I've used white material so the rendered model shows areas of light leakage, reflection, and diffusion more easily, but in practice all the inner surfaces will be flocked.

I'm back after doing a lot of testing the last few weeks around optimising the background to make it easy for later removal in Photoshop. I started this thread with using a mirror, and more recently updated with that while it works well, it prevents me from tilting the coin. It also introduces a weird chromatic artefact around the edge of the coin, only a few pixels wide, but that was still a bit annoying to remove in some cases. I'll mention that more later. I might break this into a couple of posts, let's see how I go. So I sought the help of the folks on photomacrography.net for help with the following issue: I want a white background that is easy to remove The background needs to have near-perfect contrast with the coin, that is the background cannot bleed into the edges of the coin The background needs to be reasonably bright and consistent enough that coins with very light or dark edges pose no problems I want to do everything in-camera, that is I don't want to take two sets of photos such as a silhouette mask of the coin and an actual photo of the coin. The main recommendations were to try and ensure the light rays from the background were parallel to one another and perpendicular to the lens. In other words, whether you're using a light source on the background itself or just reflecting light off of the background, the light should be going past the edges of the coin parallel to one another and perpendicular to the coin (and thus the lens). I've made a quick diagram below as to why this is important. In the example on the left, an LED is used to provide a bright white background illumination, but the uncollimated light of the LED spreads out across a wide angle (probably ~120 degrees or so). The issue with this is that light is hitting the edges of the coin at a low angle, and while the coin is a solid object, this light reflects off the edge and makes it softer, the edge is then a mix of bright white light and actual coin - this is what I call "light bleed" on the edge. In the second example, a collimating lens is used to collect the angled light rays and convert them to parallel rays. These light rays pass the coin parallel to the edge and thus are not (theoretically) reflecting off the edge of the coin. They form a perfect silhouette outlining the exact edge of the coin. So armed with this knowledge, I decided to tackle the problem as one of an optical comparator. An optical comparator is a device used for inspecting the profile of an object for measuring manufacturing tolerances and the like. It's also called a profile projector. Essentially it is used to produce a perfect profile or silhouette of an object, the same problem I'm trying to solve! My tests then focussed on trying to perfect the silhouette of a coin and worrying about the rest later on - if the silhouette was not perfect, the rest did not matter. Here's such a silhouette of a coin, showing virtually no light bleed around the edges. A coin is perhaps not the best object to test the efficacy of an optical comparator setup because the edges vary from one coin to the next and a coin blocks most of the centre of the image - if there is stray light where there shouldn't be, it may not be visible when using a coin of a certain size. So I changed to using a threaded bolt as a test subject. This is because a threaded bolt has many angle surfaces, can extend the length of the frame, but is not too wide. To get the parallel light rays, I was using a fresnel lens, which is a very smart but simple lens design to collimate light from a single point into parallel rays. Here is a photo showing the profile of a threaded bolt hovering a few cm above a fresnel lens. What you can notice is that the silhouette is very good at the top and bottom of the thread, a near-perfect black outline. However, near the center of the bolt, you can see a bright diffused area and light hitting the edge of the thread profile. This indicates non-parallel light rays are hitting the bolt and bleeding into the profile of the thread. This is exactly the sort of problem I need to avoid. Looking at a zoomed-in image of the middle and top of the thread, you can actually see a small amount of light bleed on the right side of the thread profile near the top but this is mostly manageable, much more so compare to the bottom part of the image that shows the bright spot in the center of the thread. So some things I deduced from this test: A fresnel lens works pretty well for generating parallel rays, but it may not be perfect, especially... when using a very bright single light source like an LED COB, the majority of the light is in the center of the lens, creating a very bright spot and perhaps bleeding light out at other angles this also means the areas outside the center of the lens are less bright, the background is not of a consistent brightness and the sectional rings of the fresnel lens are quite visible But the biggest problem is that using a background light system that relies on parallel light rays has the exact same issue as with the mirror: if you tilt the background with the coin, relative to the lens, the solution does not work as the majority of light is now directed away from the lens. This is not a problem if you only tilt the coin and not the background but my current setup does not allow for that. Another problem it shares with the mirror method is a weird chromatic artefact that forms of the edges of the coin in the final stacked image, shown as this weird green fuzzy area in the image below. The second image below shows where this comes from by looking at the silhouette of the coin. As the parallel light goes around the edge of the coin, it forms a bright out-of-focus ring that the focus stacking software seems to detect as part of the edge. This seems to be because as the camera moves relative to the subject, this fuzzy ring shrinks or grows and the software identifies it as detail that needs to be kept. The author of the focus stacking software has commented on this issue I faced here. So in the end this parallel light method was not working out for me. It was too bright in some areas and not bright enough in others. It also had the same issue with tilting that I faced with the mirror, as well as the weird chromatic artefact formed around the edge of the coin. The next method to try was a more simple diffused light background. This is similar to the method on the left in the first diagram I shared above, so how can it be a solution when I've already dismissed that approach as less than ideal? Well, it seems if you can get enough distance between the diffused background light and the coin, much less diffused light is bleeding into the edge of the coin (inverse square law) and may be a negligible effect if the image is exposed correctly. I'll get to those tests in my next post and end things here with some photos of the parallel light setup I had tried: This one shows an early test of the setup. The fresnel lens is the clear plastic bit in the middle with the three "legs". The coin platform sits above it. The LED light is actually inside the black rotation stage (the thing with degree markings on the outside). The rotation stage has a 25mm diameter hole in the center, which was perfect for placing a small LED COB and allowing me to keep the height of the total setup fairly low. Eventually I 3D printed a shroud for the fresnel lens to help ensure no stray reflections were messing things up. You can see it as the black plastic object below the coin platform from the photo above. And here's the test with the threaded bolt sitting above the fresnel lens light background.

Thanks for the added info! My assumption was that it was combing two methods of lighting (e.g. axial and non-axial), even if you're just using a single light source, by allowing non-axial light to hit the coin. I guess that's the purpose of the diffuser, to allow for some diffused light to reflect off the coin in addition some direct light (even if that direct light has gone through the Lee gel)? I'm curious about the direction and intensity aspect too, since you mention that this is impossible in a regular setup. Are you modifying intensity solely with the diffusion gel or something else? Because is it not also possible to modify the intensity with one's light source in a conventional setup? As for the direction, does this mean you're sometimes changing the angle of the glass so that it is not always at 45 degrees to the lens axis? I've been accumulating some ideas for different setups to try based on the discussions at photomacrography.net, hence all the questions! The thread I linked from photomacrography.net provides an explanation for why you won't always see ghosting, it seems it will be very setup-dependent. In that thread Rik mentions you won't see it if the glass is placed in an "infinity section" , but I don't know nearly enough about optical theory to interpret that fully. Besides having a lens focussed at infinity or maybe using a telecentric lens, I'm not quite sure how one might place the glass in an "infinity section", or perhaps it's enough to collimate the light source so that its rays are parallel? Though he also mentions it's dependent on other factors too, such as how far offset the ghost is relative to the subject and how strong it is, which would depend on the glass thickness and probably also the relationship between object, glass, and lens. I always try to shoot with the coin filling the frame, leaving only ~15cm between coin and lens, perhaps that's too small a distance and ghosting is more liable to occur. For modern proof / mint state coins, I do agree. Though I haven't tried shooting one of them with a pseudo-axial setup either. But for ancients, I find you can get about 90% of the "pure" effect with pseudo-axial setups, e.g. the three examples you posted all seem replicable with such a setup. It's really only for proof-like coins or medals with extremely flat surfaces that I've found the angle of incidence is very important to getting a consistent effect in the fields. For most ancients, it seems that there is more room for error, I assume due to the less perfect fields and surfaces in general, that light hitting the coin at an incidence approximating 90° is sufficient - you still get the contrast effect around the devices because the vast majority of light illuminating the coin is that which is bounced back to the lens in proportion to flatness of the area which the light reflects off. The limitation with this setup is that it doesn't work equally well for all coins due to needing to adjust the diameter of the "ring light" to the diameter of the coin. If the diameter is too wide, not enough light is hitting the coin at a high angle of incidence. If it's too narrow, you will vignette your frame so much so that it might cut-off parts of the coin. This of course depends on the diameter of the coin and how close you're focussing. For my needs, I've found I only need two sizes of "ring light", one with an inner diameter of about 32mm and the other about 38mm.

It takes a lot of light; ideally from a well focused, collimated, or directed light source (i.e. sticking a 2000lm desk lamp in front of a pane of glass isn't going to work well). If you consider you have a glass with 50% transmission (50% goes through the glass, 50% of light is reflected), only 25% of the light actually reaches the camera. The light bounces off the glass and down onto the coin, and then is reflected back up and through the glass to the camera, so 50% x 50% = 25%. If your glass is more like 70/30, which if I'm not mistaken is close to what you get from normal pane of glass, the light reaching the camera is only 70% x 30% = 21%. I've experimented with it a lot myself and never liked the effect you get from "pure" axial lighting. It's very contrasty and works better on flat modern coins than it does for ancients. HipShot Photography gets great results with it but note that they mention using a "hybrid" setup, which I believe is referring to using an axial lighting setup but not relying solely on axial light to illuminate the coin (e.g. using other light sources or allowing stray light not reflected from the glass). I used to get a lot of issues with "ghosting" (where a second image of the coin is offset from the primary image) and degradation in sharpness and resolution but that's because I do focus stacking with a fairly decent camera and try to get every last bit of detail out of my setup. Whereas for most people, any effect on sharpness is probably not noticeable. There's been some discussion on "ghosting" here but I haven't tried any of the suggested methods since it came up. In the end i'm not convinced it's worth the hassle versus trying to achieve "pseudo-axial illumination", such as by using a ring light of the correct diameter. You get most of the benefits of axial illumination but it's less harsh and generally an easier setup.

As a few others have mentioned, diffused lighting will be the best method for retaining the original tone of the object but since dark objects produce little diffuse reflections you need much more light to achieve the correct exposure than if using direct lighting. To get the right amount of diffused lighting and little to no direct lighting, it's not only about the angle but the distance between camera and object as well as the focal length of the lens. You'll have to experiment with placing the light at different angles relative to the axis of the object and camera as well as different distances - as the bottom graphic demonstrates it's not all about the angle. Using natural sunlight on an overcast day may be easiest if fiddling around with lighting setups is too much. You can also experiment with small amounts of direct lighting to help the details pop in certain areas. Source: Light - Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting.

Thanks everyone! I've been quite fortunate this year in being able to collect a lot of great types I had on my list from the start of 2022 and it's interesting to hear which ones you have picked as your favourites.

I've decided to split my Top 10 list in two for this year: 5 coins dedicated to general ancients and 5 coins from my Alexander the Great collection. This is the year I decided to start a proper collection out of Alexander tetradrachms, rather than just buying whatever I fancied. I had owned maybe a dozen or so before this point but without a theme or purpose. The coin that is my #1 overall for the year changed all that. Due to limited time, I'll mostly do short write-ups only for the Alexander tets. Top 5 General Ancients #5 ROMAN REPUBLIC. Julius Caesar & P. Sepullius Macer Denarius (44 BC) Rome, Latium Obv: Wreathed head of Julius Caesar, right; star of eight rays to left; CAESAR IMP downward to right Rev: Venus Victrix standing left, holding Victory on outstretched right hand and scepter set on star in left; P•S[EPVL]LIVS downward to right, MA[CER] upward to left 3.22g Crawford 480/5b; RSC 41 Kicking things off with a lifetime Caesar portrait! I have had this type on my list since consigning my elephant denarius earlier this year but I didn't expect to pick up an example so soon after for a pretty affordable price. #4 PTOLEMAIC KINGDOM. Ptolemy III Euergetes Tetradrachm (246-245 BC) Tyre, Phoenicia Obv: Diademed head of Ptolemy I right, wearing aegis around neck Rev: ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ. Eagle standing left on thunderbolt; in left field, monogram of TYP (Tyre) above club; in right field, B (date RY 2) above I; between legs, MY monogram 27.12mm, 14.23g, 12h SNG Copenhagen 499; PCO 836 Next up, this lovely Ptolemy III tetradrachm from Tyre, a fairly rare mint for Ptolemy III. I've had it in the back of my mind to do a small collection of Ptolemaic tetradrachms from Ptolemy I to Ptolemy VI or VII but this was the only progress I made this year on that front. #3 CILICIA. Tarsos Stater (384-361 BC) Tarsos, Cilicia Obv: 𐡁𐡏𐡋𐡕𐡓𐡆 ('Baaltars' in Aramaic). Baaltars seated to right on backless throne, holding bunch of grapes and grain ear in his left hand and eagle-tipped scepter in his right; in field to right, thymiaterion; under throne, forepart of a bull to right Rev: 𐡕𐡓𐡊𐡌𐡅 ('Tarkamuwa' in Aramaic). Datames seated to right, in full Persian garb, measuring arrow held in his left hand; on the lower right, bow; in field in upper right, winged solar disk 23.38mm, 10.50g, 6h Casabonne type 2; SNG France 289; SNG Levante 87 This is another type that was on my list from the beginning of the year, when I decided to try and list particular types I wanted to purchase at some point and then do my best to stick to that list. In the end I didn't fair too badly and ticked off quite a few, the two above included, but I was particularly glad to grab this one as they don't come up as often as you'd like and often with some kind of issue or another. #2 ATTICA. Athens Tetradrachm (465-454 BC) Athens, Attica Obv: Head of Athena right, wearing crested Attic helmet ornamented with three laurel leaves and vine scroll Rev: AΘE. Owl standing to right with head facing, olive sprig and crescent behind; all within incuse square. 25.05mm, 17.22g, 4h Starr V.B Series 3 Another type from my list was a Starr group Owl tetradrachm. I already have had several "Mass Issue" owls, and one I'm pretty happy with, so my next goal was to get a nice example of a Starr Group V.A or V.B owl, which also don't come up as often as one would like. I'm particularly fond of the style of the owl on these V.B owls and while I'd still like to collect some earlier Starr groups, I think this is where the owl peaked stylistically. #1 CYPRUS. Paphos Stater (440-425 BC) Mint: Paphos, Cyprus Obv: Bull standing to left; winged solar disk above, ankh to left, palmette ornament in exergue Rev: 𐠨𐠭𐠨 𐠪𐠞. Eagle standing to left; one-handled vase to left, 'pa-si sa-ta-sa' in Cypriot script around; all within dotted square in incuse square 23.15mm, 10.75g, 12h Destrooper-Georgiades 15; Tziambazis 7; Traité II 1291; BMC 17; SNG Copenhagen 26 To wrap up the first half of my list is one of my favourite coins in my collection, a stater from Paphos. A museum here in Stockholm has a nice selection of Cypriot coins and after seeing that exhibit I decided to move them up in terms of priority and was fortunate to have this example pop-up soon after. It's a coin I don't think I would have expected to have in my collection even as recent as this time last year. Top 5 Alexander III Tetradrachms #5 Tyre 333-332 BC Tyre, Phoenicia Obv: Head of Herakles right, wearing lion-skin headdress, paws tied before neck Rev: AΛEΞANΔPOY, Zeus Aëtophoros seated left, holding sceptre; in his right hand, eagle standing right; to left, thunderbolt 22.78mm, 17.19g, 10h Price 3238 Starting off my Top 5 Alexanders, is this very early lifetime example from Tyre that is thought to be the first type issued from this mint circa 333/2 BC. Martin Price originally attributed it to Ake but later research has securely placed it at the Tyre mint. What's interesting about this example in particular, and a reason it made my Top 5, is that it shares a die with the first type thought to have been minted at the neighbouring Sidon mint in 333 BC. The die is believed to have travelled to Tyre with the engraver from Sidon, which predates Tyre by only a few months in striking Alexanders. Whether you believe the first Alexander tetradrachms were minted in Macedonia or Asia Minor, this type is still likely to be one of the earliest of Alexander's tetradrachms and among the first in Asia Minor. The current thinking is that Tarsos started minting Alexander tetradrachms first, followed by Sidon a few months later, and then Tyre, once it fell to Alexander. The earliest types of Sidon and Tyre come just before the dated issues of these cities, which are important to not only the chronology for the types from these cities but also other Alexander types and, in this case, provides a cut-off date in which this type must have been minted by. #4 Arados 332-324 BC Arados, Phoenicia Obv: Head of Herakles right, wearing lion-skin headdress, paws tied before neck Rev: AΛEΞANΔPOY; Zeus seated left on throne, holding eagle on his outstretched right hand and long scepter in his left; Γ in left field, A below throne Price 3303; Duyrat Group I (dies D7-R9); Newell, Reattribution 125 Next up is another Alexander type thought to be the first of its kind at the mint where it was struck. This is quite a fascinating example as my immediate thought when I first saw it was "that's a type from Tarsos". Not only because of the A below the throne, a well-known control symbol from Tyre, but also the style of the Herakles. However, I soon found out it was attributed to the Arados mint by Newell and that Price, Duyrat, and Taylor have all upheld that attribution. For those familiar with the usual Arados tetradrachms of Alexander, it is clear this one deviates significantly in style. If it were the first to be minted at Arados, it makes sense that it is stylistically closer to Tarsos, believed to be the first Alexander mint in Asia Minor. What has led numismatists to the conclusion it is likely the first type is the second control symbol, the gamma in the left field. While this control has been used on other types, it is otherwise unknown at Arados and not seen in this configuration with the A below the throne at other mints such as Tarsos where both controls have appeared previously. The style is also different enough from Tarsos that it seems unlikely to belong there, and shares no die links at all with this mint. The A control symbol can then be thought to represent Arwad, or Arados. The gamma is then thought to represent Arados' king at the time, Gerashtart. There is precedence for this but in Phoenician, where pre-Alexander staters from Arados had a reverse legend reading mem-aleph and then a third letter thought to represent the ruler's name and possibly a number to represent the year of rule. The mem-aleph part has been translated to "King of Arwad" or "Kingdom of Arwad", and Gerashtart's pre-Alexander staters prefix this inscription with the Phoenician letter for G (gimel), becoming "King of Award, Gerashtart". The mem-aleph is Hellenised to simply "A" (later AP), and the gimel to gamma. Some contemporary Alexander types from Arados have even featured the mem aleph legend but without an accompanying letter signifying who the ruler may have been. If this theory is correct, this type from Arados would be the only evidence of King Gerashtart remaining in power after the city had submitted itself to Alexander. #3 Tarsos 333-327 BC Tarsos, Cilicia Obv: Head of Herakles right, wearing lion-skin headdress, paws tied before neck Rev: AΛEΞANΔPOY, Zeus Aëtophoros seated left, holding sceptre; in his right hand, eagle standing right; globule above the throne strut 28.19mm, 17.34g, 3h Price 2990; Newell, Tarsos 1 (O2 R1) Keeping with the theme of the previous two, this Alexander is also attributed as the first Alexander type to be struck at Tarsos, circa 333 BC. But it may even go further than that. The current consensus holds that Alexander did not start minting his tetradrachms in Macedonia, as first thought, rather he only started production upon his capture of Tarsos, near the end of 333 BC. There are various arguments for this that I won't fully cover here but some of them include: obvious iconographic similarities between the seated Zeus reverse and the earlier staters of Baal from Tarsos, the paucity of Macedonian Alexander types in early hoards, and the continued minting of Philip II tetradrachms following his death and Alexander's ascension. So if Tarsos is truly the first mint of Alexander's to strike his tetradrachms, this type be the very first Alexander tetradrachm ever produced. #2 Abydos 328-323 BC Abydos, Mysia Obv: Head of Herakles right, wearing lion-skin headdress, paws tied before neck Rev: AΛEΞANΔPOY; Zeus seated left on throne, holding eagle on his outstretched right hand and long scepter in his left; male figure standing left; Ξ below throne Price 1498; ADM II Series I, 5a (same dies) By this point you may be noticing a theme in my Top 5 Alexanders, and this one is no exception. It's thought to be the first tetradrachm type of Alexander to have been minted at Abydos, circa 326/5 BC. While Abydos is very well known for its Alexander drachms, with 61 total types across its 30-year mint history, Abydos only ever had five tetradrachm types, of which 3 are lifetime types. Only 3 examples of these lifetime types appear on acsearch (1 of this type, 2 of another type), so it's also a very difficult mint to get a lifetime tetradrachm from, let alone the first in the series. The Zeus on the reverse is also stylised like he is on the drachms from Abydos and Lampsakos, where Zeus has a three-quarter turned view facing outwards. This is quite a common style to be found on drachms from these mints at around this time but it is rarely found on tetradrachms: only the 3 types from Abydos, 2 types from Lampsakos, and possibly 1 type from Sardes. This is at a time when many other engravers at Alexander's mints were still struggling with accurate portrayals of perspective so it's cool to get a much larger version of this unique perspective of Zeus from the drachms. This is a type I certainly didn't expect to be able to pick up anytime soon due to their rarity, so that combined with the unique style means it finds its way to #2 on my list. #1 Amphipolis 333-326 BC Amphipolis, Macedon Obv: Head of Herakles right, wearing lion-skin headdress, paws tied before neck Rev: AΛEΞANΔPOY, Zeus Aëtophoros seated left, holding sceptre; in his right hand, eagle standing right; prow facing left in left field 27.93mm, 17.21g, 9h Price 4; Troxell A1 (Tetradrachm) Without a doubt, this is my #1 coin for the year. You may also think it's another "first type of its kind at X mint" but unfortunately, it's merely the second. That doesn't diminish how interesting a type and important a coin it is to me though. I can credit this coin for finally convincing myself to double-down on Alexander's and start a proper collection of his tetradrachms. The initial research I did for this coin is what led me to write my long article discussing the possible origins of Alexander's tetradrachms: https://artemis-collection.com/the-origins-of-alexanders-tetradrachm/ To briefly summarise how it links in to that discussion, it is believed to be the second tetradrachm type of Alexander's minted at Amphipolis due to the left-facing prow control symbol on the reverse. There are several early types with different control symbols that could all be candidates for "first" at Amphipolis as they all share their control symbols with posthumous tetradrachms minted in the name of Philip II, which were thought to have been produced between 336 and 328 BC. These symbols are: prow, rudder, stern, fulmen, and janiform heads, which never appear again on lifetime tetradrachms of Alexander at Amphipolis, strongly suggesting their manufacturer being concurrent or consecutive with the Philip II types. But what places the prow at the beginning is a subtle feature of the Herakles portrait, a double-row of locks that is found only on the Herakles of lifetime Philip II didrachms. The first tetradrachm from this mint is the type with the right-facing prow and double-row of locks, followed by my type with the left-facing prow. Looking beyond how it might fit into the picture of Alexander's coinage, I simply find this to be one of, if not the most, attractive coin in my collection and it's going to be hard for any coin to top that in the near future. Thanks for reading my Top 10 for this year. Let me know if you have any favourites!

I'm glad Vcoins finally addressed the issue that made it difficult to enlarge images while mobile browsing but the new tool does take some getting used to. It's actually the same one I use on my website for my "Ultra Zoom" images (also used by the British Museum and various auction websites). It's an open-source tool called OpenSeaDragon and a lot of the complaints mentioned so far can be addressed with slight changes to the code that implements the tool on the Vcoins website, such as allowing easier JPG image saving and not having the mouse scroll automatically scroll the image instead of the page. Though I believe if you click the magnifying glass in the bottom right corner it opens the original JPG image and from here you can right-click to save it.

There are definitely some mistakes, misattributions, and out-dated info in Price's work and a lot has been corrected by other authors in the subsequent years, though it's a bit of a pain to find since they're not all aggregated in one place. Often you have to find research on a specific type or mint to see if Price's attribution has been updated. Some authors who have issued corrections or alternative dates and attributions are: Hyla Troxell, Lloyd Taylor, Frederique Duyrat, Simon Glenn, Georges Le Rider, Christine Lorber, and more. It is definitely not clear that authorities decided to use uncrossed vs crossed legs as an indication of lifetime vs posthumous. While nearly all crossed leg examples are posthumous, not all uncrossed leg examples are lifetime. I forget the exact numbers but something like 25% of uncrossed leg types are posthumous. You would not expect such a large error if the intent was to use the leg position as a lifetime indicator. You'd also want to ask yourself: why should Zeus' leg position have anything to do with Alexander's death? As many researchers have shown, what we see instead is a transmission of crossed legs as a stylistic choice beginning in the Levant around 325 BC. In fact, we actually know exactly when it originated as it first appeared on dated issues of Sidon (325/4 BC) and then soon after on dated issues of Tyre (324/3 BC) but it didn't completely take over until about 320 BC. Susa, was also an outlier in that it continued minting uncrossed leg examples for some time after Alexander's death. In short, there's virtually no evidence to suggest uncrossed vs crossed legs is a purposeful indication of lifetime vs posthumous Alexander tetradrachms. Price's dates don't come from nowhere, no one is relying on his dating "simply because he has the most complete studies of specimens". If you read his work, you can see exactly how he determines the dates for each type. A lot is based on hoard evidence, and a lot is also based on the prior work of others (e.g. Newell), so oftentimes Price is not contributing anything new to the dating of the type, merely reaffirming what has been established in the past and is consistent with his own study of the coinage. He of course does contribute new insights too, and he'll usually say how he came to that conclusion - usually a mix of hoard evidence, die studies, stylistic evolution, and interpretation of control symbols. His date ranges can even be a bit too cautious, erring on the side of larger ranges that are almost certainly capturing the actual mint date versus shorter ranges which may be off by a year or two. He was of course studying thousands of different types across many denominations and mints and also didn't have all the data, examples, evidence, and methods we have today so he doesn't get everything right. That's when it's great to read newer studies on specific mints because they have the room to dive into the detail much more than Price ever could, Duyrat's work on the Arados mint being an obvious example. Duyrat even agrees with Price on much of the dating and ordering, which is impressive given Duyrat devotes 400-odd pages to one mint, something that Price covers in a dozen or so, most of which are just cataloguing the examples and the plates. By designed do you mean engraved or just the conception of the design? The designs are certainly from Alexander's lifetime. As you say, ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ is not necessarily an indicator of lifetime vs posthumous (as with uncrossed vs crossed legs) as there are known exceptions, but oftentimes it is not simply the royal title that researchers are relying on to date these coins. Hyla Troxell's work on the Macedonian mints of Alexander is the best resource for Price 123 specifically. She has it in Group J, type 5 (J5). Troxell notes the royal title first appears in Group G, which can be dated with hoard evidence to late 323 / early 322 BC. Again based on hoard evidence, this time from the famous Demanhur hoard dated to 319/8 BC, Troxell estimates groups J and K were struck concurrently only a short-time before the burial of this hoard due to the underrepresentation of these types in it. Subsequent hoards have a much higher percentage of Group J and K types, which indicates that they may have been mid-production when Demanhur was buried. But regardless of exactly when Group J was produced, it certainly wasn't earlier than 323 BC, when Group G was produced, so it's unlikely to be a lifetime example. Price's own dating of Price 123 to 320-317 BC holds up well in Troxell's work of 1997, it is very much consistent with the dates she proposes. For Price 2949, I'm not sure if there is any newer research that provides firmer dates for when exactly it was minted. Some of these types from Side have been difficult to date and there's quite a few "uncertain" types that are also thought to belong to Side but lack conclusive evidence. The best hoard evidence is from Demanhur, which indicates it at least predates 318 BC and we can be fairly confident it wouldn't predate 325 BC, given that's the earliest evidence for the royal title. Price offers 325-320 BC as the likely date range and that seems most probable. It would be great if more evidence comes to light on this mint but in the mean time I think you just have to live with the "possible lifetime" attribution for it. I didn't look into all of these but just want to point out not all are definitive lifetime, e.g. Price suggests 328-320 BC for Price 3332 but this does not mean it was minted over 8 years, only that it was minted at some point in those 8 years. Duyrat further refined this date range to 324-320 BC and given the substantial numbers this type produced, I think it likely at least some, if not many, examples of Price 3332 are posthumous.

Supposedly those are quotes for weight in grams, not hammer/invoice prices. So it seems reasonable that a 1kg package would cost as much as 50CHF for overseas but only 22CHF for within-Switzerland. The postage costs are similarly expensive in the Nordics where I am so it doesn't surprise me personally. Much better than CNG charging $40 for int'l but $12 for domestic for a single coin via USPS (i.e. not even courier).

I wouldn't say it's nasty, they do have an increment table like most other auction houses (e.g. min increment of 20 between 200 and 499 CHF). But you can bid any amount as long as it's above the minimum increment. So if a coin has a prebid of 320, you can bid 341 and if the other person had their max at 340 you would be winning at 341. The other person can't then bid 342, however, they have to bid at least 20 CHF more. What people tend to do to compensate is to bid a few francs more than the increment, knowing that people are used to bidding in incremental amounts. So don't place your max at 500 CHF, place it at 501 or 502 instead. As kirispupis mentions though, the prices can go quite high so don't be fooled by their super low "estimates" or even the low bid activity right up until the lot hammers. Typically it's the final 20 seconds when things start to kick off, particularly the fine 5 seconds.