Kaleun96

In a recent auction I picked up the following coin because it immediately stood out to me as an unusual specimen: the reverse was clearly a type from Alexander III's Damaksos mint yet the obverse was of a style only found at Amphipolis! Head of Herakles left, wearing lion-skin headdress, paws tied before neck. AΛEΞANΔPOY. Zeus enthroned left, eagle in right hand, scepter in left hand; ram in left field; four pellets below throne. Price 3210; Taylor 'Damaskos' 2.4.2 Such a finding is relatively rare for Alexander's tetradrachms, even though we know of several cases of die sharing between mints as well as engravers travelling between mints. The oft-cited example is a Sidonian engraver who was known to be at the founding of that mint, then travelled a short distance to Tyre to help setup their mint, then heading north to Tarsos, before finally ending up in Arados(1)! It has also been suggested that engravers and/or dies of AV staters from Arados were transferred to mints in Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and possibly even Macedonia (2). In each case, it's the obverse style that is key to identifying the relationship between mints. Two aspects that are particularly unique about this coin are: (a) the distances involved, and (b) the disparate style introduced at the new mint. Firstly, the previous example of engraver transfer between mints for tetradrachms involved relatively short distances with the engraver hopping about from city to city mainly on the Phoenician coast. The engraver of the AV staters at Arados that wound up in Macedonia does illustrate that sometimes greater distances were involved but this has yet to be seen when it comes to engravers of Alexandrine tetradrachms. Secondly, in the cases where engravers have popped up at new mints, the obverse style is typically not too far removed from the existing or competing style for that mint and there's evidence that the engraver stays for a period of time to create several dies and usually spanning multiple types. I've been unable to find any other evidence of this engraver at Damaskos, whether looking for more examples of this obverse die or other examples of obverse dies of this style paired with Damaskos reverse types. One possibility is that this obverse die was a one-off, perhaps never even intended to go into production given that we don't see this engraver's hand again at the mint. Though one would wonder why they would be transferred in the first place if only to produce a single die, unless they were transferred for an administrative position or similar. For those not familiar with the style of Herakles found at Amphipolis and Damaskos, I will briefly attempt to show how they differ. The best source for understanding the variation at Damaskos would be Lloyd Taylor's "The Damaskos Mint of Alexander the Great" (2017) die study as this contains plates of all known obverse dies at that time. The figure below should give a general indication of the styles you typically find at this mint, however. Even though there is a fair amount of variation within these examples, Damascene traits can be identified in all of them that make coins of this mint fairly easy to identify without even seeing the reverses. The treatment to the lion headdress in particular is somewhat unique, as well as the jutting face of Herakles with strong features. Compare those styles of Herakles with the following two coins: left is an example of Price 23 from the Amphipolis mint, an early lifetime tetradrachm; right is the obverse from my coin. An obvious difference can be immediately seen in the neck area of the lion headdress, with the parallel lines running horizontally in addition to the two diagonally lines running up to meet the jaw with a slight curve. The pointed lion's mane formed of thick leafy locks, and the short bottom jaw that rests next to Herakles' own well-defined jaw bone. The style of these early types from Amhpipolis are likewise unique across Alexander's mints and are readily identifiable; they're not likely to be confused with the obverses from other mints, let alone Damaskos. That being said, I wouldn't rush to claim that the obverse on the left was engraved by the same hand as that of the obverse on the right. It could be possible and there does seem to be individual engravers identifiable at Amphipolis at this time but it would be a stretch to claim without further evidence. It would be interesting if the obverse found on the Damaskos coin was also found to have been used first at Amphipolis but it seems unlikely they would have gone to the trouble given Damaskos doesn't appear to have been particularly short on engravers at this time (Taylor estimates as many as nine engravers). So that brings us back to the question of why: why would an engraver trained in the style of Amphipolis find his way to Damaskos and engrave a die there? We will probably never know but I'll be keeping my eye out for more examples of this die, or engraver, just in case. Lloyd Tayler. 2020. Sidon to Tyre: the Macedonian administration and relative chronology. Lloyd Taylor. 2020. On the Reattribution of some Byblos Alexanders to Arados II.

This is a bit off-topic but I hope you don't mind if I share this feedback here. I noted that at some point a few months ago you began processing your Vcoins/Ma-Shops photos a bit differently and these Domitian examples above illustrate this new processing quite well. The processing, or at least I assume that it is processing that is being done in editing software rather than in-camera, seems to soften the details and texture of the photo substantially. I think this is often done by changing editing options called "clarity" or "texture" or similar (at least in Lightroom). Personally, it makes it more difficult for me as a buyer to accurately assess the coin's details and surfaces as this "information" is degraded by the post-processing methods. When you post videos for your Vcoins/MA-Shops listings this isn't an issue as I can judge these qualities from the video alone but when there is no video, I'm apprehensive to purchase based on the photos alone due to the softness of the photo. While the editing that is now being done makes the coins "pop" really well in the small thumbnail images, when you open the full-sized image it's easy to see the softness introduced from the editing. This is just my own subjective opinion though and wanted to share here in case anyone else has thought the same or if I'm alone in my preferences! You may have good reasons for editing photos this way, or perhaps you're not even editing them yourself (or it's being done automatically by some app etc), but in any case it's been on my mind for awhile and wanted to mention it in case you find this feedback useful 🙂 I've found one of your older photos to compare the difference I've noticed. These aren't the same coin but I think illustrate the change quite well: Photo from one of your older sold listings: Photo from one of your newer listings:

Awhile ago I found a good article on the mechanisms of how sunlight (or visible light in general) affects the toning of silver coins: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/siteassets/home/learn/conservation/collections-advice--guidance/effects-of-light-on-silver-tarnishing.pdf In summary, it seems that exposure to visible light can "bleach" patinas formed of silver chloride (e.g. horn silver) so as to become white and dull, while for patinas comprised of silver sulfide the opposite happens. Silver sulfide provides a protective layer to silver coins, meaning as the toning develops the rate of toning slows down due to the protective effect of the silver sulfide layer. However, in the presence of visible light, the researchers found this protection was essentially lost and the coin would tone at rates comparable to those found on "clean" silver coins. I just gave the article another quick read-through to write that summary so I may have missed some important points or forgotten something else but it does seem to indicate that some silver coins can tone faster under visible light but it's not clear whether a clean silver coin will tone any faster. Since the mechanism appears to be through the passivating of the protective patina layer, the lack of patina would probably mean the coin is toning as fast as it can, whether it's in sunlight or not.

Love the Jupiter reverse, great style and well executed drapery.

The reason these all look the same to most of us on our different devices is because they horizontal resolution is the main limiting factor. The aspect ratio of the photos means they quickly max out the horizontal width of the page and prevent the photos from being too large vertically. It's the photos that are more of a square aspect ratio, or portrait style, that cause the biggest issues for some users as these photos can take up almost the entire vertical screen space of someone's device. There's probably a way to limit the max vertical resolution of all images posted here to prevent them from taking up much screen space and this would in turn resize the image to a smaller size by keeping the aspect ratio fixed.

Might bid in an FSR auction when his photos get better. No excuse to be using 400x200px images for your lot photos these days. I can only assume it's done to make coins look better than they are or hide their defects.

I ended up winning this Tarsos one but bid on most, or all, of the ones you listed here. As in your case, I found the prices of many to be far too high so decided to settle for this one, albeit at a somewhat high price too. Quite happy with it even though I already have this type with the same obverse die (should be Newell obv. die II, not III). It's rare to find these in such good condition so glad I was able to pick it up. I was also aiming for the Sidon tet for the same reason, as again I already have the type, but ended up as the underbidder.

Similarities in what sense? I assume the two cast fakes may be copied from genuine dies so if they're similar stylistically to the first example I don't think that's unusual. Though the first one is so deteriorated it's difficult to say whether it's stylistically normal or not. The two cast ones also seem to have the same flan shape and centering, as you would expect of a cast, while the first one is different, indicating it's not of the same mold at the very least. I only focus on this because the first one is the only one with convincing surfaces, the other two are clearly cast. Even if their surfaces were treated with some acid afterwards to imitate corrosion, I don't think they would fool any of us so they're less of a concern. If the first one is actually a forgery, however, it would be much more worrying.

I don't think the first coin is of the same die as the other two, is there anything else that makes you think it's fake? For the other two, I suspect the corrosion is actually just copied over as part of the mould and casting process. I don't think the coin has been corroded after casting. That would differentiate these two from the first, which certainly has been corroded in some form.

Going back to NSK's original point, it seems the issue is not whether provenance is of interest or value but two separate issues: Whether a given coin is interesting numismatically Whether a given collector has a numismatic interest in the coins they collect What then follows from this is the assumption that people interested in provenance aren't collecting numismatically interesting coins and aren't interested in coins they collect numismatically. As others have already pointed out earlier, being interested in provenance is not mutually exclusive to the coin being interesting or the collector being interested in the coin for numismatic reasons. So I think the viewpoint at the heart of this thread ("provenance is nothing of value") is really just an excuse to provide NSK with another opportunity for expressing his views on these two other points, which many of us are already well-acquainted with. This thread is then merely an opportunity for him to more easily sort each of us into one of his categories of "collector" or "owner", because if you're interested in provenance it can only be because the coin is boring or because you have no numismatic interest in it. In NSK's mind, provenance is meaningless and valueless to a "true collector". It's just a form of gatekeeping, I wouldn't put too much thought into arguing the point with him.

As it has that for the past hearings as well, does that mean there was likely nothing of substance submitted to the court in any of those? Or is it more that at this stage if anything happened like a plea deal, motion of some kind, or trial date was set we'd know about it? Not sure how these things normally go but was the affidavit from Brent Easter something that was likely submitted during the first hearing/arraignment? If so, would we expect other documents to have been submitted yesterday even if it shows that the case was ultimately adjourned?

Next appearance June 26th. Wonder if we'll hear much about what happened during the hearing yesterday.

A human does but not necessarily the same human who is giving the prompt. Parts of the reinforcement learning process are probably outsourced to people whose sole job it is to assess the output of such models. The difference is that you can have a handful of people improve the model so it is more accurate for the millions of people that use it. The actual end-user who needs the answer and does not know it will need to trust that ChatGPT is giving them the correct answer but eventually these models will get to a point where they have a high degree of accuracy. Then the ratio between those adding to the reinforcement learning loop and those getting accurate answers without needing to do any follow-up research will grow smaller and smaller at a fairly rapid rate. Of course you still have the same issues with labelling by humans (i.e. many types of biases) but that's another story.

A fellow collector alerted me to this very interesting example in their collection: https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=2766&lot=60 It appears to be an example from Arados, which would make it the only example with a left-facing Herakles I've seen that is not attributable to either Pella or Cyrene. The clues that suggest it is likely from Arados are several-fold: the AP monogram below the throne, the style of the Herakles portrait, and the style of the Zeus reverse with the crown. Zeus with the crown portrayed in this fashion can be found at a few mints in Asia Minor and the Levant at around this time (e.g. Tarsos) but in combination with the other similarities it points towards Arados as being the most likely origin. Additionally, it seems to be closest to the earliest types of this mint, namely Price 3303-3305 (Duyrat Group I to Group III Series 2). If this is the case, then it would also make this left-facing example likely to be the earliest minted as the types from Pella and Cyrene are much more likely to be posthumous. The dating of Price 3303-3305 is still finnicky but I think a date between 330-326 BC is most likely. Will add it as an addendum to my article at some point so all the information is in one place.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! On the one hand it's nice that not everything is known about Alexander's coinage and there's still room to discover something new or re-interpret a previous finding but as you know things quickly spiral once you start having to rely on the attribution of other types being correct. Then once you start looking into those types, you realise they're on similarly shaky ground and have to go through the process again of trying to substantiate that attribution to support another attribution. Or even when someone else has updated that attribution (relative to Price), you have to remember who it was and in which article they published it - as well as whether they're likely correct. I find it quite tough to recall all the post-Price findings from Troxell, Le Rider, Houghton, Lorber, Taylor etc - and they only have written on a fraction of the types that likely needed some modification to the attribution or dating. A shame Price isn't around to publish a 2nd edition of his work. Though it would probably be better to use ANS's PELLA database as a "living" version of his work and have some system (e.g. editors) for approving modifications.

I've just finished another mammoth article for my website, this time focussing on the rare Alexander-type left-facing Herakles tetradrachms. I was very lucky to pick up one of these recently from a Roma auction, I honestly would never have thought I'd be able to get one of these in the next few years. That spurred me to dig into these rare types and learn a bit more about why they were minted, where they were minted, and when. In total, I discovered 63 other examples of this type - still rare but not as rare as one might think. Not a whole lot is really known about them but my article goes into about every detail that I can find. It's quite lengthy, too lengthy to post here, so if you're interested please check it out on my site: https://artemis-collection.com/alexander-left-facing-herakles-tetradrachms/ A desktop/laptop/tablet is recommended since the tables will be difficult to read on mobile.

I noticed that too but managed to find the original listing and it was listed as being a 19th century copy. I'd link to it but you actually need to register and apply for a 1-week free subscription to access their lot archives even though the auction was last week 🙃

Did some expert come out and say it's likely authentic or is the assumption it's authentic based only on two bidders willing to pay so much for it?

As a side-note, I've been looking into these types a lot over the past few months (I even catalogued your example here as I think you posted it on CoinTalk previously) and there are a lot of unknowns and issues with the current attributions and dates. There's yet to be a die study or even a comprehensive overview of all the types. Nicolet-Pierre comes close but misses a bunch, Price only focusses on those in the Iraq 1973 hoard, Iossif & Lorber only focus on their Commerce 2003 hoard, and Mitchiner misses a tonne as well and mostly just plates them. I know Iossif & Lorber have cast doubt on Price's dating from "Mnemata", mainly due to concerns that the hoard he studied was not intact and may have been compromised by additions of other coins that weren't found with the hoard. I haven't yet decided fully on where I would date these myself, there's not a lot of evidence to firm up the dates besides the other coinage minted at Babylon and the dates for those coins are still being changed or debated all the time. My best guess at the moment would be a date somewhere between 324-317 BC. Partly because the crossed legs of Baal on the obverse would point to a post-326 BC date if we are to assume the Zeus of the Alexander tetradrachms followed, or led, the Balakros staters from Tarsos in crossing of Baal's legs on those types. It is unlikely this characteristic originated in Babylon given the best evidence we have suggests that Babylon didn't start minting Alexandrine tetradrachms until about the first cross-legged types started appearing in the Levant. When crossed-legged Zeus did appear at Babylon, it wasn't until Babylon Group III near the beginning of Philip III's regency. The other bit of evidence I would point to is the following type, Nicolet-Pierre 8, which has the same gamma-reverse but with different control symbols on the obverse. This type surely followed Nicolet-Pierre 7 (your type) and the interesting thing about N-P 8 is that nearly all of the obverse control symbols parallel those found on Babylon Group II to Group IV tetradrachms. Group II is currently dated to 325-323 BC but there are some who would downdate it further to starting in 323 BC or so. The following type, Nicolet-Pierre 9, also parallels some of the controls found on Group III tetradrachms struck under Philip III between 323-317 BC. So based on that, and the types that need to fit in the sequence before this gamma-type, I would err on the side of it being a late-lifetime early-posthumous type.

You should have another go with the Takumar and maybe take multiple photos to ensure you get the coin in focus properly in one of them. Until then I wouldn't draw too many conclusions between the lenses as pre-digital lenses can be amazing, and even out-perform digital-era lenses, but you do need to test them in more controlled conditions to make sure the comparisons are equal. For example, old "enlarger lenses" from the 70s and 80s are very popular with macro photographers because while they're often cheap and easy to find secondhand, the image quality from them can also be stellar. Robert from closeuphotography.com probably does the best lens tests on the internet when it comes to "alternative" lenses such as enlarger or scanning lenses. Did you shoot the Canon at the same focal length? I note that the camera settings for exposure are a bit different between the two, f/16 and 1/250s for the Takumar but f/18 and 1/3s for the Canon. It seems like the Canon was shot with much less light and the extra stop probably doesn't account for that. For a comparison, I shot the below coin 4 years ago on a Sony A6000 with a Rodenstock Apo Componon HM 6.7/60 that I bought for $100 or so on eBay. If I recall correctly, it's not an enlarger lens but a line-scanning lens, and probably manufactured in the 90s or early 2000s. The image is focus stacked. I have a bunch of these kinds of lenses lying around but I never use them anymore even though they could match up to my dedicated macro lens in some circumstances.

I think there's quite a difference in the quality between the two photos, so while you might be asking more about the aesthetic preference, I would choose the bottom photo first and foremost because it's a much higher quality image. For instance, the top photo isn't sharp anywhere on the coin as far as I can see. I also get the impression that the depth of field is smaller as the edges are very out of focus, compared to only slightly out of focus in the bottom image. The top photo also has a lot of chromatic aberrations, which is causing the purple fringing you can see quite noticeably around parts of the portrait (and some green fringing on the edges). In terms of the aesthetics, I think the warm light used in the top photo is quite distracting as you can see it reflect off of different parts of the portrait. For example, the highlights around the hair are very yellow while the highlights on the front of the face like the nose and chin are white. You can still see the yellow in the bottom image but it's less noticeable. Because the bottom image is much sharper and in-focus, the surfaces seem quite harsh compared to the top photo. This might be a combination of the angle of the light you're using as well as how strong the light is. You might find diffusing the light with some baking paper or even a thin white piece of material (e.g. an old sheet, some paper towels, etc) may help reduce the harshness of the surfaces and better hide the tiny hairline scratches which are currently capturing bright specular reflections and drawing the eye's attention to them. So my preference is to stick with the method you used for the bottom photo but play around a bit more with the light to see if you can soften it a touch. You may find that you need two lights: one to provide the main illumination, the second to produce some light shadows or illuminate a specific area of the coin better.

I think this is sufficiently closely related to "die sharing", though perhaps less formal than in the case you mention. It's known that some engravers of Alexandrine tetradrachms either travelled to other mints to engrave dies or sent their dies to other mints for use. There's two examples of this between Sidon and Tyre from some of the very first Alexander tetradrachms ever struck, circa 333/2 BC. For this first tetradrachm from Sidon, the engraver of this obverse die (Newell 'Sidon' obv. die I) also engraved a second obverse die (not known to Newell) that was then used at Tyre to strike the first Alexandrine tetradrachm type at that mint. At the same time, it appears this obverse die (Newell 'Ake' obv die II) was also transferred from Sidon to Tyre, along with its engraver, to strike coins of the first type at Tyre. This obverse die was only used for a brief period in Sidon before travelling with its engraver to Tyre, where the engraver then produced a further four obverse dies. Following this, it appears the engraver moved to Tarsos and then finally Arados, according to a paper by Lloyd Taylor on the Sidon and Tyre mints.

I just picked up that book the other week as well, though still waiting on delivery. Did you find any other particularly useful books from the others you read, or was that one the best of the bunch? I find the unpublished PhD dissertations the most annoying to track down. While I'm at it, you wouldn't happen to have a copy of Nancy Moore's "The Lifetime and Early Posthumous Coinage of Alexander the Great from Pella" thesis or know where I can find one, would you? Looking forward to reading your next instalment on the topic!

Love seeing some Alexanders! I really must get one of those oinochoe types some day, there are some great dies from that series. So far I've been deprioritising these later lifetime types but eventually I'll get around to buying more of them. In the meantime, here's one I do own, which is easily the largest of all my Alexander tetradrachms, next to my smallest Alexander tetradrachm. They're also representing the biggest difference in minting date too, the small one from 332 BC and the large one from approximately 200-190 BC.

Aaron and Mike of HJB discuss the events in their latest podcast episode: