Severus Alexander

3 hours ago, Octavius said:

Looks like a DIVVS AVGVSTVS  As to me.

Yup, like this (not my coin):

38 minutes ago, O-Towner said:

A coin of Pulcheria with an equivalent legend would be AE PVLCHERIA AVG which has 14 letters and for this an even legend break would be after the H, which is what you see on my coin.

Yes, that could be an H... I was seeing it as an E, especially on the CNG coin. Interestingly, that letter on the CNG coin closely resembles what should be a P on yours. Such magnificent engraving! 😆

In any case, the betting surely has to be very strongly in favour of Pulcheria at this point. 👍

Hey @O-Towner, I happened upon a coin that might shed some light on your cool Pulcheria/Eudocia/Eudoxia conundrum coin, as discussed above:

On 5/24/2023 at 9:30 PM, Severus Alexander said:

I lean towards Eudocia based on the portrait style... at least it matches her portraits better on acsearch results: Pulcheria (ignore the crappy fake from Emporium Shamburg) and Eudocia.  For the latter, here's a CNG example from 2005:

Here's the coin:

(Acsearch link to the listing.)  As you can see, the legend is a close match to your coin, without being a die match.  (Your coin again, for those following along:

CNG attributes theirs to Eudoxia, but I don't think that's right.  Eudoxia's coins very consistently have a clear AEL EVDO to the left of the bust, and it's awfully difficult to find that in either theirs or yours.  On their coin, the somewhat ambiguous letter before the V looks rather like a P, whereas yours seems more E-ish. (I wonder if removing some of the dirt there might help.) In any case, I'm now inclined to read your coin as "AL PVLCERIA" on the basis of the CNG coin, for which this legend seems the only decent fit.  Of course that means an abbreviation or misspelling of Pulcheria's name – missing the "E" in AEL and the "H" in Pulcheria – but that's not too unexpected on these junky 5th century products!  And RIC notes that the DOC example for Eudocia begins "AL", so we have at least one example of that mistake/abbreviation.

BTW, do you think there's a star in the reverse left field?

I'm glad seeing this CNG coin twigged my memory and I hope these reflections are helpful!  I'd love to land a Pulcheria, as she's one of the only historically important personalities I'm missing from my entire Roman-Byzantine collection. Jealous, I am! 😁

Just a friendly reminder that the focus of the thread is portraits... so, for example, when posting multiple coins for a particular personality, it would be good to comment on which portrait you like best, and why. Or perhaps discuss how the portraiture varied over time, or from mint to mint.

I have only one coin of Tiberius II, maybe because it was hard to improve upon!

I do like the portrait, which is pretty typical style-wise for Constantinople.

@Valentinian notes above that by year 7 – only 2 years after the huge 37-38mm folles – the size had dropped quite a bit. My coin bears this out, at 31mm (and 12.2g).

My notes on the date of issue (year 7, 580/81):

In 580, the Roman Senate sent an embassy to Constantinople with a gift (3,000 pounds of gold) to emperor, along with a plea for help against the Lombards.  At the same time, the Avars invaded the lower Danube laying siege to Sirmium, and in 581 the Göktürks laid siege to Cherson (and raided in the area).  (The Göktürks, who overthrew the Avars north of China, were responsible for their move west.)  Meanwhile, a Byzantine army under command of Maurice with support of Arab Ghassanid forces under king Al-Mundhir III failed to capture the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, along the Euphrates. Maurice accused Mundhir III of treason and brought him to Constantinople to face trial; in response, Al-Nu'man VI, son of Mundhir III, led a revolt against the Byzantines.

5 hours ago, Al Kowsky said:

I lived in Santa Barbara, CA in the early 70s & the fires seemed endless 😬. The ash falling on cars would ruin their paint if it wasn't cleaned off quickly 😖.

In case anyone is interested in comparing the extent of California wildfires in the 70’s to now, here’s an interesting map: https://projects.capradio.org/california-fire-history/#6/38.21/-119.709

(See also: https://climate.nasa.gov/explore/ask-nasa-climate/2830/six-trends-to-know-about-fire-season-in-the-western-us/ . Here in BC we’re hoping the oil companies get sued sooner rather than later!)

This sestertius was issued around the time of the great fire of Rome:

For portraits of Justin II alone, I have two fairly scarce coins from Carthage, a decanummium and a half siliqua:

He looks very forlorn in the first, and like Mick Jagger in the second. 😄 I like both portraits!

With Sophia (I love the bug-people thing, hadn't heard that before, @Simon!) I have this follis from Nicomedia, which I chose because they both have faces:

I'm jealous of all the lovely gold up there, and of @robinjojo's Antioch portrait!

I figured we’d see a delightful array of Justinians, and I wasn’t wrong!

Not surprisingly, a lot of favourite portraits were on the biggest coins.  In my case, I think my favourite may be on this Antioch decanummium, though:

It seems to me that the Antioch mint often shows some of the best artistry, as we can see on @Simon's lovely pre-reform (profile) follis, and @robinjojo's amazing late follis (year 38... I don't have my Sear with me right now, is that the last year of issue?)

I was glad to see the enthroned portraits from @Valentinian and @robinjojo (only at Antioch, as Valentinian notes). I only have this somewhat rough half:

Lots of fabulous (and huge!) early post-reform folles above, almost exclusively from Constantinople and Nicomedia (with the only exception being the year 13 Antioch from @robinjojo). I love all of those, @Al Kowsky, @Nerosmyfavorite68, @Octavius, @sand, and @Pellinore! I can contribute two:

^ I believe we only saw one first-issue (year 12) above, a Nicomedia, so this coin adds Constantinople.

^ I was surprised at the lack of Cyzicus above. This coin is a challenger for my favourite portrait, and probably displaces the Antioch decanummium on a good day!

Later in the reign the output at Cyzicus declined dramatically. This decanummium is one of my favourite portraits for being so bad:

(As we move on, you'll see I have a special fondness for the low-artistry portraits at Cyzicus and Nicomedia!)

Good to see a Rome issue, from @robinjojo. Doesn't anyone have the full follis? (Here's my half:

)

My favourite profile portrait is on this pentanummium:

Although this Carthage is a strong challenger (so cute!):

I also have a pretty decent Constantinople pre-reform profile follis:

^ note the star-on-shoulder again... I do love these!

I have one portrait in silver that I like. It may be an official Ravenna issue (half siliqua) or perhaps a Lombard imitation:

Some final comments: @mc9 - Yes, what a nose! (not to mention the hands-free microphone! die break? overstrike?)

@Broucheion: I'm loving your sequence of Alexandria coins! That's a mint I need to do a better job of.

@Nerosmyfavorite68: Amazing that you have a full follis from Ravenna! That mid-reign Antioch is great too.

I see I've crossed the 3pm line while writing this post.  I'd better stop writing and click submit!

57 minutes ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

Uh oh. My bad. I will delete the offending post.

No worries. I didn’t know we could delete posts now, cool! I’ll delete the bad cop Constantinopolis, since she’s no longer needed. 😁

Back when Byzantine coins were harder to come by, I found it quite difficult to find a decent portrait of Justin I in AE.  This is what I came up with:

It has the same star-on-shoulder detail as one of my Anastasius coins above.

Since then I also picked up this neat Cherson coin, a pentanummium (only 13mm):

I can't really pick between the above two portraits.

The short joint reign period with Justinian in 527 is also included in this slot.  This is the only one I have, another pentanummium:

... which I also like for its portrayal of Tyche on the reverse, a quasi-departure from the usual Christian types.

2 hours ago, Simon said:

Superb example @Hrefn, I just deleted my examples because this portrait made mine look silly. Fantastic example. 

Noooo! Don't do that, @Simon!! 😭

As others have suggested, I urge you to contact them indicating that their terms do not mention such a fee for invoices below 1000 eur.  I'm sure they'll remove the charge.  If they don't, then contact biddr with a complaint against the firm for violating their own stated terms. If they still refuse to remove the charge, then I would refuse to pay the invoice & repeat the complaint to biddr. They should be barred from using the service if they violate their own stated terms.  (I very much doubt things will get that far, though!)

While you're at it, maybe ask for a cheaper shipping option than FedEx... surely 35 eur is too much to pay for shipping a 50 eur coin!

Let us know how you fare.

Well, I'd certainly say the thread started off with a bang! Luscious gold from no fewer than six different contributors, including several stellar portraits, plus Ostrogothic silver (which I stupidly didn't see coming, not having thought outside the box), some exceptional AEs from several different modules (with @Valentinian's Nikomedia being particularly amazing)... plus a hilarious die break!  Not to mention some serious research from @Rand. Fabulous!!

Probably my best Anastasius coin & portrait for its type is this tiny nummus:

But I also like this fairly refined style 1st reform portrait:

As well as this very square style 2nd reform portrait, from the very end of his life:

I happen to like the star-on-shoulder variety shown by @Ancient Coin Hunter and have a small subset for Anastasius, Justin, and Justinian. Here's the Anastasius:

Finally, while having failed to think of it until other posters reminded me, I do in fact have an Ostrogothic portrait of Anastasius, on this quarter siliqua from the Milan mint, time of Theoderic:

Looking forward to everyone's Justins tomorrow (June 3rd) at 3pm Eastern!

That sack really was a death blow, wasn't it!

It's difficult to know which imitations are Vandal without the benefit of a findspot, but here's a little sequence I've put together leading from an official Valentinian II Vota coin through a number of imitations, culminating in a type that is (I believe) securely placed in Vandal Africa based on findspot info.  These are all my coins except for the bottom one:

I like the flip to retrograde in the middle of this sequence, eventually leading to the carefully produced type at the bottom which – without the sequence – one would think must have some kind of meaning. Nope!

I hope we get to see some more imitations often attributed to the Vandals...

2 hours ago, ominus1 said:

..welp i just retook this pic of Justin ll and Sophia...plus i have two more Byzantine coins to show ^^

Aha! Excellent! The first rule breaker!! 👮‍♂️🚓🚨

If you check the schedule, @ominus1, you'll see that Justin II and Sophia aren't to be posted until Wed. June 7th (starting at 3pm Eastern time)!  Tsk, tsk!!

(That is one ticked off looking Constantinopolis, no? I'm dearly hoping that @DonnaML is OK with me using the reverse of her awesome Theodosius siliqua for this purpose... pretty please, Donna? I gotta have some fun, right?!?)

(Thanks, @ominus1 buddy, I really wanted to post this... 😄)

7 hours ago, Al Kowsky said:

S.A., The coinage of Heraclius as emperor spans 31 years (610-641), & his position as exarch with his father is only 2 years, 608-610. The coins as exarch are extremely rare & I doubt many Forum members has an examples of this type. On the other hand, as emperor his coin are plentiful & there are three major types: Heraclius depicted alone, Heraclius with Heraclius Constantine, & Heraclius with Heraclius Constantine & Heraclonas. Wouldn't it make more sense to spend two days with each of the major 3 types instead of lumping them all together for only 2 days, & keep the exarch coins as a separate type 🤔?

Sorry, Al, by the time I saw this I had already made the new images of the schedule! 🥺 Not sure I would have made the suggested change, anyway... I don't think it makes sense to effectively devote a whole 48h slot to, say, Heraclonas. (Note that the focus of the thread is portraits, not types.)

That said, you're surely right that we'll see quite a few coins in the Heraclius slot! 😄 

Following on @CPK's epic Roman portrait thread, I hereby announce its epic Byzantine successor!

The rules are simple. Sticking to the schedule below, post your best/favourite/most interesting/funniest/weirdest portraits of each Byzantine personality listed for each date. The start time on each date is:

12 noon Pacific Daylight Time = 3pm Eastern Daylight Time = 8pm British Summer Time = 9pm Central European Summer Time

If you have multiple interesting portraits for a particular person, great! Post 'em all, preferably with a comment explaining why you think each portrait deserves to be in the thread. (Sometimes that will be: it's my only one!) That said, try not to be indiscriminate. We know you love each and every one of your coins, but the focus of the thread is portraits (not types or denominations, for example).

Exception: for rare personalities, sometimes it's an achievement just to get a coin with their name on it (e.g. Artavasdus). If that's the way you've checked the person off your list, please go ahead and post that coin.

Here's the schedule, in two parts:

A couple details to note about the schedule:

A complication arises with co-emperors. When we get to Basil II, for example, do we start posting him with Nic II Phocas, with whom he was co-(but junior)-emperor? Or do we wait until he’s senior emperor? In the schedule above I’ve gone with the following approach: on coins issued under Nic II it’s OK to post Basil II coins with him as junior emperor, but not Basil II coins from his reign as senior emperor. (Please do your due diligence on this, but don't worry overmuch if you make a mistake... one of our Byzantine experts will be happy to fix your chronology!)

There was also the question of how to handle the period of the anonymous folles in the 11th century, where several portraits are only available in gold, and so outside the scope of many collections. My solution here was to glom them together into two large groups first, excluding the anonymous folles, and then to have a slot devoted entirely to the anonymous folles, on August 8th.

Prizes:

To encourage participation I'm offering some prize coins, to be awarded by a draw. You get a ballot for each distinct listed personality you post a portrait of, with a maximum of 30 ballots per person. (There are around 150 personalities in the list.) Some coins will give you multiple ballots, if they portray multiple people. On the other hand, posting 5 coins of the same person only gets you 1 ballot. No ballots will be awarded for names only, a portrait is required (even for the super rare ones). Note that you'll only get a ballot if your post follows the rules... so if you post the new emperor before the 3pm switch, you won't get a ballot for that one! You've been forewarned. 😁

The first two draws will be from all the ballots. The third draw will include only those participants who accumulated fewer than 10 ballots. (That gives novice collectors more of a chance to win something.) Only Numisforums members with at least 50 posts outside this thread (as of Sep. 15) will qualify for the draw.

Note for our more expert collectors: you may assign your prize to another member, e.g. a novice, or you can ask me to re-draw from the fewer-than-ten pool of ballots... so please don't hesitate to post! You won't be sapping someone else's opportunity.

There will be three draws, for first choice, second choice, and third choice.  Each of the three prize coins has a portrait worth wanting. Here they are in chronological order.

First, a Constantinople year 5 follis of Maurice Tiberius, with a rather nice style portrait:

Also this rather silly looking Heraclius portrait on a year 2 follis from Cyzicus. I call this style "goggles Heraclius":

Finally, and perhaps most exciting, is this silver basilikon of Andronicus II with Michael IX. While it's partly flat struck, it has a very nice full-length portrait of Andronicus:

There you have it! I hope you enjoy the thread. Very shortly, at 3pm today (June 1st), the first 48-hour window will open and you can start posting your favourite Anastasius portraits!  At 3pm Eastern on Saturday we'll switch to Justin I, including coins showing Justin & Justinian as joint emperors. And so on...

15 minutes ago, Valentinian said:

If this is the thread itself, good. However, if you are intending to start a new thread for the images, please include a copy of the timetable at the beginning so posters can easily know to post. I mean, reproduce the "DRAFT" timetable in the first post of the new thread.  

It will indeed be a new thread, and I will most certainly include the official schedule in post #1, don’t worry. 🙃 I’ll remove the “draft” text overlay though, of course. (The reason I did it this way: when we posted the draft schedule in the Roman thread, it wasn’t marked as “draft.” There were some changes, and at least one person ended up confusing the draft schedule with the final schedule. I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen this time!)

I look forward to your contributions, @Valentinian!

55 minutes ago, Simon said:

So it starts tomorrow at 3pm?

You bet! I’ll be sure to get the thread-starting post up before then. Everyone seems satisfied with the draft schedule as is (yay!), I’ll give it a proofread and then we’re good to go.

Start your Byzantine engines! (Much better than steampunk!)

@O-Towner beat me to it!  Here's another example (not my coin):

Very neat item, and rather scarce!

My best Zeno (Nicomedia):

And I can add a Basiliscus, a gold semissis:

Here's a very sad looking portrait of Maurice:

I'm especially fond of Cyzicus and Nikomedia portraits from the Maurice to Heraclius period... lots of amusing ones!

2 hours ago, sand said:

It looks like fun. If I understand your chart correctly, the anonymous folles will be posted from August 8, 2023 at 3 pm Eastern Daylight Time through August 10, 2023 at 2:59 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct, @sand. I look forward to seeing yours. 🙂 

Speaking of anonymous folles, that's a beautiful Class B, @Alexios!

1 hour ago, Hrefn said:

Can we post more than one portrait per emperor?  Is wretched excess allowed?  Let the games begin!

With your excellent collection, @Hrefn, I would certainly expect to see you often post more than one portrait per emperor.  Especially with my broadening of scope vis-a-vis the Roman thread – to include "interesting" portraits for various reasons – there's plenty of opportunity for multiples.  That said, I will likely continue my bad cop role in discouraging what you delightfully call "wretched excess." 👮‍♂️😉

1 hour ago, ewomack said:

Was this something that was running previously?

In the Roman subforum, yes - nearly 1700 replies at this point!  It's not too late to post some of your favourites as a sort of catch-up. (BTW, I love that Leo V portrait!)

Oh, one other thing... I've gone with the Latin spelling in Sear (e.g. Ducas), but would be more than happy to switch it to Greek (e.g. Doukas).

John III Doukas Vatatzes of Nicaea (1222-1254):

Good news! We’ll be continuing @CPK’s magnificent portrait thread here in the Byzantine subforum, with yours truly taking over as thread Caesar. I hope all you Byzantine fans will join in! To encourage participation I’ll be offering a prize or prizes of some sort, tba, available only to regular contributors.

A posting schedule consisting of 2-day slots devoted to each set of portraits worked very well, as did the switch time of 3pm Eastern, so we’ll continue with those traditions here unless there’s a chorus of objections. The purpose of the current post is to solicit feedback on my proposed schedule, but first let me give you a feel for how the thread will work.

The focus in the Roman subforum was on your favourite portrait of each personality in your collection. Typically this was your highest grade, most artistic portrait in your opinion. Given the nature of Byzantine portraiture I’m going to expand that a bit. Besides your “best” portrait in that sense, I’ll ask people to include portraits that are intriguing for other reasons, e.g. amusing portraits (really bad ones, silly overstrikes etc.), or having special features (unusual crowns, scowls, or whatever).

Some personalities are very difficult to obtain portraits of, e.g. Artavasdus. In these cases you’ll be invited to post a coin of theirs even if they’re not portrayed on it. Similarly for obscure members of the emperor’s family, as listed in the schedule. Even if a portrait is readily available, you might consider that personality to be “checked off” your list if you have a coin with their name on it. By all means, post that coin-o, but the thread emphasis will be portraiture.

I’m going to create the new thread this Thursday. This isn’t it! As I said, the purpose of this thread is to seek your feedback on the proposed schedule. Speak now or forever hold your peace!

(That said, feel free to give us a juicy sneak peek at one of your favourite Byzantine portraits here.)

Re: the schedule, here are couple of areas I’d particularly like feedback on:

One complication arises with co-emperors. When we get to Basil II, for example, do we start posting him with Nic II Phocas, with whom he was co-(but junior)-emperor? Or do we wait until he’s senior emperor? In the schedule below I’ve gone with the following approach: on coins issued under Nic II it’s OK to post Basil II coins with him as junior emperor, but not Basil II coins from his reign as senior emperor. This makes the most practical sense, it seems to me, as the junior Basil II coins will always feature a portrait of Nic II too (off the top of my head). More generally, it’s usually a two birds with one stone kinda situation. Right? Mistakes will inevitably happen, of course, with some coins being posted too early or too late. Think of these occasions as teaching/learning opportunities! We can all get a better understanding of the chronology of our collections.

There’s also the question of how to handle the period of the anonymous folles in the 11th century, where several portraits are only available in gold, and so outside the scope of many collections. My solution here is to glom them together into two large groups first, excluding the anonymous folles, and then to have a slot devoted entirely to the anonymous folles. Let me know what you think of that strategy. (If you’re unclear on what I mean just look at the schedule below and you’ll see what I’m talking about).

I didn’t do much of a proofread, so please point out typos and other clerical errors, as well as any missing personalities you notice. I followed Sear’s Byzantine Coins and their Values to compile the list.

As the switch to Anastasius and the Byzantine sub-forum is rapidly approaching, and I believe I'm taking over from @CPK with thread Caesar duties, I figured I'd better put a schedule together.  Here's a draft, comments and corrections are most welcome!!  Absent comments, this is what you'll be stuck with. 😄 (I guess I should probably solicit comments from the Byzantine subforum too, since new people will probably be joining the fun.  Tomorrow I'll try to remember to do that.)

I like the suggestion that we also continue with the migration period/successor kingdoms in the medieval forum, though I assume it wouldn't have so much of a focus on portraits.  Anyone want to volunteer for thread Caesar duties for that? @O-Towner? @John Conduitt? @ValiantKnight?

Byzantine draft schedule, part 1:

Part 2: