idesofmarch01

8 minutes ago, Prieure de Sion said:

I think I'll change my mind. I've just discovered a new favourite in the shop novelties.

Now I'm just waiting for a lottery win in the high millions - then I'll strike! But only then... 😂

 

 

 

https://www.ma-shops.de/cdma/item.php?id=1066739

 

 

Asking price of around $220K.  

The seller is surprisingly candid about the fact that this coin sold less than a year ago at a Nomos auction for approximately $110K including buyer's premium.  Pretty healthy markup...

My example of this type was attributed to Thrace when I acquired it in the Roma II auction in 2011:

DOMITIAN  69 - 81 AD. 
AE Sestertius (26.88 g.) Thrace 80-81 AD  RIC 509 Titus
CAES DIVI AVG VESP F DOMITIANVS COS VII, laureate head right / S C across field, Mars walking right, holding spear in right hand, trophy over left shoulder

RIC classifies these types as "Eastern Mint -- Thrace (?)" 

10 hours ago, DonnaML said:

The final section for tonight: Roman Republican coins nos. 45-64.  This might be my favorite period of all of them, covering approximately 20 years beginning ca. 81 BCE.  So much of interest (as discussed in all my write-ups), including, of course, lots of animals and other creatures!  Another pdf attached, now with all 3 pages. (I don't know how to attach only the last page of it.) 

Table of Roman Republican coin photos (1).pdf 3.29 MB · 4 downloads

I can see why this would be your favorite period!  That's quite a flashy collection of reverses -- I never would have suspected so many cool reverses existed!

This will seem heretical, but... I don't think patinas add any appeal or value to ancient silver and bronze coins.  Although I don't dislike patinas, neither do I really like them and I never understand why collectors value patinas as part of coins.

A little more elucidation: when an ancient silver or bronze coin was in circulation, it wouldn't have developed a patina (other than a mild one similar to what older collectors here remember on U.S. copper pennies and silver dimes and half dollars).  A "mint state" ancient coin would have had clean surfaces and luster.  After it ceased circulating the coin would have developed a patina from oxidation (oxygen) and chemical reaction with sulfur in the air.  So what?  This patina actually obscures the original mint beauty of the coin (although in the case of bronze coins it is true that the greenish copper sulfate patina eventually protects the surface of the coin).

Patinas just leave me cold.

1 hour ago, Qcumbor said:

Pardon me the clickbait !

Since I wasn't fully satisfied with my coin pictures, I decided I would re-take them, and started with the republican silver ones, hence the stupid title for a thread.

I'll start with an overview and follow up with individual coins/pictures if you would like me to. The process of cropping/cpying/pasting took quite some time, but the shooting itself has been quite fast and easy, as the weather was OK for the purpose : grey winter sky with an even light, not giving direct light/shadow on the coins. For the wallpaper I respected the relative size of the coins so they appear as they are in "real life" in the trays (well sort of, I didn't cut them in two for displaying both sides at the same time 😄 )

 

The overview (right click on the image to open a new page and access to full size picture) :

 

Please feel free to post anything you like, relevant or irrelevant, or ask for specific individual coins if you want

Q

This is an excellent presentation and a wonderful collection of Republic coins.  I especially appreciate the diversity of reverses as well as the overall quality of the coins you've chosen.  A collection like this is much more interesting than seeing the usual auction catalog of Republic coins, and almost entices me to extend my collecting range back to this era!

So, now we know how the phrase "head cheese" originated when describing  important or self-important individuals!

From Wikipedia:

------------------------

Bronze disease is an irreversible and nearly inexorable corrosion process that occurs when chlorides come into contact with bronze or other copper-bearing alloys.^[1] It can occur as both a dark green coating, or as a much lighter whitish fuzzy or furry green coating.^[1]

Initially, copper is oxidized to the cuprous ion:^[4] (1) Cu → Cu⁺ + e⁻

The cuprous ion reacts with the chloride ion to form the insoluble white colored salt cuprous chloride: (2) Cu⁺ + Cl⁻ → CuCl

The cuprous chloride reacts with atmospheric moisture and oxygen to form a green cupric chloride/cupric hydroxide compound and hydrochloric acid: (3) 4 CuCl + 4 H₂O + O₂ → CuCl₂·3 Cu(OH)₂ + 2 HCl

The remaining copper is oxidised by air to the cuprous ion: (4) Cu → Cu⁺ + e⁻

The cuprous ion reacts with the chloride ion in the hydrochloric acid to form the insoluble white colored salt cuprous chloride: (5) Cu⁺ + Cl⁻ → CuCl

The reaction then repeats from equation (3). It is the presence of two different white and green salts that lead to the fuzzy green appearance.^[4]

Initial treatment can involve placing the object in a desiccating environment.^[4] Deprived of water, the reaction cannot continue. However, re-exposure of the object to even atmospheric water can restart the process.

-------------------------

I.e., bronze disease is an almost self-perpetuating chemical reaction that will continue unless the green cupric chloride is completely removed from the coin (thus eliminating the chlorine atom that enables the reaction) OR the coin is kept in an environment completely free of contact with water molecules.  You might attempt to do the latter by placing a desiccant alongside the coin in storage, but inevitably some water molecules will find their way to the remnants of the green cupric chloride and continue the disease process.  Distilled water is irrelevant in this reaction.

This means that the ONLY way to ensure that the bronze disease stops is by eliminating 100% of the green cupric chloride.  For more information on ways to do this, you should refer to the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_disease

14 minutes ago, dougsmit said:

The Caesar is also off center with the trunk touching the edge of the flan.

I, too, am bewildered that this particular coin, with the off-center elephant lacking a full trunk on the flan, can possibly be graded "NGC MS * 5/5 - 5/5"

There are literally hundreds of these denarii listed on ACSEARCH with the full trunk on the flan and better centered... and for considerably less money.  Would anyone other than an unknowledgeable purchaser prefer a coin with -- excuse the pun -- a truncated feature on the obverse? 

10 hours ago, Prieure de Sion said:

I have only one coin from Nerva...

 

Marcus Cocceius Nerva as Imperator Nerva Caesar Augustus
Denarius of the Roman Imperial Period 97 AD; Material: Silver; Diameter: 18mm; Weight: 3.42g; Mint: Rome; Reference: RIC II Nerva 24; Obverse: Head of Nerva, laureate, right. The Inscription reads: IMP NERVA CAES AVG P M TR POT for Imperator Nerva Caesar Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunicia Potestate (Imperator Nerva, Caesar, Augustus, high priest, holder of tribunician power); Reverse: Simpulum, sprinkler, ewer and lituus. The Inscription reads: COS III PATER PATRIAE for Consul Tertium, Pater Patriae (Consul for the third time, father of the nation).

 

Wow!  The obverse flow marks make this look like "Nerva having a bad hair day."

15 hours ago, kirispupis said:

So, I wonder how that will work. Will they just triple the starting bids? I'm trying to figure out how you combine an auction with premium coins (that admittedly hammer for what they should) with perhaps the most overpriced seller on VCoins.

My personal impression is that the NAC - Shanna Schmidt association is primarily to benefit U.S. collectors who win coins at NAC's Swiss auctions.  Those coins will be shipped from NAC Switzerland to NAC Chicago (Schmidt), and then directly to the buyer, thus avoiding the burden of the buyer having to arrange for overseas shipping and customs clearance.

21 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

For those of us in the USA, there are more domestic choices than ever for consigning ancient coins, beyond the best-known US houses like CNG, Stack's Bowers, Heritage, etc., now that auction companies like Roma and Leu have established US offices. Shipping coins abroad for consignment seems more complicated than I (or my son, if and when it comes to that!) might ever want to undertake.

I would also point out that "NAC and Shanna Schmidt [have] join[ed] forces to found NAC USA" (from a recent website announcement).

On 1/12/2023 at 7:26 AM, idesofmarch01 said:

My results so far:

1. Thasos AR stater, CNG/Triton XXVI, lot 84.  Max bid $15,000.  WON.  Hammer $3,000.

2. Crete, Knossos AR stater, CNG/Triton XXVI, lot 177.  Max Bid $15,000.  WON.  Hammer $13,000.

3. Claudius AE sestertius, CNG/Triton XXVI, lot 698.  Max Bid $15,000.  WON.  Hammer $8,500.

4. Hadrian AV aureus, CNG/Triton XXVI, lot 762.  Max Bid $40,000.  WON.  Hammer $30,000.

5. Caligula AE sestertius, Heritage 3106, lot 33240.  Max bid $15,000

Total so far is $54,500 so my maximum possible score is 69.5%.  My overestimate on item #1 wasted a lot of my fantasy budget.

It appears that my final fantasy bid on item #5 won with a hammer price of $4,700.  So my total is $59,200 in my five successful bids for a 59.2% efficiency.

How did everyone else fare?

My favorite Titus is his self-confident look on this denarius:

TITUS 69 - 79 A.D.
AR Denarius (3.31 g.), Rome 80 A.D.  RIC 115
IMP TITVS CAES VESPASIAN AVG PM Laureate head of Titus right. Rev. TR P IX IMP XV COS VIII P P  Elephant, wearing cuirass, advancing left.

18 hours ago, Deinomenid said:

Oh, and I tried to rationalize it  by saying many purchases were  in Swiss francs so  that was a great asset to  own,  but even  in  Switzerland  the CHF has fallen  in real  terms  by 70% over 50 years. 2.5% annual inflation even there apparently over the period.

Same nominal price as 1982   https://live.spink.com/lots/view/4-8GY29T/kings-of-lydia-kroisos-c-56453-55039-bc-ar-hemistater-sardes

 Same price as 1969!   https://live.spink.com/lots/view/4-8GY2C3/caria-rhodes-ar-didrachm-c-340-316-bc

Halved in real terms https://live.spink.com/lots/view/4-8GY2D7/lesbos-bi-stater-c-550-450-bc

Same nominal price as 1974 https://live.spink.com/lots/view/4-8GY2M6/lucania-poseidonia-ar-third-stater-c-530-500-bc-excessively-rare

DOWN in nominal terms since 1969 https://live.spink.com/lots/view/4-8GY2DW/ionia-ephesos-ar-tetradrachm-c-320-300-bc-mnesarchos-magistrate

Halved in nominal terms  since  1975 https://live.spink.com/lots/view/4-8GY2GV/ionia-samos-ar-drachm-c-408-380-bc-hegesianax-magistrate

I'm  not cherrypicking a few extremes, and some did ok but most  have lost money in real terms over a very long period.

 

But even  ones that appeared to have done well,  like this

https://live.spink.com/lots/view/4-8GY2HU/lycia-phaselis-ar-stater-c-250-220-bc-aristarchos-magistrate

were actually flat in real terms.

I decided it would be interesting to calculate the inflation-adjusted amount, in U.S. dollars, of the original purchase price for each of these coins, and compare those purchases prices to the Spink hammer prices for each of them.

To do this, for those coins purchased in CHF, I started by calculating the equivalent "Purch. USD" from the CHF/USD exchange rate from the table here: https://fx.sauder.ubc.ca/etc/USDpages.pdf

I then calculated the inflation-adjusted purchase amount in USD at the end of 2022 ("Today USD") using a chart and formula that I created from this table of U.S. inflation rates: https://www.multpl.com/inflation/table/by-year

Finally, I subtracted the inflation-adjusted purchase price from the Spink hammer price to get the gain or loss on each coin.  Here's the result:

While the results are all over the board, very few of these coins kept up with or exceeded inflation.

Thoughts?

15 minutes ago, Nvb said:

Considering most of the original purchase prices were in CHF, this is noteworthy:

https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/switzerland/exchange-rate-against-usd

 

• Switzerland Exchange Rate against USD data is updated monthly, available from Jan 1957 to Dec 2022. 
• The data reached an all-time high of 4.373 in Dec 1970 and a record low of 0.780 in Aug 2011.

if I’m interpreting this right, 1 CHF was worth as much as 4.3 USD around the time of purchase for many of these coins 

I think you have this reversed.  In 1970 it took around 4.4 CHF to buy one U.S. dollar.

Your post piqued my interest, so I randomly chose coin #2 and used ACSEARCH to find "caria rhodes didrachm."

The search turned up 1,894 hits (some of which will be duplicates, of course) and scrolling down the list, my impression is that for coins in approximately the same condition as the one in this auction, the current prices were modest: $150 - $500 or so.  (Disclaimer: I have zero expertise in these types of coins so maybe there are distinguishing attributes that make some worth more or less than others, and I wouldn't be able to discern these.)  So the hammer price seems to be in line with today's market for this coin.

Possibly many of this particular type have been found in the intervening 50 years, keeping the prices low.

It may be that this particular type of coin is considered less interesting to current collectors than it was to old collectors.

Another, less benign reason might be that these were modest quality coins when acquired 50+ years ago, and they remain modest quality coins in today's market.  If he/she bought them from a dealer, he/she would have paid the normal dealer markup which can take years or even decades to catch up to current auction prices.  

Even in the short period I've been collecting ancient coins, it's been my observation that commonly available, middle quality coins rarely, if ever, benefit predictably from the effects of inflation or appreciation while coins in visibly better condition than, say, 90% of the same type can appreciate astronomically.  

I'm curious what other collectors with expertise in these coins think about this topic.

For me, Vespasian has always been the emperor of many faces: the severe portrait, the regal portrait, the friendly portrait, and the jowly old man portrait, as illustrated successively below:

I keep my information on my coins in an Excel spreadsheet too, but my collection is small (fewer than 70 coins currently) and if I had a collection that numbered in the hundreds or thousands, I'd be inclined to use database software rather than a spreadsheet.

Some specific suggestions:

1. Convert the prices you paid for the coins (including all fees, shipping, insurance, etc.) to one currency -- either dollars or Euros -- valued at the time you purchased the coin.  It's the only way you can total the value of your coins.  I doubt that the original currency matters anyway, and you can always look it up or even include an additional column to record the original currency.

2. Excel IS cumbersome to include pictures, but I find it a very valuable inclusion and even if you move things around, it's worth the extra effort to reposition the pictures.  Here's a section of my spreadsheet to illustrate:

I simply drag a picture of the coin into the open spreadsheet and size it using the handles around the image.

While this will increase the size of your spreadsheet, with most computer storage devices in the multi-gigabyte category, your spreadsheet is unlikely ever to be larger than your storage device can handle.

3. The more specific your columns are, the more precisely you can locate and sort your data, but the more effort it will be to enter each coin.  For example, you could have separate columns for weight and maximum dimension, if you think searching or sorting on that information will be useful in the future.  My advice here is to keep it up-to-date as soon as you get a new coin or sell an old coin, otherwise it's easy to neglect it until it becomes a real chore.

For Galba, the arrogant tightwad is his classic appearance:

GALBA  68 - 69 A.D.
AE Sestertius (28.10 g.)  Rome late summer 68 AD  RIC 309
IMP SER SVLP GALBA - CAESAR AVG TR P  Laureate and draped bust r.  Rev. LIBERTAS - PUBLICA  Libertas standing l., holding pileus and long scepter; S - C in field

As for Otho, any coin that illustrates his garish toupee:

OTHO  Jan. - Apr. 69 A.D.
AR Denarius (3.54 g.)  Rome 69 A.D.  RIC 4
Obv. Bare head of Otho r.  Rev. PAX ORBIS TERRARVM Pax standing left, holding branch and long caduceus

Finally, Vitellius is a bit of an enigma to me -- he never quite looks like an emperor.  In this coin, he just looks like your typical man-in-the-street, maybe even a little bit bewildered:

VITELLIUS  69 A.D.
AV Aureus (7.33 g.)  Rome Apr. - Dec. 69 A.D.  RIC 80
A VITELLIVS GERMAN IMP TR P laureate head r.  Rev. LIBERTAS RESTITVTA Libertas standing facing, head r., holding pileus in r. hand and long rod in left

2 hours ago, AncientJoe said:

Lot 119: Guess 32.5K, hammer 32.5K Won

Wow.  Hit that one right on the nose.  Good bid!

It's starting to look as if 60%+ is a pretty good result.

My results so far:

1. Thasos AR stater, CNG/Triton XXVI, lot 84.  Max bid $15,000.  WON.  Hammer $3,000.

2. Crete, Knossos AR stater, CNG/Triton XXVI, lot 177.  Max Bid $15,000.  WON.  Hammer $13,000.

3. Claudius AE sestertius, CNG/Triton XXVI, lot 698.  Max Bid $15,000.  WON.  Hammer $8,500.

4. Hadrian AV aureus, CNG/Triton XXVI, lot 762.  Max Bid $40,000.  WON.  Hammer $30,000.

5. Caligula AE sestertius, Heritage 3106, lot 33240.  Max bid $15,000

Total so far is $54,500 so my maximum possible score is 69.5%.  My overestimate on item #1 wasted a lot of my fantasy budget.

8 minutes ago, Limes said:

So, I managed to grab 3/5 with the fantasy money. For these tree, I had bid 80.000 and it actually cost me 61.500 fantasy dollars, which, in retrospect, I could have spend on the other two. Ah well, its easy to say that now of course 😉 So, for the final score, do I use my bids, or the prices realised?

So, of your $100,000 in fantasy funds, you successfully bid on coins that hammered for $61,500.  Your percentage is 61.5%, which seems pretty good so far.

My personal Nero favorite will always be the fat-neck, scruffy beard portrait:

NERO  54 - 68 A.D.
AV Aureus (7.33 g.)  Rome 64 - 65 A.D.  RIC 54
Obv. NERO CAESAR - AVGVSTVS Laureate head r.  Rev. Roma seated l. on cuirass, holding Victory in r. hand and parazonium in l.; in exergue, ROMA

HIs coins, even the smaller ones, can be extraordinarily artistic, but I've always wondered why he didn't force the engravers to make his portraits a bit more attractive.

7 hours ago, Brennos said:

I must say i was shocked by your price !

It sold for $3000, at the opening price which I thought was already way too high. 

Yep, I'm no expert in Greek coins so without the guidance of a knowledgeable dealer I missed this one badly.

For me, the iconic Claudius portrait is what I describe as the "weak chin" portrait.  While it's sometimes not considered as artistic as other Claudius portraits with a strong jawline, I suspect it's more true-to-life than his "this is what an emperor of Rome should look like" portraits.

CLAUDIUS 41 - 54 A.D.
AV Aureus (7.79 g.) Rome 44 - 45 A.D. RIC 25
Obv. TI CLAVD CAESAR AVG P M TR P IIII laureate head r. Rev. Battlemented wall IMPER RECEPT enclosing praetorian camp, Fides Praetorianorum left.  
Ex. Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection (Sotheby's, 10 November 1972, lot 35); published in "Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin" 1938