idesofmarch01

For me, Caligula's portraits come in two flavors. The first is the imperious, imperial portrayal as a regal leader of the empire (although the solemnity is oddly undone by the reverse portrayal of his three sisters in a Three Graces pose): GAIUS (CALIGULA) 37 - 41 A.D. AE Sestertius (28.56 g.) Rome c. 37 - 38 A.D. RIC 33 C CAESAR AVG GERMANICVS PON M TR POT Laureate bust l. Rev. AGRIPPINA – DRVSILLA – IVLIA Sisters standing: Agrippina as Securitas holds cornucopiae; Drusilla as Concordia holds patera and cornucopiae; Julia as Fortuna, holds rudder and cornucopiae. In exergue, S·C. From the Gasvoda collection. The second type is the somewhat crazed-looking portrait, with an odd look in the eyes: GAIUS (CALIGULA) AV Aureus (7.66 g.) Lugdunum ca. 37 - 38 A.D. (No RIC entry/number) C CAESAR AVG GERM P M TR POT Laureate head r. Rev. S P Q R / P P / OB C S within oak wreath. From the Biaggi collection.

The Port of Ostia story actually begins with Claudius, who started the project but didn't live to see it completed. Nero, acting like a true politician, took full credit for the completion of Ostia even though it was Claudius' foresight that initiated the work. If you ever travel to Italy, Ancient Ostia is one of the great ruins to visit -- in my book, as interesting as Pompeii and Herculaneum. Rather than being destroyed by natural forces, Ostia was gradually abandoned when it silted over and Rome's main port was moved to a new location a few miles away. Thus many of Ostia's ruins remain in fabulous shape other than the fact that the marble facades and other building materials were looted and reused on other buildings. One of my favorite parts of the city was the merchants' square, with mosaics illustrating their individual services in lieu of attempting to translate Latin into a myriad of other languages. I especially like this mosaic illustrating a drayage service via a picture of a worker jumping from ship to ship: I'm fortunate enough to own a version of Nero's Port of Ostia sestertius: NERO AE Sestertius (26.56 g.) Lugdunum circa 65 A.D. RIC 441 NERO CLAVD CAESAR AVG GER P M TR P IMP P P Laureate head of Nero left. Rev. PORT AVG Port of Ostia, river Tiber reclining below. I'm looking forward to seeing other collectors here post their "story" coins.

For me, the slightly older-looking Augustus is my favorite: AUGUSTUS AV Aureus (7.90 g.) Lugdunum circa 11 - 10 B.C. RIC 196 AVGVSTVS - DIVI-f Laureate head right. Rev. IMP - XII Diana, wearing polos and long drapery, advancing r., holding bow and taking arrow from quiver. In exergue, SICIL From the Biaggi collection, ex Gilhofer & Ranschburg and Hess 22 May 1935 Somewhat reminiscent of the actor Brian Blessed who played Augustus in the great BBC series I, Claudius. Plus, I love the Diana-as-huntress action figure reverse.

Yes -- the best result possible. I will be posting my fantasy bids in this thread as early as possible on Monday Jan. 9th since it won't be changing after that time.

I have my preliminary list prepared and will be tweaking it in the next few days!

Top marks to all of your acquisitions! I'm especially partial (of course) to your Nero and Hadrian -- the Nero was quite a find and is a tribute to your persistence for both a better example as well as a Boscoreale coin. You couldn't have done better! Plus, really, the Kyrene tetrobol silphium reverse is just cool and goes to show that good things do come in small packages!

Correct. Here's an example: Every player will bid their entire $100K fantasy funds (there's no value in saving any). Suppose you win four bids where the hammer price totals $57,000. Your "score" would be 57%, since you successfully bid 57% of your $100K. You could, of course, overbid your $100K on 20 coins that you know will hammer for at most a total of $40K, but then your score would only be 40%. The goal is to efficiently allocate your fantasy bids to as many coins as you'd like to add to your collection.

All the auctions are listed here: https://www.sixbid.com/en And here: https://www.nyinc.info/events.php

With all the upcoming auctions at NYINC in January, I thought it might be fun to create a fantasy game for the ancient coin collectors here. The rules would be as follows: 1. Each player has $100,000 in fantasy money to bid on coins at any of the NYINC auctions. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll ignore any associated buyer’s fees (i.e., all $100K in fantasy funds can be spent on coins). 2. Each player assembles a list of the coins on which to bid, including (a) auction name, (b) lot # and short description, and (c) maximum bid. 3. No “if-then” bids are allowed. I.e., players’ lists cannot include bids of the type “If I don’t win this lot, then I’ll reallocate these funds to another coin.” Fantasy funds can only be allocated once. 4. All bid lists must be finalized prior to Monday, January 9th, when the first auction (Heritage) starts. This is to prevent players from adjusting their later bids based on how strong or weak the hammer prices appear to be based on earlier auctions. 5. All players are encouraged to bid on coins they’d really want in their collections. 6. At the end of all the auctions, each player sums their winning bids. “Best in Show” will be awarded to the player who successfully spent the highest percentage of their $100K on winning bids. In the case of a tie, the winner will be the player who successfully won the most coins. As of now, this contest would run on the honor system since there is no non-participating administrator who could receive all the bid lists and publish all of them simultaneously on Monday January 9th in a new topic. Ideally, this site would be able to start a “private” topic to which everyone posts their bid lists and the topic is not displayed publicly until Monday January 9th, but I don’t think that’s possible. I’m open to other suggestions for how to administer this game. So that’s it. Any interest out there?

I find this to be an interesting thread, especially inasmuch as most of the collectors here (including me) will select a coin with an interesting reverse rather than a more common reverse, when given an otherwise equal choice between the two. Since I focus mainly on the 12 Caesars plus a side collection of Hadrian, my thinking on interesting reverses will reflect only those areas with which I'm most familiar. These coins aren't necessarily all from my personal collection, and I'll note those that aren't. Augustus: For me, the most iconic coin of Augustus' rule is his AEGYPTO CAPTA denarius with the crocodile reverse; here's a fine example from AncientJoe's collection: Tiberius: Let's face it, Tiberius' coinage is generally boring and his most iconic coin is his putative "tribute penny:" Caligula: I fully agree with others in this thread that Caligula's Three Sisters sestertius, in their "Three Graces"-like pose, is the most iconic of his coins: Claudius: Again, I agree with other collectors here that Claudius' IMPER RECEPT aureus stands out as his most iconic reverse (as well as its exclusion from Berk's 100 Greatest Ancient Coins being a serious oversight): Nero: While I agree that possibly the most iconic coin of Nero as Emperor might be his sestertius showing him playing the lyre, I think his most iconic coin is the Port of Ostia reverse: As for Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, I'm just going to punt on these Emperors. They were in office such a short period of time that I just don't find any of their coins' reverses particularly iconic of them as Emperor, or distinguished as far as coins are concerned. Vespasian: Of course, his Judaea Capta sestertius is among the most iconic of Roman coins, and listed in Berk's 100 Greatest Ancient Coins: Titus: Arguably, Titus' Colosseum sestertius is the second (only to the EID MAR aureus/denarius) most famous of all ancient Roman coins. My apologies to AncientJoe for stealing his example: Domitian: Limes' earlier suggested that a Domitian with a Minerva reverse would be a reasonable candidate for an iconic coin, and I tend to agree: Hadrian: Most collectors' first thoughts of Hadrian's coin are his travel series, and for me the most iconic one is his Nilus aureus with the hippo and crocodile reverse:

A quick check of ACSEARCH uncovered around 65 Julius Caesar denarii of this type, all of which had weights higher than 3.5g, and many of which had weights over 4.0g. The likelihood that you have a genuine denarius that weighs 2.25g. is, well, pretty much zero. Even if you don't have a paid subscription to ACSEARCH allowing you to view the hammer prices, you can still research the other aspects of coins including normal weights. Doing so before you purchase will save a lot of headache and angst.

This is a more likely explanation. Suppose the seller uses Photoshop on a picture of a better coin -- maybe even the coin from which the forgery was copied -- to slightly blur the details and features. When the buyer receives the actual forged coin, even though it's a little different from the seller's picture, most of the features are similar enough to the picture that any differences can be explained away as photographic artifacts by the seller/forger.

The issue for me on these two coins is the flan flaws. I've circled below, in matching colors, the flan flaws that are in EXACTLY the same place on two supposedly different coins. From a strictly probabilistic point, I have to believe that the coincidence of these flaws occurring in exactly the same place on two different flans is vanishingly close to zero. My conclusion would be that at least one, and possibly both, are forgeries. I'm assuming that these ARE two different coins to start with, of course.

I agree completely, having seen the later pictures of the coin. They don't even look like the same coin! In any event, I have no misgivings or uneasiness about the coin having seen these new pictures.

I have one of these coins (see below) and I find myself in agreement with Prieure de Sion that this coin makes me uneasy. Specifically, I find that the fabric/texture of the fields, especially on the reverse, don't look like most other examples of this coin that I've seen; there is an overly smooth, somewhat "soapy" appearance to the fields. Possibly better (sharper) pictures would help. Also, where did you purchase this coin? A dealer? VCoins? A local store? EBay? The reputation of the seller would be helpful in ascertaining its authenticity. Here's my example for comparison:

For me, Faustina's hair bun on the obverse is a dead giveaway to the high probability of tooling. Compare the circulation wear in this area with the wear in the nearby legend area: How is it possible that the legend is so worn while the bun's intricate details remains so crisp? How could the coin have been worn so unevenly during its circulation? Is there any plausible explanation for this discrepancy other than tooling?

There are a lot of wonderful coins in this thread. Most of my impression of Caligula is derived from his portrayal in I, Claudius (by the great British actor John Hurt). This portrayal is relentlessly negative and dark, although its accuracy is a little suspect, being based on Suetonius's gossipy revelations. Despite Caligula's historical reputation, I find his coins to be generally artistic and the reverses can be whimsically entertaining (Three Sisters in a Three Graces pose, Ad Locutio) while the obverse portraits are almost uniformly imperial and imperious. Initially I had intended only to have one of each major denomination (as, sestertius, denarius, and aureus) but the quality of his various sestertii have inspired me to pursue all of these major types. Currently I lack only the epigraphic reverse type although arguably the Memoriae Agrippinae sestertii is part of Caligula's set of sestertii. My current collection:

Very cool abstractions! I'll have to add one of these to my list of future Celtic acquisitions!

Recently I added two more coins to my very small (now three) Celtics. One of them was this Corieltauvi stater; the obverse is described as "Wreath, crescent and cloak motifs forming stylized head of Apollo" so I've included a typical Greek Apollo stater to illustrate the "non-stylized" Apollo: [Britannia, the Corieltauvi AV Stater. North East Coast series. Circa 60-50 BC. 6.17 g. 18.5mm Wreath, crescent and cloak motifs forming stylised head of Apollo; line of pellets at neck truncation / Disjointed lunate horse to left with many pellets above, pellet-in-annulet before, crescent and pellet above decorated base below.] My most recent Celtic addition is this Easter Celtic "Colchis" or "Kolchis,", the obverse described as "Stylized head of Athena" and the reverse described as "Highly stylized Nike." I've included a typical Athena/Nike stater for comparison. [Eastern Celts 'Colchis.' (16.45mm, 3.62 g. 7h) Undetermined mint. Gold stater 2nd/1st century BC. Stylized head of Athena. Rev. Highly stylized Nike.] I especially like this Celtic coin's reverse with the abstract angel's wings.

This coin recently auctioned for 850 Euros -- probably less than $1,100 including buyer's fee and shipping: If you want a Brutus conspirator coin, this is about as good a deal you'll find. You just need to be diligent about upcoming auctions.

The OP coin is a wonderful example of this highly desirable mythical beast of ancient times. Any collector would prize it in his/her collection. If AncientJoe were to have NGC slab and grade his coin, I imagine that it, too, would receive a grade of "Superb EF with brilliant lustrous surfaces. NGC CH AU Star Strike 5/5, Surface 5/5 Fine Style." From a purely academic perspective, I wonder if a novice collector of ancient coins would view these two NGC slabbed coins as equivalent? Dougsmit's observation ("I find it odd that the slab company can say all those nice things about coins with one of the animals missing.") raises a substantive and meaningful topic regarding NGC's grading system, and I'm curious how other NUMISFORUM members think about this topic?

While it's not apparent from the typical photo, my Vitellius as probably has the highest relief of any of my coins:

Wow! These are two extraordinarily impressive coins! The high quality artistry of the portraits is especially reminiscent of Hadrian's best imperial portraits and something I would not have expected in a provincial coin. Just as an example, I created a side-by-side image of my Aegyptos sestertius with the first (Year 10) coin: Congratulations on your acquisitions!

Even if this translation is accurate, it's the devices that have been reworked, not the fields. Note that the NAC description uses "surface" and not "fields" or "devices." I assume that they used this much more general term to avoid passing judgment about the areas that may have been tooled. Also, given the difficulties of translation, I think that a scrupulously honest dealer or auction house would include the universally used English word "tooled" rather than a Spanish phrase that can be loosely translated in a number of different ways.

This coin was auctioned at NAC 52 in 2009: The description notes "... traces of tooling..." -- an understatement, in my opinion -- but at least NAC noted this. Aureo Calico failed to note this, which is at best negligent and more likely, purposely deceptive. I would not bid on any of their coins.