idesofmarch01

38 minutes ago, Limes said:

Its Sunday evening here, and since I dont want to get up in the middle of the night, you may already find my fantasy bids below. I chose five targets from a larger ‘watchlist’ of 40 coins. It surprised me that even though $ 100.000 is a huge amount of money to spend on coins, I ran out of it quite quickly...

Great writeup -- thanks for starting us out!  One of the things I anticipated about this fantasy game is what you've already observed -- that maybe $100K doesn't go as far as you think it would!  

I'll post my list now, too, since I don't anticipate any more changes to my max bids.

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck everyone!

14 hours ago, SteveJBrinkman said:

@idesofmarch01 It's an interesting game with no prizes so the honor system is probably appropriate, but when will we compile the results, and how?  Should we message you our bids?

Since it's only a fantasy game, my thought was the following: On Monday I will post my fantasy bids to this thread (Auction, Lot# & Short Description, Max bid). When all of my fantasy bids have won or lost, I will make a second post showing my wins and losses, and calculate the percentage of my $100K budget that I successfully bid.  

I think all participants can follow this procedure including their final calculation.

Sound OK?

One of the most storied coins struck during the first century is, I think, the Claudius IMPER RECEPT denarius and aureus:

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

The history memorialized in this coin is impressive; I quote from Heritage's description:

"Claudius owed his elevation to the Praetorian Guard and was not ashamed to promote this fact on his coinage. The reverse of this interesting aureus type depicts the Praetorian camp and the legend "IMPER RECEPT" -- "The Emperor Received," a direct reference to the chaotic aftermath of Caligula's assassination in January of AD 41, when a platoon of Praetorians found Claudius hiding in the imperial palace and quickly hustled him behind the walls of the fortress. He obliged them with a donative of 3,750 silver denarii per head, nearly quadruple the previous highest amount (1,000, by Tiberius). The Praetorians remained fiercely loyal throughout his reign and, faced with this reality, the Senate was loath to challenge him."

It is simply staggering to imagine a Roman Emperor being appointed by a small group of Praetorian Guards.  Every time I view this coin I'm reminded of the (certainly fictional) line from I, Claudius, when Claudius was arguing to the Senate the reasons for why he should be appointed Emperor:

"As for being half-witted: well, what can I say, except that I have survived to middle age with half my wits, while thousands have died with all of theirs intact. Evidently, quality of wits is more important than quantity."

On 1/2/2023 at 12:57 PM, CPK said:

2. The idea is to post your best/favorite portrait coin(s) of that emperor, with a short explanation for why you selected it.

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.

44 minutes ago, Coinmaster said:

Hi all,
besides the sometimes beautiful portraits on Roman on coins, I think the stories they tell are as interesting/relevant for a collector as well.
Like the conquest-coins of Trajan (https://www.coinworld.com/news/world-coins/trajan_s-major-conquests--ancients-today.html), the travel-coins of Hadrian (https://coinweek.com/ancient-coins/coinweek-ancient-coin-series-travels-with-hadrian/ + https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/2789/Ancient-Hadrian-coins/ + https://followinghadrian.com/hadriantravels/) or in general the buildings on Roman coins (http://www.romancoins.info/VIC-Buildings.html).

I'm curious about the coins you bought because of the stories behind it. Show and tell please, thanks!
I really like this coin from Nero, with the ships of grain from the Ostia harbor with the message: because of me you all have bread to eat! Unfortunately beyond my budget...
(source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_R-6445 and see also: https://www.ostia-antica.org/portus/portus-intro.htm).

 

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.

5 minutes ago, SteveJBrinkman said:

If the player's max turns out to be the exact hammer price, is it a win?

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!

38 minutes ago, Limes said:

Sounds like fun, and since the import duties and taxes are out, Im in. Maybe restitutor could create something as a secret topic?

Got to get my head around the auctions though, what a list.....! 

Edit: And if understand correctly, betting all the fantasy money on 1 coin, does not mean you win, right? I dont know how to properly say it in English, but say i did bid 100.000 on a 3000 hammer, the 93.000 is not part of the percentage you mention? 

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.

7 minutes ago, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

What's the link to the auction?

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 9^th, 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:

53 minutes ago, Dafydd said:

It weighs 2.25 g

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.

11 minutes ago, Curtisimo said:

Perhaps some shenanigans where the seller is using an old photo of a coin he doesn’t really own?

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.

36 minutes ago, Curtisimo said:

Are you completely sure that these aren’t the exact same coin? The flan shape is an absolutely perfect match, dings indents and all.  Further, the texture of the fabric is the same. Note the roughness in the field to the right of Jupiter and the scratches in front of the nose on the obverse. That level of duplication would be difficult to achieve. 

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.

1 hour ago, Prieure de Sion said:

Ah yes! That new photos are much much much more better! You can think this are two different coins with the pictures.

Now the surface of obverse and reverse complete other - and looks for me like a ancient coin of the time. The edge is perfect. 

So with the new pictures I would not notice anything negative.

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:

19 hours ago, DCCR said:

Nice coins 🙂. I'm a fan of the Kolchis imitations. I only have a Lysimachus one though:

 

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: