Captch

I just identified an uncleaned coin as a provincial issue of Philp the Arab - I think it's this coin, up to the regnal year. I've attached a pdf highligthing which features are visible when the coin is wet. It's been in distilled water for ~15 months now and I'm not really sure there's anything else to clean off. I am able to see the details highlighted in the slides when the coin is wet, but the thing looks like a total slug when dry. Is Renwax a good solution for making the details pop? Will an outer layer of Renwax allow the coin to repatinate? I dug down to bare metal in the center of the reverse not knowing what I was looking at. What are good next steps for cleaning?

dirty_phil.pdf

4 hours ago, Roman Collector said:

Ephesus

Ephesus AE Unit

Turreted female head facing left, identity uncertain. Bee viewed from above flanked by E-Φ.

Ionia Ephesus, 305-288 BCE

1.295 gr, 10.8 mm, 1h

BMC Ionia #68 (pl. X #3)

7 minutes ago, Heliodromus said:

unless there is any fighting between Kadyrov's Chechen troops

I am seeing news that the Chechens either let the Wagner column by or joined them. A little bit like legions changing sides on the battlefield 😛

On 4/30/2023 at 2:12 PM, Steppenfool said:

Rather than shamelessly self promote in a separate thread. I'll do it here. I've started a Youtube channel that aims to engage in more in depth analysis of specific historical topics. I try not to let unevidenced narratives take over and instead attempt to present the primary sources directly to the viewer, justify anything I say, and try to guide the viewer to somewhat make up their own mind. This video is on the evidence before 312 for Constantius I's personal religion and therefore contains discussion of Numismatics. In a few days, I will be finished  the sequel that explores the Christian revision of Constantius' reign.

I'm still working on the ins and outs of video production etc. and I hope to improve as I go!

 

 

I'm guilty of necroposting here, but @Steppenfool this is a great video!

7 hours ago, DonnaML said:

another coin depicting an amphora

Myrina (Aeolis) AE unit, 2nd-1st C. BCE.

Laureate head of Apollo, facing right.

Amphora center, lyre in right field. MY-PI at base of amphora.

3.393 gr, 16.7 mm, 12h.

SNG Copenhagen part 21 #224 & 225 (plate 5)

Next: the coin in your collection minted closest to your hometown.

41 minutes ago, Pellinore said:

Two Victories standing facing one another, holding between them wreath

Roman Imperial imitative AE nummus

Diademmed bust of emperor facing right. Lots of Is for lettering.

Two victories holding a shield above a cippus. Imitations of a legend and  mint mark are present.

2.62 gr, 19.0 mm

Likely minted 316-361 CE.

.Nice video, @Steppenfool and nice coin @Curtisimo. I didn't know about the Constantine issue with his eyes raised upwards. I did a double-take when it first appeared onscreen because of how it differs from every other bust

1 hour ago, John Conduitt said:

More 5th officina

How about even more 5th officina

Phocas AE Follis 607-608 CE

Robed bust of Phocas, facing. Wearing crown with cross and holding a mappa in right hand and a cross in the left. DN FOCAS PERP AV

ANNO above four large Xs followed by a lowercase zeta denoting sixth regnal year. CON and epsilon in exergue.

9.976 gr, 29.5 mm, 7h

Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection, Volume 2-1, #30c

@JeandAcre duly noted. It's frustrating as a new collector that secondary sources are so much harder to find than the coins themselves 🙂. I've been able to make pretty good use of my school's ILL program, but sometimes I need a reference ASAP!

@Broucheion It looks like my coin is in Schlumberger after all from the note you attached, just on a different plate than all of Tancred's other coins. If I follow what he wrote in that section correctly, that's because there is (was?) some debate as to where the final coins of Tancred's were minted, since he also was prince of Galilee. So that coin gets stuck into the section dealing with secondary baronies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, since it's possible they could have been minted in Tiberias. Confusing...

4 minutes ago, rvk said:

I eventually found that I can create my own reports in the folder

Great, thanks.

2 minutes ago, Broucheion said:

Here is the listing

Thank you so much! This is awesome.

6 minutes ago, Edessa said:

Yes, the attribution looks correct.

Thank you so much! I assume that it's St. Peter that's depicted on the obverse.

4 minutes ago, Edessa said:

this issue of the third type is frequently overstruck on re-used flans of the second type

That makes sense with Schlumberger's argument about the second type - that maybe it was a little too daring to depict Tancred in local dress and cause a stir. I will have to see if the dots below St. Peter's cross looks like any of the words stamped on the obverse of that second type.

@Edessa since you just posted about medieval Antiochean coinage, I'm taking the liberty of @ing you...

Hey all, I'm going through my collection and was reminded that my example of this coin: https://cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=304594 isn't referenced in Schlumberger's Numismatique de l'Orient latin. Does anyone have a copy of Malloy or Metcalf that can double check that the reference is correct and share what the D-S-F-T is all about? Here's my version of the coin by the way.

1 hour ago, seth77 said:

I now use my own html tree that links to pages that are stored on a usb stick.

Ooh, that sounds nice.

I like the built-in html templates that come with open-numismat, but it's not clear how you edit them. Maybe you need to fork the project, make your edits and then rebuild it? Here's what the start of inputting my collection looks like.

@seth77 let me know how it goes. I had some trouble setting up the category fields as I would like, but I have a satisfactory catalog for a few coins now. If you run across any cool tricks, you should share them.

On 1/15/2023 at 3:25 PM, rvk said:

I recently moved from Google Sheets to a free and open-source tool called OpenNumismat - and I am very happy.

This looks awesome! I think I'm gonna start using this today!

Dang! Nice one, @expat, @ambr0zie

@ambr0zie I'll throw my hat into the ring.

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When did you start collecting ancient coins?

One year ago last month. I had been interested in the Classical world since I visited the Roman forum and Pompeii while studying art history in Florence a few years ago. My wife and I have plans to go back when we finish grad school.

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What is the favorite ancient coin in your collection?

A few months before my first coin, we adopted a dog. That's made it hard to do one of me and my wife's favorite activities: birding. So, I've started "birding" a little bit in my coin collection. My favorite coin is this diobol from Eion in Thessaloniki. The coin is of historical interest to me as well because it comes from a city that was fought over in the wars between Athens/the Delian League and Persia right around the time the coin itself was struck. It's also tiny, such an adorable coin - I have gravitated towards collecting really small coins like tetartemoria. I think the bird part speaks for itself. My personal notes on this coin just read "Honk Honk!" Here's my picture:

and the wildwinds page: https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/macedonia/eion/SNGANS_272.txt for the coin. Trust me, the goose is even sassier in hand.

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Why do you like this particular coin?

Well, it's got a bird on it,so that's always a good start. The only other eagle I have is on a tetartemorion from Miletos, but the design is a little more abstract. I don't have a single tetradrachm or a coin from Alexandria, so both of those things make it more appealing to me. I also really like how well-preserved the mint/officina mark is. It makes the past seem so much closer, when you can identify a single workshop, or a couple people who made a coin millennia ago in a different continent. I could wax poetic about how cool I think good officina marks are, but I think you guys probably get the gist.

Thank you and good luck to @expat - that's a really nice thunderbolt. Here's my favorite thunderbolt coin. It's from Selge in southwestern Turkiye. Herakles's portrait just looks a little goofy to me 😛

Alright, I pulled the coin out after two weeks in sodium sesquicarbonate and four weeks in distilled water and haven't seen a recurrence of BD spots. Because I gave it a few week soak in DW while I was gone, the grey-blue residue left by the chemical solution came off with gentle brushing with a toothbrush. I have attached pictures of the coin before I brushed it. I have a dehumidifier set up near my coin tray now. If all went well, I just have to wait a few years for a patina to form again...

I had a change of heart and mixed up another 5% solution and will leave it in there for a week before my wife changes it over to distilled water.

It's back... and it's coming for the wreath in the temple pediment, which is one of my favorite parts.

I'm leaving on a trip for a month, so I'm soaking it in distilled water for now 😞

@idesofmarch01 I meany I look at my coins more often since they're in trays rather than in boxes. This coin isn't my favorite of the collection, so it's likely that I wouldn't have seen the BD in time to stop it.

I guess I will also note that I probably wouldn't have caught the BD if I didn't have trays. They're pricy and annoying, but they are the best way to show off a collection 😛