Rand

Some news from CoinsWeekly on the resistance from the US collector community/trade to the repatriation practice.

https://new.coinsweekly.com/news/customs-repatriation-to-greece-raises-questions/

I am still waiting for a celebratory update from the Greek or Turkish recipients of the Eid Mar aureus, with new high-quality photos, information about the find spot/provenance and public access to the coin. They have kept a low profile so far.

It is an excellent video of a great collector and numismatist. I did not know who BCD was before this video, and I really liked his personality presented in the video.

During a discussion towards the end of the video regarding a less appropriate request to access his library, BCD asks, ‘Do you know how to do research on auction catalogues?’

If addressed to me, the frank answer would be, ‘No, I do not’. 

Any advice on where can I find this out?

Any advice on best practices for getting great scans/images of catalogue plates (as opposed to photos of coins)?

Much appreciated.

One day same may happen to comic books and baseball cards. It may be time to implement their cultural protection status, introduce export restrictions and measures to prevent their use in illicit trade (I am sarcastic this time). 

I would not be surprised if their museum expositions attract more attention than those of ancient coins.

An unfortunate transatlantic ripple? In their auction this week, Roma stopped specifying which coins were from The Mare Nostrum hoard, one of the most important hoards ever from the period. 

I do respect however the American public feels about what coins should or should not be hosted by their country. I am worried about the possible loss of records about finds and damage to the knowledge of history.

Museum numismatic exhibitions and collections could be an interesting topic for a thread.

A publication has been in my mind from start (~15 years ago), but it will not happen any time soon (or at all if done by others). I have plenty of material to publish 'something', but I do not feel it is ready for a meaningful analysis that advances numismatic and historical fields.

The dataset is far from complete:

• I am ploughing through old catalogues. Fortunately, more appear online. I hope to spend a holiday or two in Fitzwilliam Museum (if allowed) going through the 40,000 catalogues in their collection.
• I need access to local museums (especially in France and North Italy) and some bigger museum collections. Coins in local museums are more likely to be from local finds - my best hope to fill gaps in the 'barbarian' series. Mostly, I have no reply from museums or a kind of 'go away' reply.
• I hope to travel to small museums taking photos and coin records. I tested Musée des Antiquités in Rouen a few weeks ago during a family holiday. It shoud have a tremissis from Nesle-Hodeng find reported by Jean Lafaurie in ‘Trouvailles de monnaies franques et mérovingiennes en Seine-Maritime (Ve-VIIIe siècles)', 1980. I hoped to get a better quality of the pictured photo of the coin and see what else they have. The museum has not replied to my email. The numismatic collection is part of the museum's online advertisement, so I went there anyway. On visiting them, I was told that I could not access coins not on display. The displayed collection (except several French coins) is shown below. I need a better strategy for approaching museums, perhaps learning some French or finding a way of introduction. Some museums might expect non-official insensitive/fees, but I am naive about the traditions.
• I need to learn quality coin photography! I learnt a lot from the thread by @Kaleun96 However, I need to make the set portable (e.g., Keiser has a portable copy stand). I fear getting museum permissions will be challenging. I may end up using an iPhone, which is far from ideal.
• I had to learn about data management, which has been mostly sorted. I am still cracking automatic visualisations of die-links in chronological order. Doing this manually is a pain, even for smaller series. Lots of rearrangements are needed when new dies appear, especially when multiple officinas shared dies.
• I have to complete finds records. I have records of 177 hoards and single finds that included Anastasian gold, but many miss photos or have poor quality photos. I recently updated this section so it links directly with coin records, die records, publications, etc. Still a lot of work to do. It is exciting to trace the movements of coins from particular series, possibly suggesting their intended minting and distributions (e.g., to support Ostrogoths fighting in Italy with Odovacer).
• Getting the historical perspective has been relatively easy. There are few contemporary or soon-after records. Those surviving have been well published and discussed. Coins are one of the significant records of the period! I particularly enjoy mapping the military campaign movements of the Franks and Burgundians (if I am correct in interpreting letters on their coins). 
• The gold used has different shades, with likely different metal compositions of non-imperial series. I am happy to offer my collection for analyses as soon as they are none-disctructive. I aimed to get representative coins from different mints/denominations. I have a few same-die duplicates,and triplicates for validation work, and die-linked coins. The British Museum has the world's biggest collection of Anastasian gold coins, nearly twice bigger than mine (and I may not even know about some). However, their permissions to move coins for analysis could be prohibitive. I have started discussions with numismatic academia. I shall see what happens.

Irrespective of the results, it is rewarding enough to discover old secrets! However, a publication would need to be done with academic input, leaving my fantasies to me and facts for sharing.

From Jean Lafaurie. ‘Trouvailles de monnaies franques et mérovingiennes en Seine-Maritime (Ve-VIIIe siècles)', 1980.

Numismatic collection on display in Musée des Antiquités in Rouen (except a small display of French coins, 1520-1590).

@John Conduitt. I cannot say whether Anastasius is more or less popular among forgers than other rulers of the period. My speculations about possible popularity are:

• Anastasian gold is generally popular as inexpensive 'ancient gold' from the first Byzantium emperor. The designs are not sophisticated.
• There are many variations of genuine coins, with solidi widely copied around Europe by emerging 'Barbaric' states - some deviations from originals are easy to overlook.
• These coins are relatively inexpensive with little financial loss over the bullion value to make hassle arguing with dealers and for dealers to be too much of a concern. As I mentioned on another thread, a more expensive suspected Anastasius fake appeared a few years ago (I am aware of 14 copies with their sale prices declining as they kept appearing). I no longer see them in trade. Those coins have never been officially listed as 'fake' on open registries.
• The sale price must still be sufficient to justify their production.
• Most common fakes were produced in quantities from the 60th and were common in auction catalogues of the 60th-70th. I do not know if they are still produced or recycled.
• There are many Anastasian gold coins! For 2020, I have 504 new entries (352 solidi, 14 semisses, and 138 tremisses), but a few are from museums. So, c. 400 Anastasian gold coins are sold yearly (the number seems to keep increasing). Twenty fake coins make 5%. I have records of fake 74 solidi and 53 tremisses, with many sold several times. I have records of perhaps  20+ further 'unsorted' fake coins. This is less than 5% of all Anastasian gold coins in private hands. However, some tend to be seen on offer from year to year, possibly recognised as such and harder to sell.

In the niche area, I am most interested (Anastasian gold) common fakes make up 5-10% (varies from year to year) of coins sold through NumisBids, Biddr, Sixbid, MA-Shops and Vcoins and without considering Ebay. There are a few other coins that look suspicious and may be fakes, and I am unsure about a couple of my coins. Sadly, the information on more recent and dangerous fakes is hard to find. I hope the trade industry and NGC conduct internal research and have methods to identify modern fakes while keeping them secrete to avoid informing fakers. I fear being disillusioned about this.

Pre-sixties provenances are a valuable source of information in the field.

I wonder if accurate detection and description of coin manipulations are within the expertise of many dealers.

I went through Russian coins last night, looking into the latest Roma offering. Very few early silvers are free of tooling/repair … when coins are NGC graded. 

I do not like NGC slabs, bulky and ugly. However, I would prefer any coin sold for $5K+ to be independently graded - not for the sake of a super high grade, but to know the coins are in their original state. I admit I cannot decide what cleaning level is acceptable for bronze coins. This is easier for gold and silver.

Phocas, Issue 607-610. Solidus. Officina 8. 4.48 g. 

Numismatica Ars Classica. Auction 56. 08/10/2010.

Maurice Tiberius. Struck 583/4-602. Solidus. 19 mm, 4.39 g. Constantinople mint, 8th officina.

Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. Auction 93. 22/05/2013

Justin II. 565-578. Solidus. 4.42 g. Thessalonica mint. 

CNG puts 'Struck circa 570.', but I could not find a good reason for the date. These Thessalonica solidi are too scarce to be produced during the whole reign. It would be interesting to know when and why the mint produced them.

Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. Auction 93. 22/05/2013

On 6/4/2023 at 5:55 PM, Rand said:

Given the excellence and popularity of their online collection, I hoped for the answer that the coin’s authenticity has been long queried and cleared (the main reason I was not sure about contacting them over the years).

I wrote to them today and will share the outcome.

Previously I felt museums did not welcome unsolicited advice (another reason I was not sure about contacting them) - could be due to my poor communication skills.

Just got a response from the ANS, which was fast, friendly and appropriate, with further review requested.

‘Thank you for reaching out, and not a bother at all! I’ve just been able to inspect our coin in person, and I feel fairly confident that the ANS specimen is not struck from the same dies as the published fake you provided, but as I am by no means an expert in Byzantine coinage, I have added a note to our internal database with information re: this known fake for further Curatorial review.’

15 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

Are you saying that you consider this enough of a disclosure to meet ethical standards, or enough to cause you not to want to bid if you were otherwise so inclined?

Apologies, I keep editing my statement as it still does not read very clearly.

Their information is sufficient for me to decide not to bid on these coins. 

Also, the repairs are not 'minor' from my point of view.

1 hour ago, robinjojo said:

"Slight traces of processing [on reverse] and edge notch (repaired test cut)".

As for me, this is enough. It is tooled so firmly out of the bidding list. Very likely, NCG would not grade them.

4 hours ago, DonnaML said:

One unnoticed or undisclosed repair is bad, three is suspicious! Does Rauch have the reputation of being a reputable firm?

Very much so. Always good experience.

I recall reporting a fake on their listing, which they removed immediately. This was the only time I did this in person - incidentally noted the firm's office in Vienna when passing by. This was a few years ago.

Justinian I. 538-545. Solidus. Constantinople mint. 4.44 g 6th officina. 

I bought it hoping it was of Sicilian mint because it was die-linked to another solidus previously sold as Sicilian. In so, the recut officina 'S' would be the indiction year 6, and fit the dating of Sicilian solidi proposed by Niall Fairhead and Wolfgang Hahn based on analysis of the Monte Judica Hoard. At the time, I didn't have a good system of keeping coin records, and I could no longer find the other coin. So my coin remains attributed to Constantinople. Stylistically, the two mints are quite close, and I cannot separate them reliably. I was also intrigued by the two horizontal bars on the staff. However, the lower bar is probably the angel's thumb. Justinian coins are fascinating but beyond any hope for me to follow their dies, so I abandoned the idea and moved to another area. 

Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. Electronic Auction 285. 22/08/2012. 

Justinian I. 547-8. Solidus. Carthage. 4.43 g. Indiction year IA - 11.

Gitbud & Naumann. Auction 34. 09/08/2015.

Justinian I. 538-542. Solidus. Rome. 4,43 g. 

Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co. KG. Auction 182. 14/03/2011.

Justinian I. 542-546 (I am not sure of the true dating). Solidus. 4.38 g. 

Veilinghuis Eeckhout bvba. Auction 5. 13/11/2010.

6 hours ago, Roman Collector said:

You should absolutely let them know.

Given the excellence and popularity of their online collection, I hoped for the answer that the coin’s authenticity has been long queried and cleared (the main reason I was not sure about contacting them over the years).

I wrote to them today and will share the outcome.

Previously I felt museums did not welcome unsolicited advice (another reason I was not sure about contacting them) - could be due to my poor communication skills.

In a different thread, @Tejas showed the most beautiful (Visigothic) tremissis with the name of Justin I have ever seen.

PS. This is not the coin below - the link changes to this picture.

This is a well-known fake, published by Sear, which production started in 1960th and is not uncommon on the market.

This is a piece of the American Numismatic Society with provenance to 1967 (I think it was from Newman collection, but cannot find this record now). It was recently re-photographed to update the Byzantine coin catalogue.

Shall contact the ANS?

I do keep the ANS in the highest regard as experts and leaders in numismatic research. I would not want to unnecessarily distract them or embarrass myself.

Justin I. Solidus (21mm, 4.46 g, 6h). Constantinople mint, 2nd officina. Struck 519-527. 

Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. Auction 85. 15/09/2010

18 hours ago, red_spork said:

Fakes are a different story. I report almost all of those unless the dealer or auction house is a regular source of problematic coins.

When I have itchy fingers to write to an auction house about another common fake on their listing, I think about the coin being also seen by …

• Peer experts from other auctions and dealers,
• Presidents and members of numismatic societies,
• Teams of organisations fighting fake coins (e.g., Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force),
• Leaders and members of numismatic trade associations,
• Numismatic academic professors, lecturers and fellows who published expertly and elegantly in the field,
• Curators of museum coin collections...

Who am I to keep challenging the sellers? A little collector at the bottom of the experts' chain.

A fellow enthusiast collector who did not learn about common fakes and bought the coin may

• later learn about fakes and return it to a reputable seller for a refund
• not to learn about them, enjoy believing in proud ownership of an ancient artefact and resell it honestly through another auction house, now with the added value of ex-provenance.

Plenty of other ways exist to make a dent for a better world. I sleep well.

8 hours ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

Anastasius, as I pointed out in my earlier article about his coinage reforms on Coin Talk, left 28 million solidi in the treasury upon his death. Hence there was no risk of default and/or need to extend the debt limit at that time.

This is an impressive number, even by imperial standards. I was curious about how trustworthy the ancient politicians and their official propaganda were.

For this (but mainly for other reasons), I have been collecting records of Anastasian gold coins, gradually sorting them by dies. As Western types are of more interest, the number of the currently sorted solidi from imperial mints (Constantinople and Thessaloniki) is relatively small - 1745 solidi from 971 obverse dies.

The below is the roughest estimate, without confidence intervals, with ever-criticised uncertainty on how mints functioned, how many coins were produced from a set of dies, etc. etc., and assuming 20,000 coins produced using an obverse die:

• 1,772 predicted obverse dies = 35 million solidi using Carter’s equation. 
• 2,189 predicted obverse dies = 44 million solidi using a simplified Etsy equation (used today to save time, but so far it always gives me the same results as the full Etsy 2011 approach).

This would be the number of solidi produced over the 27-year reign. If the estimates are any accurate, 28 million solidi would be a suspiciously massive chunk of it to be true.

In the past, I felt obliged to inform auctions about well-known fakes on their listings. This was no good news for anyone, with variable auction house reactions. I have stopped doing this. An exception would be one very reputable auction house, which took fakes most seriously and was grateful for pointing them out (such occurrences with them are exceptionally rare anyway). Moreover, they made an effort to investigate a suspected (expensive) fake very popular at the type, which since seems to be ceased from the market.

At any point, I can see 4-5 fake Anastasian gold coins on Numisbids and Biddr auctions, plus MA-Shops and VCoins (I can see 4 now, more recently sold for good prices). If I stop buying from auctions/dealers who sell fakes, there would be hardly any to buy from. The only solution I found is to learn more about the coins. I still do have several coins in doubts - will be my loss if happen to be fakes.

The period of Anastasius is my soft spot.

This period from 491 to 518 was a historical transition shaping Europe. Anastasius himself was a capable statesman surviving multiple perils, but the period witnessed several other personalities of grand political scale:

• Theodoric the Great, the king of Ostrogoths, took Italy from Odovacer and later controlled the Visigothic Kingdom, briefly uniting the Goths. He ruled with wisdom and generally had a good relationship with native Romans.
• Clovis, the King of Franks, united the Frankish tribes and had a significant role in the domination of Chalcenoian Christianity over Arians in the West. His early future was uncertain, being a young chief of Salian Franks in modern Belgium and northern France. He had to be on the move throughout his life. This is reflected in the period's fascinating but poorly understood Frankish coins - coins of Clovis and his four sons who ruled different parts of Clovis's realm after his death (likely 511). 
• Gundobad, the Burgundian king, patrician of Rome, and nephew of Ricimer, had to challenge his brothers for the Kingdom: Chilperic II, who ruled from Valence, south of France and died 493, and Godegisel, who ruled from Geneva, died 501. Gundobad had little quiet time leading multiple companies before leaving his Kingdom to his son Sigismund in 516.
• Visigoths were rather misfortunate with the loss of Toulouse to Francs and the death of Alaric II in 507, and controversial Gesalec rule from 507 to 511, until Theodoric's interference on behalf of the young Amalaric (his grandson and son of Alaric II).

There is much to learn about attributing their coins to rulers, mints and periods. All these rulers acknowledged the supreme (even if nominal) authority of the Roman Emperor in Constantinople by putting his name on gold and silver coins. Other people, including Gepids, possibly Turungians and Allemani, contributed to the minting. This makes them interesting despite the limited variety of types.

Solidus, Constantinople mint. Can be dated rather confidently to Sept 492-493 based on die studies. 

Numismad. Auction 6. 28/01/2023

Semissis, Constantinople mint, 492-507. 

Gorny & Mosch Giessener Münzhandlung. Auction 253. 05/03/2018. From the collection of a Munich doctor, acquired between the 1960s and late 1990s.

Tremissis, Constantinople mint, 492-518. 

Roma Numismatics Limited. Auction 12. 29/09/2016