JAZ Numismatics

I had no idea German imitations of Byzantine coins even existed. Thank you for the post!

1 hour ago, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

And how come a lot of auction coins have that same, greenish look, like the ones DonnaML posted?  I've noticed that on acsearch listings.

1 hour ago, ela126 said:

Someone has a nice color concoction going it seems, then sprinkle a little dirt on it and wax…

No, not necessarily. Many auction houses turn down the color saturation in their images. It helps the image convey the details of the coin. CNG is one example - their images are desaturated halfway to black-and-white. It makes everything look the same. I'm willing to bet the coins Donna posted have very normal patinas in hand that look quite different. That's not to say coins aren't tooled and repatinated. There are a few dealers that are notorious for it.

I was just going to make this thread but you beat me to it!

I can see the video just fine, using Chrome. Great looking coin, congratulations!

Two random Byzantines that I acquired only because I really liked the colorful patinas. Anonymous Christ follis, half follis of Maurice Tiberius...

The weights are on the low side, and the surfaces don't look struck. Do you see any evidence of seams on the edges?

54 minutes ago, Roman Collector said:

Other than Victory -- which seems to have been acceptable to the early Christians in authority -- I think the last Roman deity to be portrayed was Venus on the reverse of Galeria Valeria. 

Huh? Valeria was empress from 305 to 311. After her came a whole slew of Tetrarchical and Constantinian types with Jupiter, Sol (sometimes holding Serapis' head), and occasionally Mars. That's off the top of my head. There's probably more.

The cutoff was no LARGER than 13mm. Go as small as you have. Great coins everyone!

I believe it is Tyche, and the scene is meant to symbolize the submission of local governmental authority to the crown, an expression of hierarchy. Tyche was, after all, a civic deity - the protectress of cities. The true Gloria Romanorum was its social organization. That's what enabled the empire's vast and complex civilization. 

But by the Valentinian Dynasty, Christianity had become firmly established, and it's possible the scene had a double meaning: the submission of paganism to the Christian emperor, who was in the 4th and 5th centuries still considered pontifex maximus.

You did well. The coin has some wear and porosity, but it's honest. The larger Ptolemaic bronzes get tooled all too frequently, and sometimes they have thick, unsightly deposits. Yours is a great coin for the price.

1 hour ago, Tiny Child said:

My smallest coin is my Uncia/Half Quadrans of Trajan coming in at 11.5 millimeters.

Trajan, Uncia, Rome Mint (for circulation in Syria), Struck 117

 

Obverse Design: Laureate and draped bust of Trajan right.

Reverse Design and “Legends”: SC within wreath.

That's a VERY scarce coin in a very nice grade.

I hope I don't jinx myself by doing this, but I'll post a few coins that I only won today. I decided to fool around on eBay for a bit, and ended finding a few interesting things. I absolutely do NOT recommend this practice to the unseasoned. eBay is brimming full of fakes, fantasy pieces, low grade common junk, overpriced low grade common junk, and criminally overpriced slabs. I've rarely found anything on eBay that I was interested in - it's looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. But today I made off with three nice coins...

The first is a hemidrachm of Tabaristan. These are very common in high grades, but I only paid $22 shipped, so that's a nice deal...

The second is a provincial bronze of Nero from Prymnessus, Phrygia. I went looking for examples of this type and came across this very specimen, which was sold by Roma in 2022, and again last month. Coin Archives link. I paid twice what it hammered at Roma, but that was only 24 GPB! Another nice deal. I've never owned a coin from Prymnessus...

Finally, one seller was offering a dupondius of Trajan which was actually a semis, the type issued for use in Syria. He was asking a dupondius price, but when I explained to him that it was a semis, he graciously accepted my offer. As you all know, this isn't a rare coin by any means. However, if you look closely, you'll see that it's a legend variant. The common legends are Obv.: IMP CAES NER TRIANO OPTIMO AVG GERM, Rev.: DAC PARTHICO P M TR POT XX COS VI PP. Notice on this coin that the engraver has placed the honorifics DAC and PARTHICO on the obverse, and the reverse is simplified to P M TR POT XX COS VI PP. This legend variant is not listed in RIC. It's probably listed somewhere else, but I haven't had a chance to look it up yet. If it isn't listed anywhere, I have a significant variant to debut.

A satisfying day of coin hunting!

I always have to set aside an afternoon to read your dissertations Donna, lol. Lots of very cool coins in that first post! Wow.

I currently have one of the Nero/Alexandria tets. The date is off-flan, but this type was only struck in RY12 according to my sources, AD 65/6. At this stage they still poured enough silver into the sludge to make the coins look silvery...

A thread for your smallest coins, let's see them! 13mm is the cut-off. I'll start with a minute bronze of Neandreia. Pretty solid detail for an 11mm coin...

I know decrying fakes on eBay is like sweeping water, but just in case any of you were tempted to bid on this guy's stuff, DON'T. I didn't look at all of it, but what I did see was all fake, and it's just deceptive enough to fool a beginner, some of it might have fooled me if I hadn't looked very closely...

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=numis-gallery&store_name=getod4&_sop=1&_oac=1

Here's a fairly rare provincial of Augustus I recently came across...

Incidentally the practice of making medallions out of larger medals persisted into 20th century presidential inaugurations. The US mint always issues an official (large) inauguration medal, and then a few private companies make copies of them about the size of half dollars. That size makes them much more convenient as mementos. If you're into modern medals, an interesting collection would consist of both official and unofficial inauguration medals.

Here's Sol going for his morning jog...

Theodosian Dynasty gold and silver is typically well-struck, the bronze isn't. So as much as I like your new solidus, and all the gold in your collection, the most impressive piece is the maiorina of Aelia Flacilla. I've never seen a better one.

11 minutes ago, NewStyleKing said:

Where the fascination with the banal, quotidian old style is...

They may be banal and quotidian to some of us that have seen a thousand of them, but their appeal in-hand to new (and non-ancient) collectors is huge. Whenever I do a show and people see I have ancients, they always ask to see an old style owl, and they're always impressed more by that coin than by any other.

On 8/19/2023 at 10:34 PM, Roman Collector said:

You want to see weekly slabbed doofus purchases? Go to Great Collections Ancients section on a Sunday. Here's an example. $120 Claudius II antoninianus anyone?
 

 

Well now I know what to do with my 3rd century ants. I can't sell the things even if they come with free beer and dancing girls.

1 hour ago, NewStyleKing said:

Yes, John, but the prices!  So far a handful at £600 ( even 1 with a test cut!), ,1 at £900 with test cut! and 1 at £1700!!!!  Oh seriously!. I am familiar with old styles and I just don't geddit! Didn't CNG sell a lot at a good fixed price and they selected the coin!!  Size, weight and head crests I sort of get but some/ most of them.....meh!

Did you see these two New Styles in Auction XXX? Gorgeous...

Lot 132

Lot 133

My experience as a dealer is that owls are the one ancient coin many collectors of moderns like to own, so the demand for them is always larger than for other ancient coins.

That's a beautiful collection, Michael, and I love the composite image in the first post. That's my favorite kind of eye-candy. My only coin of Lucilla at the moment is a sestertius which is well-circulated, but undamaged and sporting a nice patina. I love these kind of sestertii...

Lucilla, AD 164-182
Æ sestertius, 30mm, 24.3g, 12h; Rome mint.
Obv.: LVCILLAE AVG ANTONINI AVG F; Draped bust right.
Rev.: VENVS; Venus standing front, head left, holding apple in extended right hand and vertical scepter in left; S – C
Ref.: RIC 1763 (Marcus Aurelius).

It seems to me that the difference between an hallucination and a vision is in how the event influences the future. Constantine had some sort of vision because whatever it was, it changed the course of his life - and history. There's no point telling him it was an hallucination. That's for him to decide. As for related coins, here is an AE3 of Constantius II with VIctory holding two sun-dogs, err...wreaths, and a Chi-Rho in the right field...