ela126

4 hours ago, CPK said:

Fantastic coin @ela126! But...

Hah I just don’t find it challenging, outside of having the capital available to purchase it. I collected American for a long time and assembled the American gold typeset, but the effort only came from deciding how much you wanted to spend for your mint state quality coin. 
 

a bit more skill is involved with ancients, but they still seem to be relatively common treasury coins. I much rather chase a rare and higher grade copper or silver example. The shopping/treasure hunting part is the fun part!

Just got this in a few days ago. Borrowed this description from the seller, I don’t like gold but this had a pleasing portrait.

“Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine (Constantine III), Joint Rule 

613-641 AD (613-619 AD) 

AV Solidus

Uncertain Military Mint in South-Eastern Anatolia (CONOB) 

SB 851 ; Bendall Type 4 

4.49g ; 21mm

Reverse: VICTORIA AVGU I // Cross potent on three steps

Obverse: dd NN hERACLIUS ET hERA CONST PP AV // Facing busts of Heraclius on left, of broad appearance, and with very short beard, and Heraclius Constantine, unbearded, on right, both crowned and wearing chlamys; cross between heads; exergual line below

- See Bendall's The Byzantine Coinage of the Mint of Jerusalem for an analysis of possible mint locations and descriptions of Bendall Type 4 Solidii. Based on the article, coins with reverse legends ending in I are rarer and likely earlier than those ending in  IП and IX“

1 hour ago, Anaximander said:

The attribution 1435 is to James Roberts, Silver Coins of Medieval France, #1435 = Gariel plate XXXV #248. These both have a normal-facing L in the KAROLVS monogram, so yours is a variant.  Another attribution: M&G 805 (on page 204), who cites Prou 278-281 and Gariel 248.  

Thanks for this guidance. I don’t have a lot of experience here. Appreciate it 

Olympus was my biggest frown 35 euros for DHL, took 4 weeks (3 weeks of which was due to them not shipping)

Biga was mentioned, 5 euros untracked (excellent for a <100) purchase.

n&n London just got me for 42 euros, Altho extremely fast at 36 hours from Belgium to USA.

only good stuff to say about Sol. 20 euro DHL tracked, receipt 3 days from auction. And the 9 euro option is less than 10 days. 
 

Artemide is only 17 euro, no complaint yet. But they still have to ship, hopefully this week.

To have faces on all 3 individuals is a rare thing for sure!

@quant.geek this is definitely the case. Tiberius III coins seems very close to a few Constantine IV and J2 reign 1 pieces, so at times, simply no attribution is given. A good amount may be slipping through in this way.

i do wonder how many post J2 reign 2 emperors are sailing through. I think a lot of us have our ears up these days. But there are pretty terrible examples out there. 

I’m not huge into anything but Byzantine. However I feel I upgraded my Athenian owl this week by selling a graded copy with a wonderful surface, and truncated nose, to one with a slightly worse surface, slightly worse owl (mark in chest), but very superior strike otherwise.

Ever since Aaron Burke mentioned “don’t buy an Owl with the nose off the flan”, it’s been an itch I’ve needed to scratch. So, now I’ve corrected that. and I also get to handle it.

@ewomack pretty solid coin for what it is. Portrait is in good/almost great shape for what these looks like. Very cool coin.

i have one Tiberius III piece, although admittedly I don’t reach for it much. The facial portrait is so important and this piece just doesn’t have it. (I’ve really gotten critical on portraits recently selling coins with bad portraits to replace them)

this piece is a SB 1367 from Constantinople. Very obviously it has the face off the flan. The rest of the obverse is very nice though. Reverse leaves a lot to be desired. Very rough and poorly struck.

The coin does have excellent provenance though.

ex Ed Waddell

ex Mike Gasvoda

ex CNG

this is my oldest verified provenance. Bought from a dealer in GB who got it from Baldwins. Per Baldwins, tickets are written in Fred Baldwin and his dad’s, the founder. So pre 1932 I believe.

Oh ya, the coin, it’s an Edward the confessor, front facing portrait. Deets on the tickets. I’ve slabed the coin with NGC about 2 years ago. MS63 I think.. not that it means anything.

@Marsyas Mike I’ve seen these examples from time to time but never noticed the weight. I will keep a closer eye on this in the future 

If I’m reading it right, this is a year 37. Little, slightly ugly, probably fake patina, chunk deca from Antioch. sB 239. Pretty big at 5.92g

very cool example, was this on eBay? One of my friends from Reddit may have been chasing this was well. He was pretty bummed not to win. Good for you! Hah

i do have two examples, although because of Constantine IV and his attempt at a monetary reform, which failed, it mucks it up. The first I think is Deflation, then to inflation with the second example.

Please forgive me about the sear numbers, I don’t have my notes infront me me.

Constantine VI decanummi, over struck on a Constans II Follis. This is a 6.5g decanummi from ~670, which was overstruck on Follis from 10-15 years earlier. This followed the Large super follis that Constantine IV put out near the beginning of he reign, that quickly fell apart. You can see the crown of Constans above Constantine on the obverse and the crowns of the 3 children on the reverse, in what should be the exegue. 
 

now to the inflation, this is a Justinian II first reign Half follis. This example is an obvious cut coin. Harlan Berk has said these were made from the large Constantine iv follis, which I’ve checked and math works quite well. This example is exactly 5.00g. (With the host follis being in the 20g region), so a 50% inflation, 80 nummi made from a follis.

Some tasty coins, probably above my price range but cool to see. That Joint reign is crazy, only saw this in the sear book. One of those mythical coins

2 hours ago, CaveBear2 said:

This remind me I have so many coin to clean. But I don't know where to start.

Just putting them in distilled water for a few months and changing the water regulary while removing deposits with a toothpick from time to time should do the trick right? 

that is the most conservative option to clean a coin, but unless the dirt is soft, that doesn't yield meaningful results. If you're in no rush though, that's where to start.

I usually soak in distilled water for a few days, then i use, primarily, a very sharp diamond pin in a pin vice under a microscope at 20x mag. using little to no pressure, i run that over the dirt. It makes rather quick work of most deposits. Obviously it can be a bit more invovled, really comes down to a case by case basis

11 hours ago, Limes said:

Besides the coin, I also like your rarity bar 🙂 Did you create it yourself? How does it work / do you use it; from a scale of 1 - 10? 

This is MArc Breitsprecher's Rarity bar/scale. I can't claim any credit. I only look at his Byzantine's coins, but i never see anything below a 5, although i've seen coins listed up to 10's. (coins which i've never seen before)

I assume it's his 40+ years of experience regarding how he does the rarity's

Dang. Ive watched the hammer groups on FB for several years and I’m not sure if I’ve heard of 2 or 3 of those. Wow

I picked this one up a few days ago from Marc B.. my first Leo 3. Looking at a few other examples, while the strike leaves a bit to be desired, the size of the flan is huge for the type, it’s a wafer thin example, kind of amazing it survived unbent and undamaged.

I used Marc’s write up here:

Attribution: Sear Byzantine 1530 Syracuse mint
Date: AD 721-730
Obverse: Facing bust of Leo, holding globus cruciger
Reverse: Facing bust of Constantine V, holding globus cruciger; large M below
Size: 26.17mm
Weight: 2.99 grams
Rarity:  6
Description: VF. ex Bill Rosenblum with his tag priced at $150.
 

1 hour ago, Simon said:

A win from last night. I have several of his electrum trachea, they are always low in gold content. The price on this one made it a steal.

Alexius III Angelus-Comnenus (AD 1195-1203). EL aspron trachy (29mm, 4.30 gm, 6h). NGC Choice XF 4/5 - 3/5, edge chips. Constantinople, AD 1197-1203. IC-XC (barred), full length figure of Christ seated facing on backless throne, wearing nimbus cruciger, pallium and colobium, raising right hand in benediction, book of Gospels on lap / AΛЄZIΩΩ Δ-ЄCΠ KOMNHNΩ, Alexius III (on left) and St. Constantine (on right) standing facing, each wearing crown, divitision and loros, cruciform scepter on outer arm, both holding labarum between them. Sear 2010.

Ex Freeman & Sear, Mail Bid Sale 8 (5 February 2003), lot 548.

 

 

i watched this hammer. awesome price on it!

It did seem to be one of the few slabbed pieces that went at a discount. overall i thought the prices were on the higher side., albiet generally nice pieces.

So, I very much dislike the idea of reshowing a recently shared coin (showed this in October or so), but I it is an attractive one. I cleaned this sand patina myself and I felt like I did a good job. happy with the facial expression on the coin, although I wish it were a smile, Anastasius did a wonderful job as emperor and should have more of a smile on there. 

Anastasius 1 - Antioch - SB 47 - 17.83g

23 hours ago, rasiel said:

Hmmmm.... attractive Byzantine is almost an oxymoron. Ok, what about this one? There's a certain elegant minimalism in the Theophilus era. Looks like a cartoon but can't quite place it. Was it the palace guard in Shrek?

Rasiel

Really like this coin. I’m not a gold collector but I really appreciate this style 

29 minutes ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

Nice improvement. The trick I suppose is knowing when to stop the cleaning effort.

that is defnitely the case.

sometimes taking pictures, setting the coin down for a while, looking at the picture and idenifying small areas to work on, and just those small areas, is what is needed. Otherwise you get carried away and then you're required to clean the whole thing off. been there a few times

As a follow up to my 2 small purchases on Sunday. I’m happy to say 1 of the 2 turned out nicely.

Uncleaned coins can have a lot of potential, the eye has to look for the quality of exposed high points, then make an assumption that there is quality underneath. This coin was pretty easy to make that call.

before and after a sand patina cleaning. Probably going to stop for now, no wax on this one as it makes sand patinas look weird. Definitely good for the type.

Phocas - Half Follis - Cyzicus - SB 670 - 7.12g 27x23mm

before

after

13 minutes ago, John Conduitt said:

It's always the most expensive that arrive by DHL or someone with the invoice attached to the outside and the price in bold.

"So this is why we aren't renting the beach house this year"

Vasja at Sol is excellent to work with and i always like to exchange a few emails with him after an auction.

Just bought a coin from Marc B on his website last night (frankly with money i didn't really have, oh the wife will be yelling about the CC). mentioned a previous coin i bought from him and how happy i was. He kindly responded with some additional information on the coin i just purchased. Really liked that.

Just to jump on board the class I Anon train. Here’s one with a little too much photo editing (but really not all that much)

Still not as good as some of the others though, this was a “large snack”.