ela126

Two of my favorites, I do wish I was collecting these earlier. I love when they use the local post and not fedex/dhl. Tbilisi, Georgia to USA, $5.00 shipping!

I think this is most certainly the norm. While i think there is replacement or upgrades of lower end items occuring for everyone, the best pieces are most often kept, even if just to serve as a "check box" in ones mind. Personally I've switched from collecting American, dabbled in mideval, to now Byzantine, but i could not imagine liquidating the collection i was once proud of and learned so much from. Those pieces and collection are a reflection of our priorities at that point in time and can be remembered as such

This is a great discussion section as it's something my wife and i have had to balance in the last 4 years as we transitioned for early to mid 30 year old, childless, professionals, with a respectable income. To now late 30's with two children and a spouse with a reduced work volume and income. We've had to significantly adjust our ratio of spending on the "wants" over to the needs, all while my collecting has increased, due to a more home based father requirement to young children. The balance my wife and i have found in this regard is on a monthly basis, after all the needs are satisfied (with daycare being now the largest expense, by far), and our "financial goals" are paid (401k, Roth IRA, college savings) which are automatically invested weekly, we look at the remaining funds. To not cause any fights, we split that money equally, into our personal bank accounts. (we hold a joint account for all need based expesnses). This disbursement is an exciting time as both of us spend that money quickly. Me on coins, her on designer purses. We sometimes do overrun the disbursement amount, and at those times, that is debited from the next monthly disbursement, or we sell things (coins/purses) ourselves. Where i take solace in this spending for both of us is as mentioned by @Hrefn, they are liquidable items. Maybe not for the entire purchase value, although value buying is a great deal of the fund, but these can be sold, if needed. The need to sell hopefully will never arise. Each of us have different financial situations, but as @Prieure de Sion has highlighted, being in a position where one must sell coins quickly to pay new coin invoices, or worse, a mortgage payment, is a situation i feel a collector may need to step back from. As with any addiction, proximity to the addictive item is the primary sustaining and execerabting factor. Stepping back cold turkey is required for a period of reset and reflection. Once the daily stimuli of auctions and other members new purchases is removed, i think the collector can realign their spending and priorities. Absolutely agree here, which is why i collect Byzantine bronze these days. While there certainly is a high end market for coins, there is a steeply reduced potential customer base available. Holding a 5,000 dollar coin, while beautiful, would be concerning as to what the net loss might be on it's sale. This is an important part too, as one matures the collection, there is less of a rush to buy. Patience can take over the purchasing process rather than the desire to amass a horde.

I felt like this may be the case but I wasn’t sure. I’m unclear if “blundered” sometimes means “poorly executed off flan” versus “gibberish” in sear descriptions. So a case of an illiterate engraver thinking “have to get about 14 letters here to make this look legit”, and in this situation, “oh I nailed it”

The inscription on the obverse caught my eye as it’s unusually clear, but also seemingly incorrect. From what I understand it should read.. IN VSPNLVΛNV PP CC AVG However it doesn’t seem to read that at all. Is this common on these? very clearly see a ..OMDIVSLC..

Ohhh that year 31 has a beautiful strike! Wonderful coin. the year 35 seems like it could clean up a bit. Do you believe the coin is stable as it sits?

My guess is the Tiberius, which had an excellent obverse, was left partially uncleaned due to the corrosion on the reverse, and while the obverse would be immaculate if cleaned, the cleaner probably determined leaving the coin more balanced with having both sides with some dirt.

Bit rough with my cleaning but this is the end result. I’m happy with it. weight is 5.95g

A new nummi denomiation reverse for me. Recieved from the great @Valentinian. I have what I'd like to think is a pretty good collection of the different nummi denominations from the 6th and 7th centry. I believe this is my 25th type. I'll need to make a dedicated post at some point. This one being a V V decanummium. Constans IV - 641-668 Decanummium Carthage Mint - minted 643-647 2.44g 14mm Sear- 1064

wonderful work! thank you for sharing.

Oh those are quite attractive. Thank you for the research

i appreciate you not getting into a bidding war with me.. Altho i doubt i would have gone much further. Upon further light research, the only other SB 1427 i can find in Acsearch or really anywhere recently is the Berk example, which seems to not have sold in their 2020 buy or bid sale for $900, and is up on Ma-shops for $950 or so. seems to be an a close match with the retrograde R and a gamma officina. Wildwinds, Labarum, nor EBCC seem to have examples, so quite rare. There are 2 other sear 1427 listed in DOC though. 11b and 11c, these actually do carry the retrograde R as well, with officinas A and B, both from the same Swiss collection (1956). R is said to be "entirely enigmatic".. so we may never know... i will continue the search. Wonderful example you have. I very much appreciate the cleaned look of yours and the details on the obverse are all quite clear, which can be a rarity for coins of this era.

Very recent auction win from biddr (15 minutes ago). Some of you may be familiar with Sol Numismatik. I began my smaller Nummi denomination collection from their offerings last year. Trying to branch out, I decided to go after this piece among others, as I don’t have many pieces from the early 8th century. I’m a journeyman coin cleaner so not terribly bothered by the dirt, which I’ll evaluate and likely clean. Much of his offerings seem to come from the Antioch region with similar dirt coverings. From a rarity perspective, is this coin something special as is mentioned? I do trust Vasja’s classifications but wanted a thought or two since there seems to be some major expertise here. I see Berk has one listed for 950 but we know those are usually inflated BIN prices. Otherwise it’s not found much from my brief searches I paid roughy $145 all in, happy to share that. thanks

Thank you for the replies and insight. I’ll leave this as my initial thought of just damage, although with the even toning, certainly done long ago

I’m assuming the answer here is no, just damage, but I have a lowly Justinian 1 sb 241, 1.82g from Antioch with interesting parallel scrapes which remind me of filling marks “control marks” to adjust coin weight. I saw one other mention of this a while ago on a Facebook coin group, before then I just considered it a damaged coin. I can’t see the need to control weight on such a coin, but the uniformity of the lines makes me wonder if this was purposely done. Anyone come across similar examples?

There are different levels of preciseness and outputs, of XRF as with any analyzer. I have gone to simple gold buyer shops with my coins, and they freely did XRF scans on them (literally takes 5 seconds) and can give a basic Gold, Silver, Copper output, with percentages of each. This is because it's all the spectra (might not be the right term, that's for IR sourced analyzers) loaded into the XRF due to their interest. This one situation was an Olympus model XRF. On Oak Island as many of us may have seen, they are able to get considerably more outputs with their unit. Lead, nickel, mercury, etc. As you mention, these are likely university level analyzers which are considerably more expensive. (i'm a analyzer salesman for gaseous compounds for my day job) So, if you're ok with very basic percentage copper value on your bronze, you may be able to do it for free.. if you want a good breakdown, it sounds like you've found it's expensive. (dont even toy with buying a university level resolution analyzer, likely $100k+)

I’m late to the game but here’s my Basil waiting

i would guess grab bags are only worth it for those collectors just starting out.,where a variety of anything, in low grades, would be of interest, as i'm sure the dealer has carefully selected non-valuable items. Anything of even moderate value would be reserved for pick bowls.

My two Trebizond coins: frankly I’m not 100% sure on the sear numbers as it seems there are a few very close styles with different attributions. Feel free to correct me. Manuel 1 1238-1263 - Asper - SB 2601 - 2.87g. Quite pleased with the detail on this one. John II 1280-1297 - Asper - SB 2609 - 2.84g. Double struck on reverse.

i would agree, both obverse and reverse.

John VIII Starvaton - 6.71g As Warren mentioned, strike is commonly poor. But a good chunk of silver. Almost identical in size to the Hexagrams 800 years earlier.

What an excellent coin with a solid portrait. Not too bad of a price at all either. I have a few lesser material Carthage pieces, all of which I enjoy. Justinian 1 - Siliqua - 1.19g - SB 253 HTI Justinian 1 Follis - 17.71g - SB 257 - Struck 534-539 Justinian 1 - 2 nummi -1.41g - SB 277 Forgot my favorite one. Phocas - 20 Nummi - 7.75g - SB 685 poorly struck obverse and very chunky

my Michael IX and Andronicus II pieces, Basilicon and Hyperpyron. Don’t have the tags in front of me.

My modest Michael VIII (1261-1282) AE Trachy, 2.56g, SB 2263

While ANACS had zero reply after 3 attempts with pictures and descriptions (I’ve had this coin for a year). I contacted Heritage asking what can be done. Within 24 hours I am being offered a refund of the cracked out coin, however I must return the coin to them (I presume to go into their black cabinet) before the ~$200 refund is given. They are sending me a label and mailer to return to them now. I only wonder if the coin as a curiosity is worth keeping instead of recieving the refund… any thoughts?