A Saturday afternoon visit to my local coin shop, leaving with an Adventvs Avg Mavretaniae sestertius

robinjojo · April 9, 2023

Since yesterday was a bright and warm day, a welcome break from the nearly incessant storms that were rolling through the area over the past few months, I made a trip to my local coin dealer in Willow Glen. Willow Glen, part of San Jose, is a town in and of itself, with the main street, Lincoln, lined with restaurants and small shops, giving it an uncharacteristically old town feel, something generally absent in the urban sprawl that is Silicon Valley. The houses of this older community remind me of my old neighborhood in Detroit, with homes in different architectural styles on streets lined with fine old trees.

I never really know what to expect when visiting Sal's shop. True, there are the usual boxes that I have gone through before while we bititz about travel, family, coins, and rising costs of just about everything. This coin was in a box that I had gone through, but don't remember seeing before, but might have and just forgot, normal for me these days.

I've been looking, on a very low level of priority, for a travel type coin of Hadrian, the emperor who pioneered the package tour. Hadrian obviously had the travel bug; it's just too bad that they didn't have travel points back then - he sure would have racked them up! He produced coins in various denominations marking the progress of his visits around the empire.

Since I like sestertii for their large formats, this coin fits the bill. It does have its faults. It has been cleaned and probably smoothed. The strike is typically uneven and the surfaces have assorted scratches and deposits, what one would expect of coin whose residence has been somewhere in the ground for nearly two thousand years. On the plus side is a pleasant portrait of Hadrian, an emperor who was very particular about his depiction on coins. The reverse is admittedly rough, with a good portion of the legend not struck up. However, there just enough of the legend's ending visible "...TANIAE" for MAVRETANIAE. The design of the reverse is also consistent for this issue.

So, here the type travel coin that I now own for Hadrian, the "frequent flyer" of Roman times.

Hadrian, Æ Sestertius, ADVENTVS AVG MAVRETANIAE, Rome, circa 130-133 AD.

RIC II.3 1784

25.28 grams

Obverse
Bust of Hadrian, laureate, draped, right, viewed from rear or side.

Legend: HADRIANVS AVG COS III P P

Translation:
Hadrianus Augustus, Consul Tertium, Pater Patriae.
Hadrian, emperor (Augustus), consul for the third time, father of the nation.

Reverse
Hadrian, standing left, raising hand and holding scroll; facing him, Mauretania, standing right, holding patera and vexillum; between them, altar, with bull at the base.

Legend: ADVENTVS AVG MAVRETANIAE, S C in exergue

Translation:
Adventui Augusti Mauretaniae. Senatus Consultum.
Adventus (Roman welcoming ceremony) of the emperor (Augustus) to Mauretania. Decree of the senate.

Please feel free to post your travel coins, or those of Hadrian and his family, or anything else.

Thanks!

Edited April 9, 2023 by robinjojo

CPK · April 9, 2023

That is an entirely respectable coin, with a nice portrait and good details still left on the reverse. Congratulations!

I've yet to acquire any of Hadrian's travel coinage, but that's only because of a lack of funds, not interest! I am fascinated by the sheer variety of coinage depicting all the far-flung and exotic places visited by that energetic Emperor.

Nerosmyfavorite68 · April 9, 2023

It's always nice to go to a physical coin shop. My 'local' (a fair distance away) coin shop, although the ancients selection isn't great, was a comfort to go to.

It sounded like a very pleasant trip. Congrats on finding a nice type.

Julius Germanicus · April 10, 2023

Wow! I wish I had a coin shop like that in my town…

At least I have a chance to post the generous gift I received from my friend Qcumbor:

HADRIANVS AVG COS III P P - Bare headed and draped bust of Hadrian right /
RESTITVTORI HISPANIAE, S C in exergue – Hadrian, togated, standing left, holding scroll in left hand, holding out his right hand to Hispania knelt in front of him, with an olive-branch on left shoulder. Between them: a rabbit to the right
Sestertius, Rome 130-133 AD

33 mm / 24.3 gr / 12 h

RIC 1866 (scarce); BMCRE 1816 note; Cohen 1263; Sear 3633; Banti 661 (7 specimens); Cayon 653 (same dies as specimen illustrated on p. 199)

And here is my AEGYPTOS:

HADRIANVS AVG COS III PP - Bare-headed draped bust of Hadrian right /

AEGYPTOS, S C in exergue- Ægyptos reclining left, leaning left elbow on a basket of fruit, holding up sistrum in right hand, ibis on column in front

Sestertius, Rome 130-133 AD

32 mm / 24.86g / 12 h

RIC 1595; BMCRE 1692; Cohen 110; Sear 3572; Banti 42 (3 specimens), Cayon 81 (800 SFR)

ex Dix Noonan Webb Auction 257 (13,07.2022), lot 990

Edited April 10, 2023 by Julius Germanicus

DonnaML · April 10, 2023

Congratulations, @robinjojo. Somehow I never seem to come across any bronze coins from Hadrian's Travel Series. Nor, as far as I know, is there anything like a real "local coin shop" anymore in Manhattan except a few "we buy gold"-type places, some jewelry stores (and one barber shop I came across!) that have a few coins, Brigandi (which is more of a sports memorabilia place now; its ancient coins are all slabbed and tend to be overpriced), and Stack's Bowers, which hardly counts as your friendly neighborhood coin store.

Here, from another thread last month, is my "virtual tray" of Hadrian Travel Series denarii (including a couple that don't technically qualify but are certainly related):

Edited April 10, 2023 by DonnaML

robinjojo · April 10, 2023

4 hours ago, Julius Germanicus said:

Wow! I wish I had a coin shop like that in my town…

At least I have a chance to post the generous gift I received from my friend Qcumbor:

HADRIANVS AVG COS III P P - Bare headed and draped bust of Hadrian right /
RESTITVTORI HISPANIAE, S C in exergue – Hadrian, togated, standing left, holding scroll in left hand, holding out his right hand to Hispania knelt in front of him, with an olive-branch on left shoulder. Between them: a rabbit to the right
Sestertius, Rome 130-133 AD

33 mm / 24.3 gr / 12 h

RIC 1866 (scarce); BMCRE 1816 note; Cohen 1263; Sear 3633; Banti 661 (7 specimens); Cayon 653 (same dies as specimen illustrated on p. 199)

And here is my AEGYPTOS:

HADRIANVS AVG COS III PP - Bare-headed draped bust of Hadrian right /

AEGYPTOS, S C in exergue- Ægyptos reclining left, leaning left elbow on a basket of fruit, holding up sistrum in right hand, ibis on column in front

Sestertius, Rome 130-133 AD

32 mm / 24.86g / 12 h

RIC 1595; BMCRE 1692; Cohen 110; Sear 3572; Banti 42 (3 specimens), Cayon 81 (800 SFR)

ex Dix Noonan Webb Auction 257 (13,07.2022), lot 990

Nice coins, especially the second. That first coin was indeed a wonderful gift.

I noticed that these sestertii have profiles of Hadrian with a laurel wreath and bare head. I am not at all familiar with these coins and the scarcity factor between these two varieties. Can anyone help?

robinjojo · April 10, 2023

4 hours ago, DonnaML said:

Congratulations, @robinjojo. Somehow I never seem to come across any bronze coins from Hadrian's Travel Series. Nor, as far as I know, is there anything like a real "local coin shop" anymore in Manhattan except a few "we buy gold"-type places, some jewelry stores (and one barber shop I came across!) that have a few coins, Brigandi (which is more of a sports memorabilia place now; its ancient coins are all slabbed and tend to be overpriced), and Stack's Bowers, which hardly counts as your friendly neighborhood coin store.

Here, from another thread last month, is my "virtual tray" of Hadrian Travel Series denarii (including a couple that don't technically qualify but are certainly related):

Thank you, Donna. And thank you for posting your travel series denarii. Are the denarii more readily available? Are there gold issues as well?

I'm afraid that my Roman coin references are quite rudimentary with only Van Meter as my main reference, and there seem to be some gaps there, although I do find it very handy.

Ancient Coin Hunter · April 10, 2023

I wasn't aware of any coin outlets in the Bay Area dealing with ancients. I used to go to Frank Kovacs' office on Post St. in the city to buy coins and pick up his auction by mail catalogs. Long gone. Now that I sold my Bay Area home in June and moved to Washington I still haven't found a local dealer. It must be very gratifying to find a coin in a shop, like how many of us started out years ago.

robinjojo · April 10, 2023

Coin shop are a dying breed. I've known Sal Falcone going back to 1980, shortly after I moved to the San Jose area in 1979. He started out as a "vest pocket" dealer. I remember meeting him at his car to buy coins. His original shop in the 1980s was a really hole-in-the-wall kind of place was near Valley Medical Center, in a seedy part of Bascom Avenue. He moved to a larger shop in Willow Glen in the early 1990s. His shop sell bullion coins, US coins, world coins, currency (US and world) and some ancients. He used to have more ancients, but since he stopped doing the coin show circuit, his world and ancient stock as dwindled, although sometimes he gets new coins. He bought some ancients a couple of weeks ago that I look forward to seeing. His shop is cluttered and somewhat disorganized, but that's part of the fun visiting the place, which may close in a couple of years, who knows?

Ancient Coin Hunter · April 10, 2023

13 minutes ago, robinjojo said:

Coin shop are a dying breed. I've known Sal Falcone going back to 1980, shortly after I moved to the San Jose area in 1979. He started out as a "vest pocket" dealer. I remember meeting him at his car to buy coins. His original shop in the 1980s was a really hole-in-the-wall kind of place was near Valley Medical Center, in a seedy part of Bascom Avenue. He moved to a larger shop in Willow Glen in the early 1990s. His shop sell bullion coins, US coins, world coins, currency (US and world) and some ancients. He used to have more ancients, but since he stopped doing the coin show circuit, his world and ancient stock as dwindled, although sometimes he gets new coins. He bought some ancients a couple of weeks ago that I look forward to seeing. His shop is cluttered and somewhat disorganized, but that's part of the fun visiting the place, which may close in a couple of years, who knows?

There is a bullion and U.S. coins place in Albany (adjacent to Berkeley) but they had to buzz you in through the bullet proof glass entrance. I picked up some coin flips there. Sort of disorganized as well. They had a cat which wandered around the counters, probably the most interesting thing about the place.

DonnaML · April 11, 2023

5 hours ago, robinjojo said:

Thank you, Donna. And thank you for posting your travel series denarii. Are the denarii more readily available? Are there gold issues as well?

The denarii are definitely more common than the bronzes. The latter tend to be quite worn when I do see them. I am pretty sure that at least some types were issued in gold -- I believe, without checking, that I've seen the Aegyptos type in gold, among others.