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Leu wins thread


kirispupis

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Thought I'd start a thread for your wins from the latest Leu auction.

I really have to say that the auction couldn't have gone more perfectly for me...though a bit too perfectly.

As I approached the auction I had 9 coins I was watching. Just before it started, all 9 looked reasonable. However, that week we'd had a ruptured pipe in the house and I knew that it wasn't going to be cheap to fix it. We needed about 40 feet of new pipe and our downstairs carpet was ruined and had to be replaced. That wouldn't be cheap.

So, I had to rethink my priorities. In order to cut back, I decided to not bid on a different auction held the same day and I organized the Leu coins I was watching into priorities. One was a Pri 1, three were Pri 2, and five were Pri 3. So, I cut it to only the Pri 1 and Pri 2 (four coins) and didn't bid on the rest. Of those I bid on, two I felt would go quite high so I placed conservative bids and figured it was okay to lose on them, while I was relatively aggressive with the last two.

To my shock I won all four coins!

Two will require full write-ups, but here are the other two.

orchomenos.jpg.85bcaf34c2626a241330659aa817fe53.jpg

I've been after a decent Orchomenos example for some time along with some other Boeotian cities. I know this one's a bit worn, but I like the look and I far prefer a shield coin to a bronze issue I thought I'd wind up with.

latmos.jpg.45a969a4df49c2cdd7e1e0107340fcd1.jpg

Coins of Latmos are incredibly rare and one sold for 5x what I paid here in the recent Nomos auction.

Of course, I couldn't resist wondering what I could have gotten the other five coins for. 🙂 So, I looked them up and discovered that - had I bid - I probably wouldn't have won any of them.

Therefore, the auction went about as perfectly as it could. The only problem is I was trying to save money and I wound up spending a lot more since I hadn't anticipated winning every coin I bid on. Oh well. I'm extremely excited for these to arrive regardless.

Let's see your Leu (or other recent auction) wins!

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There were 3 coins that I really wanted from that auction, 2 denarii of Vespasian and 1 of Trajan. But I work in a hospital and I suddenly had to help there because a new colleague couldn't handle all of the patients. I only worked during 3 hours but it was exactly during the time of the auction when the coins that I wanted were sold. The coins were sold for quite little, I would have bid more. Well... there will be other opportunities and none of these coins were unique. That's what I tell myself.

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Congrats!! It's great when an auction comes together like that. Those are a couple of cool wins, and I look forward to seeing the other two!

As is my wont, I placed a lot of bids but didn't win much.  I don't like to pre-bid, but needs must... I can't bid in my sleep!  As a result I ended up with two of the Koson Droueis drachms, which I became fascinated with due to an old post by @Curtisimo back at the other place.

image.jpeg.400b90107989713264033e98bd54af19.jpegimage.jpeg.891edf0171662b22ad7bcb90a67d40f8.jpeg

Thankfully I've already got a taker for my duplicate. 🙂 (Snagged them at half of what they usually go for.)

I'm hoping @Roerbakmix's method will help wash Nero's face on this coin:

image.png.a070a87c402fa24827ec13481a8d2870.png

Very cute Nike, no?

And since I enjoy bidding on turds everyone else at Leu avoids, I also ended up with this cheap Pb pashiz of Shapur II:

image.png.0904ba94b7d6bef26dec96b76479d5a3.png

Fun fact about Shapur II: he was "crowned" in utero!

I have my eye on a few of Okidoki's Hadrians tomorrow. (How many Hadrians can the market take all at once, I wonder?)

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The one coin I won so far -- a Nero tetradrachm from Antioch. I don't usually post photos before a coin arrives, let alone before I pay for it!  Let's see if this jinxes me. A truly scientific experiment! Writeup to follow if and when the coin gets here.

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I'll be bidding on some of the Hadrians as well, particularly some of the ones from Roman Alexandria, and the Travel Series bronzes. I don't think I'll be going terribly high on any of them. In general, they may be scarce but don't have a whole lot of visual appeal for me, and that's something I find important.

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25 minutes ago, Cordoba said:

grats! i got a mazaios stater and a hyspaosines tetradrachm. the stater went for near my max, a bit sad since back in 2019 it went unsold and was bought for 200 gbp

Those are some amazing pickups!

I noticed the Mazaios stater and was very jealous on how clear the inscription is. It's in much better condition than mine.

The Hyspaosines is also a great pickup I'm jealous of, since I paid considerably more for mine from CNG a couple months ago.

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41 minutes ago, kirispupis said:

Those are some amazing pickups!

I noticed the Mazaios stater and was very jealous on how clear the inscription is. It's in much better condition than mine.

The Hyspaosines is also a great pickup I'm jealous of, since I paid considerably more for mine from CNG a couple months ago.

really excited to get the Mazaios stater, my first cilician stater. love the lion and bull


the hyspaosines went cheaper than i expected, i suspect it went cheaper than usual due to the reverse condition. i'm going to try to clean it carefully, but i'm still pretty satisfied if it's unable to be improved further. i'm pretty sure it was cleaned with sodium thiosulfate which caused the weird yellow toning, and i know that is possible to treat

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1 hour ago, Cordoba said:

really excited to get the Mazaios stater, my first cilician stater. love the lion and bull


the hyspaosines went cheaper than i expected, i suspect it went cheaper than usual due to the reverse condition. i'm going to try to clean it carefully, but i'm still pretty satisfied if it's unable to be improved further. i'm pretty sure it was cleaned with sodium thiosulfate which caused the weird yellow toning, and i know that is possible to treat

FWIW, here are my examples

331A1453-Edit.jpg.1bff4ad58972f5fd7730ec026be530bc.jpg

Tarsos. Mazaios, Satrap. Circa 361-334 BC. AR Stater.
Baaltars seated left, holding sceptre surmounted by an eagle in right hand,
left arm at side; grain ear, bunch of grapes to left, monogram under throne
/ Lion attacking bull above double row of turreted walls.
10.11g
SNG Levante 113; SNG France 360

 

331A4566-Edit.jpg.cdcc63fde00eaf6eae026a0c2b0325a3.jpg

Kings of Characene. Hyspaosines
Charax-Spasinu mint
Dated SE 189 (124/3 BCE)
AR Tetradrachm 31mm, 16.20 g, 12h
Diademed head right /
Herakles seated left on rock, holding club on knee; monogram to outer left, ΘΠP (date) in exergue.
Assar fig. 13; Alram 491 var. (date); Sunrise 463; cf. DCA 479 (for type; date unlisted)

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13 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

I'm hoping @Roerbakmix's method will help wash Nero's face on this coin:

Oh, I had bid on it 🙂 

 

16 hours ago, kirispupis said:

To my shock I won all four coins!

Oh what a shock - they are also still nice coins 😄 

 

12 hours ago, DonnaML said:

The one coin I won so far

Oh, I was in on the bidding there too.... 🙂 

 

Btw... i have bid on 16 coins so far - and not won a single one. But somehow I am also very sluggish in my movements when the temperature is above 30 degrees. Until my brain passed on the command to my left index finger for a mouse click - the lot was closed. There is nothing for me today. Tomorrow I have some interesting coins in prospect - I'm curious (tomorrow it's supposed to get a bit cooler here too).

 

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Well, I've kinda given up.  Made a bunch of bids and nothing.  My focus is Roman bronzes, so there were many on my list today but none of which I won.  I even tried sniping at under 10 seconds, doubling the current bid and did not win!  Seems impossible to get anything from Leu these days.  I think I will not waste any more time and just leave proxy bids.  

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18 hours ago, kirispupis said:

I've been after a decent Orchomenos example for some time along with some other Boeotian cities. I know this one's a bit worn, but I like the look and I far prefer a shield coin to a bronze issue I thought I'd wind up with.

 

I was the consigner for this coin, congrats!

It's quite nice in hand 🙂

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2 minutes ago, Hesiod said:

I was the consigner for this coin, congrats!

It's quite nice in hand 🙂

Wow! This is the first time the consigner was from here. 

Your Orchomenos will have a fine place in my collection. He'll have Thespiai, Mykalessos, and Tanagra obols to play with and a Thebes stater to look after them. Eventually I hope to have a Koroneia and Pharai to keep them company, but lost out in recent auctions and will keep trying... 🙂

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18 minutes ago, Hesiod said:

I was the consigner for this coin, congrats!

It's quite nice in hand 🙂

Based on the auction description, were you the consigner for this coin also?

phaistos.jpg.db83d3d00fb84bad3bc35b8f5a2f56a4.jpg

I was extremely happy to pick up this Phaistos for what I thought was a low price (I honestly thought I'd be outbid). I have a number of coins from Crete and they're all difficult, so I'm always glad to add one from a new city.

FWIW, this is the fourth coin I procured and one of the few Pri 1 pickups for me this year.

lykkeios.jpg.9be72876870e52ce0e5372105e710975.jpg

It completes my mini-Paeonian kings collection that now consists of Lykkeios, Patraos, Audoleon, and Leon. Lykkeios, of course, tangled with Philip II. Again, I didn't expect to win it.

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Great wins @kirispupis, and others! So far, I managed to score one coin.

Some thoughts. Leu's e-sale was ridiculously big. I haven't gone through all the stuff offered, skipping the Greek coinage as well as part V and VI in total. I still ended up with a wishlist of nearly three pages, which is pointless as, when it comes to Leu, about 95% of the coins prove to be out of my price range anyway. So, finally having decided for a top three, I am happy to say that today I was been able to secure one of those coins!

When going through the e sale, I did pay special attention to some of the coins offered from the collection of Eric (Okidoki). My no. 1 prio was coin part of his collection, and having done some research, I was quite confident it was within my budget range and I might get a shot of placing a succesful bid. Well, definitely a no, as it went for more then three times it sold previously for, and exceeding my maxbid with about 250%... Now that his section is over, I hope that Eric can look back at a succesfull sale. I believe he did very well chosing Leu as the venue for selling his coins. The presentation of his collection was done neatly, informative, and sensitive (good photo too ;-)) I'm not quite sure Okidoki is a member here as well, but if he's reading, congratulations! 

The auction is still going on, and I'm aiming at adding one more coin (against all knowledge...). One thing I do have to say, is that I find the bidding system quite inconvenient, but I do theorize that it's benificial for consigners in the end. I'm also kind off hoping Aaron Berk and Mike Nottelmann will share some of their thoughts about the sale, when it's over, in their podcast. 

Anyway, here's my win, from the collection of Eric, and with a reverse that completely fits my collecting interest. And now I'll start praying for a safe trip to it's new home:

leu2023.jpg.647fe720a3dee06ce4083b8e07932995.jpg

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I struck out on all the Hadrian Alexandrian & Travel Series coins on my watchlist. Except for two for which I accidentally failed to put in bids before they closed, because I was talking to the super of my building about a leak. Naturally, those were the only two that went for prices low enough that I could conceivably have won them!

Oh well. I still have six more coins on my list for tomorrow, including a couple of the Imperial sestertii belonging to @Julius Germanicus. We shall see.

 

 

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46 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

I struck out on all the Hadrian Alexandrian & Travel Series coins on my watchlist. Except for two for which I accidentally failed to put in bids before they closed, because I was talking to the super of my building about a leak. Naturally, those were the only two that went for prices low enough that I could conceivably have won them!

Oh well. I still have six more coins on my list for tomorrow, including a couple of the Imperial sestertii belonging to @Julius Germanicus. We shall see.

 

 

Leaks, oh no!

I just had the Orkin guys out here to take care of a giant wasp nest that had been built between the 2nd and 3rd floors of my house which I discovered on Thursday.  Very exciting! It turns out that they are German yellowjackets quite common in this part of the forest, mostly brown but with streaks of yellow. They are supposed to be gone by tomorrow afternoon due to a slow acting substance they use...we shall see.

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8 hours ago, Prieure de Sion said:

Oh, I had bid on it 🙂 

Sorry to scoop you, @Prieure de Sion🥺

I also struck out on the Okidoki Alexandrians, but I did pick up a couple eastern silver coins from his collection:

image.png.7865b8e9b9b31e7d0a8e9b1c015093f8.png

This coin is from Amisos. Hadrian had an amazing array of atypical silver-producing mints in the east, this'll help represent that fact in my collection. (It was listed as a drachm, but is in fact a didrachm... which may have contributed to the low hammer.  That's quite the mural crown Tyche is wearing!)

My other ex-Okidoki win is this eastern denarius:

image.png.91ce566f642ebbc03c5c7f7096d61dbf.png

I've been wanting both an eastern denarius of Hadrian and this reverse for him... two birds with one stone. I like the interesting style, plus it's an RIC plate coin to boot!  The 75 chf hammer is nice and low for such a rare coin as well.

On to part IV!

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While I've picked up some bargains, there have been some totally ridiculous hammers as well, like the ones @DonnaML showed.  Here's another example.  The coin:

image.png.559699b62a961262ecfb9d56eac9687a.png

A nice Alexandrian tet of Gallienus, with a reverse of especially pleasing style. What would you bid?

Here it is in Obolos, 2021:

image.jpeg.c9299c9182736732039c7729cf823592.jpeg

Again in Obolos last year:

image.jpeg.82f93acdf586591f2b1c2353e6f8f3b3.jpeg

(Damn, I would have bid had I seen it!)

Yesterday in Leu:

image.jpeg.96997af1b26799826e25a62a7ae9b019.jpeg

🤯

(Additionally: "formed before 2005." Uh-hunh, sure. Also: will we see it again soon?)

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