Sneak Preview Thread: What's in your waiting line?

[Ursus]

It often takes me quite a while until I take proper pictures of new coins, research them a bit further, write tags, add them to my digital collection records, put them in my trays and mabe post a little write-up here on NumisForums. Family, friends, and work come before my coin hobby, and each day only has 24 hours. Therefore I often have a few coins sitting in a box on my window sill that have to wait until I find some leisure time. I guess the same is true for most of you, too.

This is what currently is in my waiting line:

As you can see, it's medieval German and Swiss stuff throughout: a rather nice bracteate from St. Gallen with an old ticket, two square bracteate pennies from Freiburg and Basel, a small 16th century coin from Bern showing a cute little bear, and two 14th century pennies from the episcopal mints of Regensburg and Bamberg.

Looking at this box, I thought that this might be an interesting idea for a thread. Therefore: What coins are in your waiting line at the moment, and what is your process of adding them to your collection?

[CPK]

Yep, I have coins waiting too! Just finished photographing and researching one last night, which I plan to post soon.

Besides that I have a couple prutot and a Trajan provincial that I need to photograph and research yet. Been so busy this past week I haven't had much time for coins!

(The Aegean tag/flip is from a different coin.)

My process is pretty straightforward: examine, identify, photograph, and upload!

[Hrefn]

Alas, my rate of acquisition is so low that I never have six coins awaiting processing.  I have bought 16 coins this year, which is moving at a breakneck pace for me.  Only one is a solidus, though.  Most of the others are inexpensive casual additions to the collection, like this Constantine bronze which hammered for 9 euro.  

[kirispupis]

These coins have been photographed, but are awaiting processing, being placed in my database, and uploaded to my website. The most interesting is an extremely rare coin (possibly from Lampsakos) I've been trying to attribute. There's also a worn Ptolemy Keraunos, a nice Phalanna, a Metropolis (Ionia), and an addition to my magistrates of Magnesia ad Maeander.

 

These coins have all been photographed, entered into my database, and uploaded to my website. They're just awaiting placement in my albums.

[ominus1]

5 hours ago, Hrefn said:

my rate of acquisition is so low that I never have six coins awaiting processing.

...while you're on a different level of collecting than i,  we have a similar waiting line... now if one were asking which ones i am hoping to acquire, now that is a list...:)

[Finn235]

Here's my big one:

220 coins from a hoard containing 4 types of unpublished Gadhaiya imitations (the lone coin is an unattributable error).

They are sorted, but not yet weighed and imaged. I was able to buy a total of 3 of the 7 lots from the hoard, which Stephen Album didn't recognize as being unpublished. I've had them for almost a year - I grossly overestimated how much free time I would have over the last 12 months between work and family.

Other than that, I have about 75% of the remainder of my Indo Sassanians imaged, and hope that this year I will be able to at least lay the groundwork for a website, and then it won't be as daunting a task to just upload a dozen images a few times a week. Time is my enemy right now 😞

[KenDorney]

Seems many of us are in a similar situation.  As others have pointed out, there is only so much time in the day, so I only work on my collection when I have time (which is not often these days).  I have trays of coins sitting on the bookshelves atop the books, stashed waiting to be processed.  In this pic you can see I have one tray worked up and another not, none of it photographed at all.  It can often take months to get it done.

[KenDorney]

Also, as a dealer I have this kind of thing going on.  Loads of stuff in bags, boxes, envelopes, etc.  Some of it has been sitting for years.  I just cant get to it all right away, I just grabbed a few for the pic.

[sand]

My waiting line is 75% of my collection. I almost always buy coins, which the seller has already attributed, therefore that saves time. However, I sometimes check the attributions. All of my coins are in their final places, in Abafil 1 compartment velvet trays. All of the attributions are on my computer. I don't use paper cards.

The big task, which I will probably never complete, is to take my own photos of my coins, and then post the photos on Nvmis Forvms, along with some interesting information about each coin. Last year, during @Severus Alexander's thread "The epic Byzantine portrait thread", I photographed and posted my entire Byzantine collection. I've only added 1 Byzantine coin since then. However, some of the early Byzantine coin photos are not good enough for me anymore, and I want to re-take those photos, which are for 7 Byzantine coins (Anastasius I through Maurice Tiberius).

Of my non-Byzantine coins, only 4 or so of them, have been photographed by myself. It takes so long, to take my own photos of a coin, because I'm so picky and meticulous. I haven't taken a single photo, since that Byzantine thread, except for group photos. I look at my group photos quite a lot, because it's convenient, therefore I keep my group photos up to date. Only the obverses though.

Number Of My Best Coins : These are my coins, which are in my 6 trays of favorite coins.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Greek & Nonclassical    52   (52 Ancient, 25 Greek, 27 Nonclassical)
Roman                   48   (48 Ancient)
Byzantine               33   (33 Medieval)
Cast East Asia          44   (12 Ancient, 21 Medieval, 11 World, 31 China, 6 Vietnam, 3 Japan, 2 Korea, 2 Indonesia)
Medieval & Early World  29   (24 Medieval 500 AD To 1499 AD, 5 Early World 1500 AD To 1799 AD)
Late World & USA        35   (17 Late World 1800 AD To Present, 18 USA)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL ANCIENT        112
TOTAL MEDIEVAL        78
TOTAL WORLD           33
TOTAL USA             18
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL                241

Here's a group photo, of my favorite Byzantine coins, including my new Phocas coin (2nd row from the top, 2nd coin from the left), arranged in chronological order, in an Abafil 1 compartment velvet tray.

Edited March 22 by sand

[JAZ Numismatics]

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!

               

Edited March 22 by JAZ Numismatics

[Parthicus]

My "waiting line" is relatively under control at the moment, I have just 3 coins that have arrived and are likely to get a full write-up:

I also have one coin that I won at auction which hasn't arrived yet, so, at the risk of jinxing it, here is the seller's photo:

 

[Furryfrog02]

3 hours ago, KenDorney said:

Also, as a dealer I have this kind of thing going on.  Loads of stuff in bags, boxes, envelopes, etc.  Some of it has been sitting for years.  I just cant get to it all right away, I just grabbed a few for the pic.

I wish I had your problem 😛

[seth77]

Me: I'm gonna use this weekend to research some backlogs and add them to the database.

Me this weekend:

Edited March 22 by seth77

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

Lol, reminds me of my beloved new co-worker.

Other than what I might plan for the next buy, I don't have any waiting line.

[El Cazador]

5 hours ago, KenDorney said:

Seems many of us are in a similar situation.  As others have pointed out, there is only so much time in the day, so I only work on my collection when I have time (which is not often these days).  I have trays of coins sitting on the bookshelves atop the books, stashed waiting to be processed.  In this pic you can see I have one tray worked up and another not, none of it photographed at all.  It can often take months to get it done.

That Aeolis Tetradrachm is 🔥

[DonnaML]

I write up and post most coins within a few days or at most a week of their arrival. Roman Republican coins are an exception, since there's often so much to research and write about each type in my footnotes, and I tend to procrastinate. So it sometimes takes a very long time before I post them. 

I've bought only one Roman Republican coin this year (an example of Crawford 423/1), at the Burgan Numismatique auction of the Bernard Poindessault Collection back at the end of January. I've had it since mid-February, so for more than a month:

But I still haven't finished writing the description or written any of the necessary footnotes. Partly because I was out of commission with Covid for quite a while, and partly because I have no idea how to identify a portion of the reverse design -- something nobody seems to have tried to do in the past. Probably because it appears, to the best of my knowledge, on only one of more than 100 different reverse dies, with only a handful of examples (including mine) in the RRDP.  It's the object on my specimen that looks sort of like a kickstand, going from the end of the right-hand warrior's scabbard(?) to the ground. See the same object, marked with a red dot, on these four examples from the RRDP. (The third one is my specimen, from a previous auction by Auctiones A.G., Basel in 1973, for which the ANS kindly sent me the relevant portions of the catalog.) All the other reverse dies depict a scabbard(?) without any extension. This one reverse die, along with a few others without the "kickstand," also differs from the rest in having an orb within a circle on that warrior's shield, rather than the usual star. 

If anyone has any bright ideas for identifying this object, please let me know. Maybe that will inspire me to finally finish the writeup!

Edited March 23 by DonnaML

[El Cazador]

2 hours ago, DonnaML said:

I write up and post most coins within a few days or at most a week of their arrival. Roman Republican coins are an exception, since there's often so much to research and write about each type in my footnotes, and I tend to procrastinate. So it sometimes takes a very long time before I post them. 

I've bought only one Roman Republican coin this year (an example of Crawford 423/1), at the Burgan Numismatique auction of the Bernard Poindessault Collection back at the end of January. I've had it since mid-February, so for more than a month:

But I still haven't finished writing the description or written any of the necessary footnotes. Partly because I was out of commission with Covid for quite a while, and partly because I have no idea how to identify a portion of the reverse design -- something nobody seems to have tried to do in the past. Probably because it appears, to the best of my knowledge, on only one of more than 100 different reverse dies, with only a handful of examples (including mine) in the RRDP.  It's the object on my specimen that looks sort of like a kickstand, going from the end of the right-hand warrior's scabbard(?) to the ground. See the same object, marked with a red dot, on these four examples from the RRDP. (The third one is my specimen, from a previous auction by Auctiones A.G., Basel in 1973, for which the ANS kindly sent me the relevant portions of the catalog.) All the other reverse dies depict a scabbard(?) without any extension. This one reverse die, along with a few others without the "kickstand," also differs from the rest in having an orb within a circle on that warrior's shield, rather than the usual star. 

If anyone has any bright ideas for identifying this object, please let me know. Maybe that will inspire me to finally finish the writeup!

Really nice coin👍🏻

[akeady]

These are waiting to be photographed.

Some of these have already been photographed but haven't moved very far thereafter!

These have already been added to Tantalus but not yet made it to a final home in a tray somewhere:

It's hard to keep up and an endless process of reorganising 😄

Happy collecting!

ATB,
Aidan.

Edited March 25 by akeady
Fixed photos

[Ursus]

On 3/22/2024 at 12:43 PM, CPK said:

I have a couple prutot and a Trajan provincial that I need to photograph and research yet.

I wonder about the coin with the blue-green patina. Gordian III?

 

On 3/22/2024 at 4:55 PM, kirispupis said:

These coins have all been photographed, entered into my database, and uploaded to my website. They're just awaiting placement in my albums.

I see you got yourself one of the Tigranes II tets that are currently entering the market. Looks like a really nice coin!

 

On 3/22/2024 at 7:26 PM, Finn235 said:

220 coins from a hoard containing 4 types of unpublished Gadhaiya imitations (the lone coin is an unattributable error).

They are sorted, but not yet weighed and imaged. I was able to buy a total of 3 of the 7 lots from the hoard, which Stephen Album didn't recognize as being unpublished. I've had them for almost a year - I grossly overestimated how much free time I would have over the last 12 months between work and family.

I admire your knowledge of these. I have two Gadhaiya paisa and was able to attribute them only because of the research you posted on these back on CoinTalk.

 

On 3/22/2024 at 8:27 PM, KenDorney said:

Also, as a dealer I have this kind of thing going on.  Loads of stuff in bags, boxes, envelopes, etc.  Some of it has been sitting for years.  I just cant get to it all right away, I just grabbed a few for the pic.

If I were still living in the Bay Area, I'd ask you to have a closer look at that bag of Bulgarian grossi at the next coin show. They look promising!

 

On 3/22/2024 at 11:36 PM, Parthicus said:

I also have one coin that I won at auction which hasn't arrived yet, so, at the risk of jinxing it, here is the seller's photo:

That's quite a sneer on this bust – I can see why you bought it.

 

On 3/22/2024 at 1:40 PM, Hrefn said:

Alas, my rate of acquisition is so low that I never have six coins awaiting processing.  I have bought 16 coins this year, which is moving at a breakneck pace for me.

You're definitely much more effective than me: so far, I bought a total of nine coins in 2024, and six of them are still in the waiting line...

[CPK]

1 hour ago, Ursus said:

I wonder about the coin with the blue-green patina. Gordian III?

Indeed!

[kirispupis]

1 hour ago, Ursus said:

I see you got yourself one of the Tigranes II tets that are currently entering the market. Looks like a really nice coin!

I've posted it already, but can't resist the welcome to post it again. 🙂

Kings of Armenia. Tigranes II "the Great"
80-68 BCE
AR Tetradrachm 28mm, 15,44g
Obv: Diademed and draped bust right, wearing Armenian tiara with five peaks and emblazoned with star between two eagles; within filleted border
Rev: BAΣIΛEΩΣ TIΓPANOY, Tyche of Artaxata seated to right on rock pile, holding palm branch, river god Araxes swimming to right below; Θ to inner right, ΔH monogram to lower left, all within wreath.
Foss Group H; Kovacs 74.2; SCADA Group 1; CAA 19; ACV 31

[Sulla80]

On 3/22/2024 at 9:59 PM, DonnaML said:

If anyone has any bright ideas for identifying this object, please let me know. Maybe that will inspire me to finally finish the writ

Hi Donna, your coin is quite lovely.  As for teh stray line, it doesn't make sense to me that anything could extend from the end of the scabbard (and I there is little doubt that tow soldiers presenting sword would wear scabbards) I think this line is the work of a bleary eyed mint worker thinking the end of the scabbard was a hand and putting a short scepter in hand.  There is some possibility (however remote) that he intended a broken arrow or spear lodged in the background behind the soldier on the right or stuck in his boot.

Here is my example sans line /arrow

Obv die match in Schaefer...

Re: Backlog

I do tend to process coins as they arrive - although write-ups can take a while to get to (days to months).  I have a few coins in perpetual limbo...that will be traded, given away or sold before they ever earn a write-up of their own.  A pile went to two sellers recently and are working their way through auction listing processes. The siglos is one that I thought I might eventually try to chase down as it is annotated as "ex collection A.G. van der Dussen".

 

 

Edited March 24 by Sulla80

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

I'm pretty sure that I want to pick up Sasanian Persian coins this time.

[Ursus]

2 hours ago, Sulla80 said:

I think this line is the work of a bleary eyed mint worker thinking the end of the scabbard was a hand and putting a short scepter in hand.  There is some possibility (however remote) that he intended a broken arrow or spear lodged in the background behind the soldier on the right or stuck in his boot.

On 3/23/2024 at 2:59 AM, DonnaML said:

If anyone has any bright ideas for identifying this object, please let me know. Maybe that will inspire me to finally finish the writeup!

If I understand correctly, engravers chiseled the design into the metal of the die using considerable pressure/force. If their chisel slipped off, the result would have been a more or less straight scratch. (Anybody who does, for example, woodcarving knows how fast that can happen). On a coin struck from such a die, the engraving error would show as a raised line.

My guess is that this is what happened on the reverse die of your coin.

[DonnaML]

@Sulla80 and @Ursus, thank you for assuring me that the mysterious line has no meaning and must be erroneous, whether it was the product of an accident or was intentional but mistaken. That's certainly the most logical explanation, given the seeming absence of any reasonable meaning for its presence, and the fact that as far as I can determine it can be found on only one of more than 100 reverse dies for the type. However, I am so used to every element of the design of Roman Republican coins being intentional and having some meaning (even if that meaning is unknown and/or disputed) that I was reluctant to reach that conclusion on my own.  

As for which of your explanations seems more likely, I lean towards the "intentional but mistaken" interpretation, given that the line extends from the end of the scabbard (which does sort of resemble a fist) precisely to the back of the warrior's right leg, but no farther. Which seems a bit too much of a coincidence for a purely accidental slip of the engraving tool. But I don't feel strongly about it.

Speaking of coincidences and in light of the foregoing, I have to conclude that the fact that this error occurred on one of the very few reverse dies for the type on which the right-hand warrior's shield is decorated with an orb within a circle, rather than with a star, is definitely coincidental. Although the meaning of the orb (as opposed to a star) on those few dies has also remained unexplained. (A few have interpreted the star, present on most dies, as a reference to the Dioscuri, although that seems unlikely given the stance of the two warriors -- preparing to fight -- and the probable historical reference to the famous ancestor of this gens and his many successes in single combat. At least according to the overwhelming majority of interpretations. All of which I will explain in my forthcoming write-up!)