A Dattari/ETB reunion - an Cyber Monday purchase of a Hadrian Drachm (only 1 listed in RPC)

[Operator1997]

Last year, thanks to Curtis' posts on r/ancientcoins, which traces the lineage of ownership and provenance of various ancient coins that I started following the different provenanced coins in the auctions. One day last year, Aegean Numismatics acquired a massive lot from Leu 26, thanks to the dissemination of the ETB Hadrian collection. I immediately got drawn to the heft and mass of the Alexandrian coins. To which I ended up what would be my first: the RPC III, 5413 (Curtis helped me fix its listing on RPC; I'm currently treating it for Bronze Disease at the moment).

The majority of my collection has been from Aegean, and with it additional pieces that could be traced to Dattari and ETB, but this past few weeks with the Cyber Monday promo on FORUM, I bought what was listed as a RPC III, 5023, but it turns out to be a RPC III, 5117A of which there is only one listing in the RPC database.

I am a sentimental guy, the idea of reuniting a century old collection, a batch of coins from the same locality 1900 years ago feels like a continuous linkage to the past, from one side of the world (Egypt) to another, no matter how much it has travelled on its journey, its a truly wonderful feeling.

ex Leu Numismatik auction 26 (8 Jul 2023), lot 7006 (part of); 

ex Eric ten Brink Collection

ex Naville Numismatics 57 (26 Apr 2020), lot 265 (realized £55 plus fees)

 

[Hesiod]

Congrats! Do you have a picture of the Savio plate rubbing?

[Operator1997]

Unfortunately, I don't have the Dattari books.

[Broucheion]

Hi @Operator1997,

Your coin does not not seem to me to match Dattari 1782 in the Savio book:

- Broucheion

Postscript: At best this is an undocumented duplicate from the Dattari collection, but of course there is no way to confirm that.

Edited December 13, 2024 by Broucheion

[Hesiod]

Not even the same type, it seems – the Savio one does look like a canonical Nilus but this is certainly Zeus. Unusual and rare though, so still a nice coin to have