Coin Talk

Yuezhi. Arseiles. Late 1st century BC. AR Hemidrachm. Very rare.


The design of this coin imitates the design of the Indo-Greek hemidrachms but with the name of a very rare Yuezhi chief and a stylized lion of Babylonian tradition in the reverse

Ancient confederation of the silk road west of China. The Yuezhi 月氏 was a nomadic power that dominated much of the silk road west of China before being invaded by the Xiongnu and scattered out of the area which is now Xinjiang and central Asia. They eventually migrated west, invaded the Indo-Bactria kingdoms of Northern India and established the powerful Kushan Dynasty.

Source: Wikipedia.

The Yuezhi civilisation featured heavily in ancient a Chinese historical accounts. In particular during the Han Dynasty, the famous ambassador Zhang Qian made a historic diplomatic mission under the order of Han Wudi to forge an alliance against their common enemy, the Xiongnu. His accounts...

Many thanks to @Ken Dorney for this superb Titus sestertius! Not only is it a beauty in hand, it also comes with an intriguing numismatic puzzle.



Titus
Æ Sestertius, 24.63g
Eastern Mint (Thrace?), 80-81 AD
RIC 499 (C). BMC 310. RPC 502.
Obv: IMP T CAES DIVI VESP F AVG P M TR P P P COS VIII; Head of Titus, laureate, bearded, r.
Rev: S C in field; Mars, with cloak over shoulders, adv. r., with spear and trophy
Acquired from Ken Dorney, December 2018.

A remarkable sestertius from a truly mysterious issue of bronze that was struck under Titus in 80-81. The style (heavily seriffed letters, large portraits, and massive reverse figures), unique obverse legends (DIVI VESP F for Titus), and uncommon fabric (convex flans) all suggest a mint other than Rome. Attributing exactly where these coins were struck has historically been a moving target - Mattingly in BMCRE thought Lugdunum, H.A. Cahn believed somewhere in Bithynia. More recent...

When I was starting into coins in 1964 I managed to acquire this set of three Portuguese coins dated 1960 and commemorating someone named Prince Henry, who I knew nothing about. All three coins were made of silver and all had the same design, adjusted for size and denomination.

Recently I found an old book by historian Elaine Sanceau entitled Henry the Navigator, published in 1947, which proved to be a very interesting account of Portuguese sea voyages into the Atlantic and down the west coast of Africa.


Portugal 5 Escudos 1960 Prince Henry the Navigator
Silver, 24 mm, 7.16 gm
Issued to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his death in 1460.

Prince Henry was born in 1394, the third of five sons of King John of Portugal. His father appointed him as Grand Master of the Knights of Christ, the Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar, which put Prince Henry in control of a huge amount of money. He...

The coins of Lucilla have two varieties of obverse inscriptions:

1) Coins emphasizing that she is the daughter of Marcus Aurelius: LVCILLAE AVG ANTONINI AVG F (and variations)

2) Coins bearing her name only: LVCILLA AVGVSTA.

The reverse types of her coins are rather pedestrian -- coins @dougsmit would describe as "such-and-such standing -- and typically feature goddesses and personifications of feminine virtues, such as Concordia, Diana, Hilaritas, Juno, Salus, Venus, etc. Often, these reverse types are struck in all metals, and the same design may appear on aurei, denarii, sestertii and middle bronzes.

Mattingly and other scholars believe coins with the longer inscription describing the empress as daughter of Marcus were issued earlier (AD 164-166) than those reading LVCILLA AVGVSTA (AD 166-169). In most instances, a reverse type is associated with a single type of obverse inscription. However, a few reverse types that appear with the longer, earlier obverse...

To all the folks on CoinTalk, to those lurking who are not even registered, and especially to those who have become interested in the hobby of Numismatics through YouTube Videos,

We all know about how Youtubers are posting videos to make money from views, ads and audience. There is a large population of YouTubers posting such videos on various topics of Numismatics. We seem to have had an enormous influx of enthusiastic newbies in the past few years coming into the hobby and joining CoinTalk after watching YouTube videos, often ones promising that one can get rich finding certain coins in circulation. I have no problem with new folks in this hobby, we were all new at one point, and we need more folks in this hobby. What I DO have a problem with is absolute nobody's, with zero experience in the field, posting videos with clickbait titles and downright false claims that mislead and start new folks off in the field with unrealistic perceptions and expectations. Some of these YouTubers...

Every year there are dozens of articles written for this site that are both interesting and hugely educational. CoinTalk has an excellent feature whereby the mods can display many of these as featured articles on the front page. However, not all articles that deserve recognition get featured and even those that do could use some extra attention to remind their authors how much the community appreciates their contributions.

So what is the 2019 CT Scholar Award?
My idea is to start this thread so that our members (any member) can post a link to any thread they feel displays a lot of educational interest. I will then narrow the threads down to a select few (get permission from their authors, of course) and the community at large can decide which thread is deserving of the prize and the title of 2019 CT Scholar!

The prize will be a numismatic book provided by me. I will choose the book as...

Coins bearing the reverse inscriptions IVNO MARTIALIS or its dative form, IVNONI MARTIALI, appear only during the brief reigns of Trebonianus Gallus and his son, Volusian. The meaning of the epithet Martialis has been a subject of scholarly debate. As Joe Sermarini notes at Numiswiki, the title "literally means 'of or belonging to Mars' or 'warlike,' but the depictions of Juno Martialis on the coins are not warlike. The epithet may refer to Juno as the mother of Mars. Or perhaps she is Juno of March - her festival was on 7 March. Perhaps the title refers to her temple in the Campus Martius, the old 'Field of Mars' down by the Tiber. She is sometimes equated with Juno Perusina, as Perugia was where Trebonianus Gallus came from, and as such is sometimes called Juno Martialis Perusina by modern scholars."

This coin is an antoninianus of Trebonianus Gallus, dating from 251-253 CE....

The correct way to make a 5% solution (by weight) of sodium sesquicarbonate for bronze disease treatment.

I bought a group lot lately with a couple of nice bronzes that turned out to be infected with serious bronze disease. (I know it is not a “real” disease, but this is the name ancient collectors use for this condition). Looking up the directions for making sodium sesquicarbonate on the internet I found that many of the directions were not correct and would result in a solution that was 3x too strong. There are apparently a lot of copies of an incorrect article on how to make a 5% solution of sodium sesquicarbonate floating around, that continue to propagate through the magic of cut and paste.

See: http://www.accla.org/actaaccla/bronzediseasetherapy.html

I put this tutorial together to help people to make a 5% solution the correct way, that is the main thing I am trying to accomplish with this thread, not describe or debate all the ways there are to treat BD. I am no...

BUY THE BOOK BEFORE YOU BUY THE COIN is a famous saying in the hobby.

BUY THE BOOK BEFORE THE COIN headlined an advertisement in the March 1966 issue of The Numismatist. Aaron R. Feldman offered 25 titles, some of which were classics then as now: Sheldon, Beistle, and Bolender. Don Taxay’s book on counterfeits (1964) was a new addition to our knowledge base. The Friedberg family was still in its first generation with Paper Money of the United States.

Today, the self-styled "bibliomaniacs" of numismatics easily recognize Aaron R. Feldman (1894-1976) as an iconic literature dealer. He said,...

A string was laced through the holes, tied at the ends to make a loop. placed on each thumb and spin the coin until the string is wound up, then pull briskly making a "whizzing sound" rewinding itself and making another brisk pull to make another "whizzing sound.