Coin Talk
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Too young for neck-beards
Gallienus and Salonina had two sons depicted on coinage -- Valerian II and Saloninus. Let's see your coins of these two boys!
The year their eldest son, Valerian II (P Cornelius Licinius Valerianus), was born is not known with certainty; a date of AD 240 is a reasonable guess. Perhaps at the instigation of his grandfather, Valerian I, the younger Valerian was accorded the title Caesar shortly after Gallienus' elevation to the role of joint emperor with Valerian I, probably some time in AD 255 and no later than AD 256.
Valerian I and Gallienus soon issued coins in the boy's name with the idea of establishing an imperial dynasty extending to a third generation, something not seen in the Roman world since Commodus wore the purple. The most obvious allusion to this is the reverse type IOVI CRESCENTI ("the growing Jupiter"), which depicts Valerian II as the infant Jupiter riding on the back of the goat Amalthea.
The younger Valerian would have been a teenager -- 15 or 16 -- at the time... -
Newp: Spearhead sextans in Sardinian style
The coin I'm sharing today is from a series I've been watching out for for quite some time and wasn't sure I'd ever be able to add to my collection. I was outbid for another(nicer) example of this type in CNG e-auction 408(by Clio himself if memory serves me right) and didn't expect to see another any time soon, so I was ecstatic when I found this coin on MA-Shops earlier this month. Even though it is worn and with a terribly struck reverse I didn't hesitate to buy it at all one I was certain of what it was.
This type and the series it is from was only relatively recently identified as a separate series from the Apulian spearhead bronzes(Crawford 88) by Roberto Russo in his 1998 paper on unpublished bronzes in Essays Hersh. Russo actually identified 3 different spearhead bronze series which he called 88A(the Apulian series), 88B(this series) and 88C(a later, likely post Second Punic War series). Since then, Andrew McCabe has shown rather convincingly that this "88B" series is... -
Have you ever wondered what luster looks like?
I recently bought a digital microscope that could magnify objects up to 1600x (maybe not well, but it does work). One of the first things I looked at was a BU Morgan with a light wiping on the obverse.
This first image was taken at about 800x. You can see the flow lines expanding radially from right to left. You can also see the hairlines going from top left to bottom right. Note how they go over the E; that's how you can tell that they are not die polish.
Same magnification, just a different area. The flow lines are a bit clearer.
This image was taken at 1600x in the same location as the above image. You can clearly see the ridges that were etched into the die. These ridges reflect the light on one side, which is what causes the cartwheel luster. Also note how the cleaning hairlines disrupt these ridges. That is why an abrasive cleaning will destroy luster.
This image was also taken at... -
Pay Warrants of the Texian Navy
Although Republic of Texas “red backs” are well-known to collectors, the pay warrants for the Texian navy and marines are truly scarce. I bought two and donated them to the Brigadier General John C. L. Scribner Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry. Of course, I made scans for myself. I also began assembling images of other notes in this series. Heritage Auctions has the best library of online sales catalogs listing many of these. I found a few others, as well. Of course, I also got books from the UT Austin library about the Texian Navy; and I visited university’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. I found online resources from the Texas State Historical Association and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. From those repositories, I began building a spreadsheet to correlate the names from the backs of the pay warrants to their places in the history of the Texian Navy.
“Remember the Alamo!” encapsulates the story of Texas... -
A lost silk road civilisation - The Yuezhi and their relationships with China
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... -
Titus' Mystery Mint
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... -
Portugal's Prince Henry the Navigator - Commemorative coins of 1960 and others
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... -
Lucilla Venus standing types
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... -
YouTube Numismatic Misinformation: What You Need To Know
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... -
[Ancients] Announcing 2019 CoinTalk Scholar Award
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...
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