Coin Talk

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.

I began collecting U.S. coins in the 1950s when stamp collecting was more popular than coin collecting. I bought a copy of the "Red Book" & the "Blue Book" along with a number of blue Whitman folders that showed only one side of the coin. In those days it was possible to find scarce, rare, & old coins in circulation. All my spare time was spent learning about U.S. coins & searching through circulated coinage. I had one big advantage most kids didn't have, my mother worked as a bank teller & every week would bring home rolls of coins for me to inspect. I was amazed at what could be found with a little searching; Liberty V nickels, Barber dimes & quarters, commemorative half dollars, & even Indian head pennies. Over several years I managed to fill most of the holes in those Whitman folders except for the key dates, & even built a complete collection of Peace dollars except of the 1921. With an allowance of $1.00 a week & a part time summer job of selling balloons, cotton candy, &...

I just bought this coin. Some had claimed that it was fake or a garage job, so I decided to buy it and examine it in hand.

This coin had a planchet defect that was hidden under the surface. It circulated for years until it was in F condition. Then one day something fell on the reverse at 2:00. The coin was sitting on another coin, so there was a design transfer on the opposite side of the hit. This caused the coin to ring and resonate with such vigor that the planchet defect exacerbated and nearly broke the coin into two pieces. The two pieces hung by a thread, but a slight bending force caused the bridge to break. In an attempt to put the coin back into circulation, the owner tried to crimp the two pieces back together, but it did not hold. I find it truly amazing that the two pieces managed to stay together for 150 years.

This is one of those rare coins where all of the marks and damage helps tell the story of this coin. Since I buy coins with interesting stories, this coin fits...

(Edit: I originally titled this story "A Christmas Wedding", because that's when Vesta McCurry and her soldier sweetheart were married. But read on - the story developed some interesting twists after I originally posted this!)

WW1 trench art engraved on 1918 France 2-franc coin: ("Souvenir [of] France") [for] "Miss Vesta McCurry, Hartwell, Ga"

I've had this World War 1 trench art piece in my box for a year or two. Was just photographing it and getting it ready for listing on eBay when I decided to do a little sleuthing on its backstory, which, as often happens, proved to be interesting.

This literally unique piece tells the story - a love story - which led to a Christmas wedding 99 years ago.

...

As I have been collecting coins of Septimius Severus, I have wandered into the provinces as I have noted in my posts about Nikopolis ad Istrum and Markianopolis in Moesia Inferior. I have also bought some interesting coins from Antioch in Pisidia in the last few months.

Ruins of Antioch in Pisidia:



Antioch in Pisidia is located in modern day Turkey. The western two thirds of modern day Turkey was known as Anatolia. Anatolia has been continuously inhabited as far back as the 24th century BC. An important center of trade and sandwiched between the Black, the Mediterranean and the Aegean Seas, there was good reason for many cultures to inhabit the area. Hittites, Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians all tried to wrest control of the area...