Coin Talk

This evening, I was doing some research on a new coin and learned there has been a paradigm shift regarding the identity of the female deity on the reverse of this denarius of Faustina Senior. This highlights the importance of not taking the venerable old references such as RIC and BMCRE as gospel.

Post your comments, coins the standard references misidentify, your Faustina I coins, or anything else you feel is relevant.

Here's the coin in question:


Faustina I, AD 138-141.
Roman AR denarius, 3.0 g, 17.1 mm.
Rome, AD 145-150.
Obv: DIVA FAVSTINA, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: AVGVSTA, Female figure standing facing, head left, holding spherical object and resting left arm on circle-shaped object.
Refs: RIC 366a; BMCRE 432-33; Cohen/RSC 73; RCV 4586; CRE 147.

You'll notice I was very vague in my description of the reverse. That's because the traditional view that the reverse depicts Venus holding an apple and resting her arm on a shield has been...

I posted an image of my first acquired President Kennedy Appreciation specimen on July 3, 2014 here at CT. https://www.cointalk.com/media/the-john-f-kennedy-appreciation-medal.1317/

Well, I did acquire four additional specimens since then.





My collection of five President Kennedy special Government medals (procured by the White House Office for President Kennedy's use). These medals functioned as a presidential apprecitory award. 44 mm in diameter and in bronze. Only 300 were struck. Designer was Frank Gasparro.

These medals are presidential numismatic artifacts. One had to be in good favor with President Kennedy to be awarded one. (You could not buy these medals from the U.S. Mint.)

Medals are Class 5 of the President of the United States (POTUS) special Government medal (sGm) series.http://www.potus-sgm.com/

Top center specimen: This is the Mary Gallagher specimen (personal secretary to Mrs....

I know that there are many strike conscious collectors out there that flock to the strike designations such as Full Steps (Jeffersons), Full Bands (Mercury), Full Torch (Roosevelt), Full Bell Lines (Franklins), and of course the Full Head Standing Liberty Quarter. In this thread, I would like to examine the value in collecting FH versus non FH SLQ's.

Let's first start by looking at the difference between the Full Head designation for both T1 and T2 SLQ's. I have posted photos below that illustrate the difference between the Full Head and non Full Head coins. Technically there is a different standard for 1916 SLQ's which I will not address due to the coins overall rarity. The other 3 full head definitions as stated by PCGS are listed below (courtesy of THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO COIN GRADING AND COUNTERFEIT DETECTION).

The head detail is slightly modified and strengthened considerably for the 1917 Type 1 issues. Instead of hair...

I thought this would be a good time to set the record straight.
I wanna rank the TPGs, including the holder/era that the coin was slabbed.
Here goes- (all imho)

The top dawg is....
#1) NGC (no-line fatties)
Including NGC black, these are THE best buy in numismatics today !!!
If you can buy a no-line fatty for greysheet $ or back of bid you are way ahead of the game. You can STILL find crack-out candidates in these slabs circa 2018. Be careful though, these holders are notorious for toning silver, sometimes enough to cause a 1 pt downgrade....

#2) PCGS (Old green holders)
Rattlers, doilies and green labels (sometimes yellow or blue faded)
1995 was the end of THIS era holder, they had a good run, and some numismatic scholars consider this era holder to be #1. Dont buy the hype, or drink too much kool-aid. The vast majority have already been picked over for upgrade candidates. Most of what you will find nowadays are accurately graded though.

#3) Anacs ( small white holders )
I could...

I do not buy expensive coins (although I admire all that I see here greatly. One can only dream!).
I do apply Renwax to most of my coins to enhance their appearance.
I have never sold a coin - so I am certainly not trying to hide anything from anyone..
just trying to bring out as much detail and eye appeal as I can. Sometimes it does wonders.. sometimes not so much. It can also be removed without much fuss.

Here are a couple of "before" and "after" shots. The first is the seller's picture and then mine after application. Not the same photography setup - so not truly "apples to apples" but I can assure you that in hand both depictions are/were very accurate.

I can also state that quite a few of the coins I have purchased already have wax applied and this fact is not mentioned when describing the coin. Does not bother me at all - but would that be an issue for the more experienced/high end collector?

How do you feel about applying Renwax to coins?




Before:...

This post provides basic information about the Proof 1961 Franklin Half Dollar with Doubled Die Reverse. Check your proof sets and keep an eye out for this one. It is a king of doubled dies. If you know any other good sources of information describing this coin, please let me know. I look forward to learning more from all you CT folks.
[IMG]http://i870.photobucket.com/albums/ab269/collect89/Franklin1961DDRNGC64Reverse.jpg[/IMG]

This Proof 1961 Franklin Half Dollar is commonly known from Cherrypickers as Fivas-Stanton FS # 50¢-013. With the new numbering system in Cherrypickers, it is apparently FS-50-1961-801. NGC lists it as 1961 PF 50¢ VP-001. ...

Hi all

I just wanted to share some learning/experience of specific gravity tests for my coins.

This is not intended to be a best practice overview of conducting specific gravity tests. Rather, I am just sharing my journey to date, in the hope that it may be of interest and/or benefit to fellow collectors.

Context to my coins

My coin collection (or amassed coins to be more accurate) is somewhat eclectic. I am attempting to build a coin collection that more or less spans from the dawn of coins, to pre-modern/decimal. My passion is most definitely in the age of sail/discovery, closely followed by Byzantium and ancient coins.

With that in mind, the structure of my collection is as follows:

Ancient – 500BC to 500AD (pretty much Roman and Greek coins)

Medieval – 500AD to 1500AD (which solely consists of Byzantium coins at this stage, as other medieval coins are both small and expensive)

Age of sail and discovery – 1500 to 1862 (weird that I have such a precise end date - I...

Hello Friends from CoinTalk!

This is my very first thread here, and, although I have been posting here on and off for the past year (it's been 1 year since I signed up), I haven't made much of a presence. So, just like you all share something with each other of numismatic interest, I would also like to share something with you, the Ancients Community.

I started collecting ancients almost 2 years ago when I did a quick Google search to study Roman Denarii, and found links to actual coins on eBay. This year, I became very interested in Byzantine coins and have been focusing mainly on them.

There are several interesting Byzantine coins I acquired that were over stuck on previous issues. Doug Smith has an excellent write-up here: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/feac70byz.html

Here's a part from Doug's write-up about the basics on overstrikes.

This was a recent purchase of mine, and it arrived today. I bought a Qi knife with it, but it turned out to be a fake (the metal resonated when tapped, the coin felt light in-hand, and the patina had a very chemical-like smell). That certainly puts a damper on the mood, but I can send it back. The round coin, however, felt pretty real in hand, but its bad company has cast a little bit of a shadow on it. It is among the nicest I have seen for the type. Anyone have any thoughts? @Ken Dorney @AnYangMan @Loong Siew

The reading is “Gong”, which is a city in the state of Liang.



A little bit of background on these. While they are China’s first ROUND coins, they came into the picture some 200-300 years after China’s first spade and knife coins. There is some conjecture as to why the round coins came into being, but I believe that they were trying to mimic the form of jade...