Coin Talk

The Tisbury Hoard, in the Salisbury Museum.

Last summer my wife and I vacationed in southern England. Going to the U.K. Is nothing unusual for us as we both used to live there, but I was up north in County Durham, and my wife lived in London. As such, we visited the north, the south, and most areas in between, but the south-west was always a little too far away for us. So we made the decision to visit Devon and Cornwall, but started with a short trip to Salisbury to see the cathedral and visit Stonehenge (a first for my wife; see original post here). At Salisbury Cathedral, there was a wonderful little museum which contained many archaeological finds from around Stonehenge. Included in this was a hoard of Celtic Coins from the Durotriges tribe. After seeing this, I just had to get one!


Map of...

Here's a recent win from a John Anthony auction:

Parthian Kingdom. AR drachm (3.9 g, 20 mm). Mithradates III (c.57-54 BC). Mithradatkart mint. Obverse: Diademed bust of Mithradates left. Reverse: Seated archer (Arsakes I), Mithradatkart mintmark, slightly crude Greek inscription in 8 lines around "Basileos basileon Arsakou megalou dikaiou epiphanous theou eupatoros kai philellenos" (Of the Great King of Kings, Arsakes, the just, beneficent, well born of the God, and lover of the Greeks). Sellwood 41.5, Shore 200, Sunrise 356v. This coin: Ex John Anthony auction, ex Sallent collection.

(Obligatory Parthian king naming and attribution note: Mithradates III has been promoted to Mithradates IV in recent scholarly work. Also, the timing and sequence of his coin issues is complicated and uncertain, as I will point out below. If you want simple, unchanging attributions, go collect Lincoln cents.)

Mithradates III and Orodes II were two sons of the...

On the world stage, the Goths first appeared around the northern shores of the Black Sea around the second century AD. From there, their migrations of different bands into Europe and in contact and war with the Roman empire most have heard about. Visigoths eventually made their way to Spain and formed a core of that country, and the Ostrogoths invaded and took over the Italian peninsula proper.

Neither of these Gothic cultures lasted, being assimilated into later invader's cultures over the next few centuries. Neither of these groups of Goths were the first to issue coins either. This distinction goes to Goths on the Taman peninsula. This is an area on the northern shores of the Black Sea where Goths first appeared in the western historical record.


Around the middle 3rd century they started issuing coins imitating a Roman denarius with a Mars reverse. As time went on it became more and more degraded. Almost all examples have been found on this peninsula,...

I bought this on eBay and it came today. Counterfeit 2018 silver eagle. Why? The die is 180 degrees rotated (a common problem because the Chinese think our coins are rotated the same as theirs) and it sticks to a magnet. I checked the capsule with a 10x loupe, and it scratched where they pried it open.
Just goes to say that everyone should always be careful when buying coins on eBay, even if it is in mint packaging.
Photos attached. Do you guys see any other signs that show it is fake?

I've posted a few examples here and there but not a more general overview.

Sceattas were the small coins produced out of silver and occasionally debased metal in the time between around 685-750 throughout most of Anglo-Saxon England. They are between 11-13mm in diameter and approximately 1g in weight. They feature a variety of designs, that for hundreds of years were a mystery to collectors.

They are particularly difficult due to a lack of inscription. We rely on find spots, hoard evidence, and inferences made based on the iconography and artistic merit of the pieces produced. This can sometimes feel incomplete or forced, and not all experts come to the same conclusion. Nevertheless it is a fascinating field to study and the coins themselves offer an interesting glimpse into this era in Dark Ages England.

The initial coinage probably began in Kent, a kingdom centered around the ancient city of Canterbury and, classicly, believed to have been colonized by a people from Jutland...

Your wish is to be fulfilled and then some. My first contribution to this thread for Helena will be a style show of her hairstyles on the reduced folles for the various mints; i.e. 14 of 15 with the exception of London. The design for each of these is a variant on a common style designated by Patrick Bruun as “E10” in RIC VII. Within each mint the coins are here arranged chronologically by series* but only where the bust design showed a noticeable difference in hairstyle. Many of the differences are quite subtle, within a mint as well as between mints, but in some cases the styles are quite distinctive.

…………*Series dates are differentiated by style of mintmark.



A Word about Order

Mints are listed from west to east following the order in RIC VII. In each case I indicate the...

Hi Friends,
I am wondering how many of us build our collections almost exclusively from 'business purchases' and/or 'business profits from cherry-picking'? I am exclusively a US circulating coin collector and a very small time dealer here in SC. I place ads in local circulars, have a google page, and a Yelp page for my registered business. My opinion is, if we continue to buy coins this way we are going to drive prices down on many coins because we likely buy low and are willing to sell lower than brick and mortar dealers that have large overhead.

When I do splurge on coins for my collection, I never pay full blown retail at shows or at local coin shops and instead cherry-pick online (eBay, Facebook groups, etc). I only collect raw coins as you might expect. With a limited budget and a need to save for 3 college tuitions, in this way I've still been blessed enough to build a pretty respectable collection I think. I'd love to hear from others. What is the state of our hobby in terms...

This would have been better to post on Prince's birthday next month but why wait now that the coin is in hand.
Anyone that collects anonymous Byzantine Folles knows they come in categories or classes ranging from A to K, and the rare hardly seen L, M, N also. These classes were established by margret Thompson a century ago when excavating the Athenian agora which can be read about here. The classifications have evolved some since then as well. They are bronze coins that were minted over a period of two centuries and labeled anonymous due to the lack of inscription of under whose authority they were minted, or at least I presume. However they are now associated to various rulers during that period. It's actually kind of confusing and probably an outdated system, but it's...

Now that the battle is over I have grown pensive and wish to mull over what I've been seeing. First the battle I lost.

Here is perhaps the most magnificent follis of Fausta I have ever seen, still in possession of its original silver.



CNG offered it in their sale 108, and I started gearing up for it a bit more than a week ago. As I contemplated how much armor to bring to the fray, I noticed a formidable bid from one of our other list members. I needed the type for my own workup, so should I go over him? Well, all's fair and all that, but he pulled the trigger first, and I did not have the heart to try for it and risk taking it away from him. Instead I decided to settle for this and bide my time:



Ewwww! Well, she has a nice personality and only cost me $45, and is the only one available except for the forbidden fruit. Now I was ready to see how the sale would turn out. Going into the final 5 minutes, our...

When I first saw this piece in an ebay listing, I immediately began searching it's history. That is, if any could be found. To my surprise, there certainly was information regarding it and even auction archives of past sales of similar pieces.

My intial thought after clicking Buy It Now, was how much profit I could make in re-listing this wonderful piece of American history. Yes, I said American history in the Ancients forum. But this token of sorts also exuberates the history of one of the most important cities in all of Ancient Greece, let alone, one of the most iconic Greek coins ever made: A Decadrachm of Dionysius I with quadriga reverse from Syracuse.


Picture from:Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com

We have all drooled over one, atleast I know I have. The spectacular artistry of not one, but two brilliant engravers, of whom were responsible for the fruition of such a coin as...