Coin Talk

Ἀλέξανδρος ἦν, καὶτήν τε μνήμην αὐτοῦπαντοίως ἀνενεώσατο, εἰκόνας τε καὶἀνδριάντας ἐν πάσαις πόλεσιν ἀναστῆναι ἐκέλευσε (Herodian IV,8)

He was Alexander. He revived his memory in a thousand ways and ordered that portraits and statues be erected in all the cities.

The history
Emperor Caracalla owes his nickname to a Gallic mantle he wore regularly, but his real name is Lucius Septimius Bassianus. He is the eldest son of Emperor Septimius Severus, and his birth takes place in April 4th 188 AD in Lugdunum. A fervent admirer of Alexander the Great, Caracalla comes to power by assassinating his brother, and he will reign terror during his six years in power. In power from the age of 23, he quickly became a tyrant whose excesses of all kinds seemed bordering on madness.


Metropolitan Museum of Art

However, he is very popular with the...

My coins bigger than yours. I know, I know. It's not the size of the coin but what you spend it on.
Buuuut


Now that we have that over with, UNLEASH THE GORGON!!!


SKYTHIA Olbia - Gorgoneion Proto Money
437-410 BC
Obv: facing gorgon's head. Rev: sea eagle flying right. 65.4 mm, 89.7 grams. Poor. Scarce.
Provenance
Property of a European collector; acquired in 2007; previously in a Dutch collection formed in the 1980s-1990s.
Literature Sear 1682. Purchased from Timeline Auctions Feb 2021


(I lift this bad boy 3 sets of 10 each day and my biceps are looking swole! But seriously, in hand it is a BEAST)
This highly sought after type is the largest coin type for size, period. The reverse is more than likely a love song to Perikles who secured trade with them and democracy for them on his naval expedition the very same year these coins...

Manuel I Komnenos, the last Byzantine ruler to dominate the politics in the Mediterranean world, eager to restore his empire to its past glories as the superpower.



He ruled nearly 40 years, from 1143 to 1180 which makes his coinage quite abundant and complex. Manuel started his reign with his father's very considerable treasury, which he effectively exhausted in 1156 during his failed expedition to Italy fighting the Normands. He had spent an enormous sum of 2,100,000 hyperpyra on this expedition (we are talking here about around 9 tons of pure gold).
The denominations in his reign, which were created in the monetary reform by his grandfather, were the AV Hyperpyron, EL Aspron trachy, worth 1/3 of the Hyperpyron, BI Trachy, worth 1/48 of the hyperpyron and the AE Tetarteron including it's half (and also the Metropolitan issues, which had a couple of percent of silver added to them).

The EL Aspron...

For years I looked for an example. I had only seen one and that was from a fellow collector on Forum Ancient Coins, I helped him attribute it. After that I never saw another Until……..

A collection of coins from Simon Bendall came to market, I bid on this coin and lost and very much regretted it. Well in this case opportunity struck twice and the coin came back to market, I acquired it and received it today.



Andronicus I SBCV-1988 DOC 7

2.57gm

20mm

From the collection of Simon Bendall.

Now the original attribution by Michael Hendy was this was a coin made during the siege of Thessalonica in the month of August 1185 AD, the normal issue from this mint was a coin depicting the Virgin (Type A, SBCV-1987) and this rare coin was considered type B ( SBCV-1988). The tie in is two of these coins were found at the Athens and none in Corinth excavations. One of the 2 coins found was overstruck over type A. I have not seen this overstruck...

As maybe some of you know one of my focusses is to collect coins from the Greek islands. What interest me about them is that these islands often have distinct traditions and mythology on their own, which is obviously reflected on the coinage. Some iconography on their coins stay unchanged for centuries (from the Archaic age all the way to Roman provincial coinage). Most islands did not produce that much silver, mostly fractions and bronze coinage. The bigger and more significant islands did strike large amounts of silver (depending on the time period), we can think of islands like Thasos, Aegina, Samos, and Rhodos.

I wanted to give a small summary of each island I own a coin of right now, with the corresponding coin there. I ofcourse cannot show all my coins of the Greek islands, therefore I will make a selection of one coin per island.
I included a map if it makes it easier to locate the islands:


Starting with,
Rhodos...

Gold coinage was an important part of late Medieval and early modern English coinage. Denominations such as nobles, angels, crowns, pounds, and sovereigns were produced from the 14th century until the modern era when precious metals were phased out of circulating coinage. However in the early medieval period, gold coinage was rarely produced. A few gold coins were tried, such as gold pennies of Alfred the Great, Aethelred the Unready and Edward the Confessor, and a gold penny of Henry III. But these were not widely used or successful coinages and these coins are known from only a minuscule number of rare survivors.

However, in the misty past, there was a robust and diverse series of gold coins made in the early Anglo-Saxon period. From about 600 until 675, gold coins were produced in the fledgling Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, depicting a variety of imagery. At least a dozen types are known, with diademed busts, copies of Roman clasped hands and seated despots, and a variety of Cristian...

I have found myself recently drawn to the coinage of Sweden. Being a world coin collector, I have always had some coins from Sweden in my collection but I think that I am starting to appreciate them more. There aren’t many (at least in the United States) collectors to compete with. The designs tend to be simple.

My first real purchase was 1724 dated, ½ Daler, piece of plate money. Since that time, I had added a 2 Daler and 4 Daler. If you like large, crude coins then these were made for you. The 4 Daler piece weighs over 4 pounds. Swedish copper plate money was introduced due to the abundance of copper from Sweden’s mines and the lack of availability of silver and gold. These cumbersome coins were issued in copper bullion with content reflecting the value of the silver that they replaced. These highly collectible “coins” circulated throughout Sweden and Finland.

Today is Maundy Thursday, the Thursday before Good Friday and Easter Sunday. In England, the monarch gives money, in the form of silver coins to elderly people who are selected based upon their poverty and their service to their churches or community. Recipients may also be selected by clergyman of the various Christian denominations. Once selected a recipient remains one for life. New recipients are selected each year.

The gifts are given in two purses. The white one holds Maundy money in the one, two, three and four pence denominations. There one pence for each year of the monarch's life. A red purse contains £5 and a 50 p coin.

The modern Maundy coins do not circulate because their silver value exceeds their face value. Each coin has the portrait of the monarch on the obverse. and the value 1, 2, 3 or 4 partially surrounded by a wreath, the date and a crown on the reverse. These coins are highly prized by many collectors.

I have only two sets of Maundy coins which are...

Gold and bronze coins bearing the reverse inscription IVNONI LVCINAE and depicting a female figure standing, holding an infant in her arm, with two older children at her feet were issued during the final years of the reign of Antoninus Pius, AD 158-161.[1] During this period, the empress' obverse titulature read FAVSTINA AVGVSTA, her reverses no longer bore the filiation AVGVSTI PII FIL, and she wore an unassuming hairstyle described by Fittschen as "Main hair combed back in waves, strand of hair twisted into a bun relatively high at the nape of the neck."[2] She typically does not wear strands of pearls or the stephane in her hair on coins of this period.



Two bronze specimens from my collection:

Think back to when you were a child. Perhaps around the age of 6 or 7. The world was a very different place, righ? Times were simpler, you had no cares in the world, lifelong friends were made – and lost. What memories still stick with you after ALL THOSE YEARS . . . . . . ?

Maybe you have fond memories of your parents, uncles, or aunts taking you fishing, hunting, or to a theme park? Maybe as a young child you attended a county fair, a state fair, or a festival of some kind?

I know my parents took my sisters and myself to many of these. Living in central Wisconsin on the Mississippi River during the early 1960’s, there was always SOMETHING, some event to attend. Octoberfest, Fishing Contests, County and State Fairs, we did them all . . . . or at least it seemed that way.

One festival that really stuck out in my 7 year old mind was the Steam Engine Days Festival held in Strum Wisconsin. I mean, what’s not to like? Big steel tractors and engines, polyphonic steam whistles,...