Coin Talk

The ancient bronze and silver coins that we enjoy, with their colorful and often dramatic patinas, are the product of centuries, even millennia, of exposure to the elements, primarily air and water, but also other chemicals that might be present, especially if they are buried. Being the objects produced by humanity, they are, nonetheless, composed of naturally occurring elements, namely copper and silver.

Here are two bronzes from my collection:

Roman Empire, 238 AD
Sestertius
Pupienus
Obverse: Laureate bust, draped and cuirassed bust right.
Reverse: Victory standing left.
RIC 23a, BMCRE 58, Cohen 38
Deep green patina
19.91 grams
29.5 mm, 1 h.
ex Harlan Berk




Byzantine Empire, 539/40 AD
Follis
Justinian I
Nicomedia
Year 13
Officina B
Obverse: Helmeted and cuirassed bust facing, holding globus cruciger and shield; cross to right.
Reverse: Large M, ANNO to left, XIII (year 13) to right, cross above, NIK in exergue.
DO-117b
Green/brown patina with...

This is a coin which I had almost given up hope of ever owning. However, it has finally happened and I am really happy to have found this example of a Santiago, Chile Mint 8 Reales Columnario.

Collectors of Latin American Colonial coinage will recognise Santiago Columnarios as one of the scarcest types in all of Spanish Colonial Numismatics. While the New World Spanish mints at Mexico, Lima and Potosi produced the 'Dos Mundos' coinage in very large numbers, production from Santiago was comparably tiny.

Today, a total of only 53 Santiago 8 Reales Columnarios are documented to exist with dates ranging from 1751 to 1770, for a total of 12 Different dates. Only a handful more are possibly unaccounted for. For some dates, only one or two examples are known.

The two most 'common' dates, 1768 and 1758, account for half of all examples known.
I was therefore excited when the opportunity to add this rare example from 1764 arose. Only Five coins are known for this date.

This example is...

My winnings from the Papillon Numismatic Auction 1 just arrived - quite pleased with this one

Roman Provincial
Lydia, Sardes for Diva Claudia Octavia, (d. AD 62)
AE19
Minted under Mindios, Strategos for the second time

Obv: ΘΕΑΝ ΟΚΤΑΟΙΑΝ, Head right
Rev: CΑΡΔΙΑΝΩΝ / ΕΠΙ ΜΙΝΔΙΟΥ / ΣΤΡ ΤΟ Β, Demeter standing right, holding scepter

Ref: RPC I 3000 (Var? There seems to be multiple legend layouts, many of which are probably not documented)


Born in about 39, Octavia was the middle child of Claudius, and his first child with Messalina, who was also the mother of Britannucus. Sadly always destined to be a pawn in the political games of her family, she was initially betrothed to the son of one of her father's political allies while still a young child, then finally married to her first cousin once removed, Nero.

Their marriage was never happy, but ancient historians mention that Octavia was a virtuous wife, and well beloved by the people. Nero eventually...

I acquired this heavily clipped siliqua of Valens in CNG eAuction 477:


It arrived today, and it is very nice in hand, very pleasing silver color and some light toning as their description said.



Valens. Circa 367-375 CE. Silver Siliqua. 15mm, 1.2g. Trier mint. Obverse: DN VALENS PF AVG, pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed bust of Valens right. Reverse: VRBS ROMA, figure of Roma seated left, holding Victory on globe and a scepter. RIC IX 27e.1.

Heavily clipped in post-Roman Britain.

From CNG Electronic Auction 477. Ex Todd Hansen Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Review XX.2 (Summer 1995), SP2125 (listed as “Time of King Arthur”).

Seeing that CNG had previously sold this coin through their Summer 1995 print catalog, I also acquired the Summer 1995 Classical Numismatic Review for a small amount from an online bookseller.

1995 was the year when Prodigy and AOL made the internet accessible to the general public, which...

It is somehow fitting that my post that eventually stumbles on an ancient library should start with a the vocabulary words that I've failed to learn before today, perhaps i need more time in a library:

• Protomai or protome : προτομή, head and upper torso of a human or an animal as an ornament or adornment
  
• Gigantomachy : in Greek and Roman mythology, the epic battle struggle between the gods and the giants The gods won with the aid of Heracles the archer and the giants were killed. Giants buried can be responsible for volcanic fires, earthquakes, etc.
• Rhyton : an ancient Greek drinking cup formed in the shape of an animal's head or a horn with the hole for drinking in the bottom.
  
• Metope: a square space between tryglyps in a Doric frieze
• Tryglyph : best described with a picture - the highlighted in red, square panel is a tryglyph:
• ...

Severus Alexander, born OCTOBER 1st 208 AD in Phenicia and died in 235 near Mainz (present-day Germany), was Roman Emperor from 222 AD to 235. His complete name is Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander. He is the cousin of Emperor Elagabalus, whom he succeeded at the age of 13. He leaves the management of the business to his grandmother Julia Maesa and her advisers. Alexander is the last of the Severan dynasty. He is named Alexander because he was born in a temple dedicated to Alexander the Great. It was the army that would give him the name Severus. On the day he's born, let's examine the good and bad sides of his reign :


Musée Le Louvre, Paris.

Good points :

• the first nine years of Alexander’s reign were peaceful and free from foreign wars.
• His advisers were men like the senator and historian Cassius Dio and it is believed that he initiated a select board of sixteen senators. He also created a...

...No, really! People have been posting artifacts on this forum for as long as I’ve been paying any attention. They’re unfailingly cool, not least in the Ciceronian sense. Meanwhile, for those of us who spend more time in the Middle Ages than Antiquity, the progression from coins to (sorry to get all bilingual --especially in contrast to what I can do with Cicero) ‘artefacts’ can be no less compelling and seamless.

Heraldic harness furniture has to be one collective instance. The commonest examples, conspicuously from detector finds in England, are little shield-shaped decorations (pendants or studs), mostly made of bronze (‘latten’). They depict real, historic coats of arms, originally with their tinctures (colors) rendered in enamel. The run of them date from around the mid-13th century to the mid-14th, with “the peak period for the larger, shield-shaped pendants …[apparently] around 1280 to 1350.” (Baker p. 22; cf. pp. 6; 2 and note 5 regarding the earlier...

The lives, untimely deaths, and groats of the first five King James' of Scotland.

From 1406-1542 the king of Scotland was named James, and there were five of them. Dynastic successors of the house of Stuart, they were descendants of Robert the Bruce through his daughter Marjorie. With an unbroken five generation regnal succession of father to son (seven really if you go back to Robert II), one might think this was a peaceful age for Scotland, compared to the violent wars of succession in England. Wrong! All of the James' faced rebellion from their subjects and conflicts with England. All five of the first James' met premature ends as well.



James I 1406-1437: Captured by the English around the time of his father's death, he was king in exile for over a decade where he was apparently treated well by Henry V and learned from his style of leadership. When he was able to return to Scotland after Henry's death, he tried to impose a similar...

Antiochus I Soter was born in late 324 or early 323 BCE, to Seleucus I Nikator and the Iranian princess Apama. Antiochus's parents were wed at Susa along with many other Macedonian and Iranian couples at the behest of Alexander III. Seleucus was one of the few Macedonian officers who did not immediately divorce his wife when Alexander died in 323 BCE. It seems that Seleucus and his wife genuinely loved each other, as they would remain married with her until her death decades later.

Antiochus had a fairly tumultuous childhood, as he was only nine years old when he and his family was forced to flee Babylon to Egypt in order to escape the wrath of Antigonus I. Antiochus next appears with his father at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE, age 23 or 22, where he was given command of one wing of the allied calvary. At Ipsus, Antiochus directly faced off against Demetrius I Poliorcetes and Pyrrhus of Epirus. Whether by design or accident, Antiochus and his calvary detachment were routed, with...

Inspired by @furryfrog02 - I just picked up a giant piece of Egypto-Greek bronze (AE Drachm, 75.52 grams) featuring the syncretic king of the gods Zeus-Ammon on the obverse. By combining the Egyptian supreme god with Zeus, the supreme god of the Greeks, an all-powerful deity was created.

Ptolemy IV Philopator, or full regnal name in Egyptian "Iwaennetjerwy-menkhwy Setepptah Userkare Sekhemankhamun," a designation that means "Heir of the [two] Beneficent Gods, Chosen of Ptah, Powerful is the Soul of Re, Living Image of Amun."


Relief depicting Ptolemy IV making an offering to Montu at Deir el-Medina. The cartouche on the right reads "Ptolemaios may he live forever and ever."

He was somewhat dissolute according to the sources, mainly...