Coin Talk

Georgian London was an exciting place to be. The enlightenment was in full swing. There was a coffee shop on every street full of political ferment. The King was insane. True, there was no revolution like in Paris or America, but if you walked down the Strand one afternoon in the late 1700s you’d hear the roar of lions. You were passing Gilbert Pidcock's Exeter Exchange, home to a menagerie of exotic animals. You knew it wasn’t the Talbot Inn, also in the Strand, because they kept only camels.

In many such places Londoners could find (and even pet) tigers, rhinos, monkeys, parrots, elephants, hyenas, kangaroos, porcupines – strange creatures few had heard of, let alone seen, but which Britain’s empire had brought to the streets of London. The zoo was yet to make an appearance, so entrepreneurs made large sums exhibiting such animals to the fascination of everyone. You could even hire a cassowary for the evening. That might sound eccentric, but a century before the rich had...

Since India has been on near total lock-down since about March, it's been a pretty slow year for Indo-Sassanian coins for me. By complete chance, I managed to find this listed on ebay - one of thw white whales of the series, and especially interesting as one of only a small handful of these coins that bears the name of the issuing king.

Paramara India, circa Malwa region
Mid-12th century (Possibly 1142-1144)
BI Dramma
Obv: Degenerate Gadhaiya type head without face, conch shape spirals counterclockwise away from head (Distinctive Nose), remnant of ribbons before, all within sea of pellets
Rev: (Sri) Jai Ta Va / (Ma) De Va in early Nagari, pellets surrounding
Finn 1.6.7 (tentatively), Maheshwari 946-955
R3 (approx. 20-30 known)




(Image credit Pankaj Tandon, CoinIndia)

Unfortunately, unlike the other Gadhaiya with rulers' names, this one has not been pinpointed to a particular ruler with 100% accuracy, due to the number...

Jules Reiver was a WW II war hero who passed away in 2004. He had an amazing coin collection, focusing mainly on die varieties and die states of all U.S. silver and copper coinage from 1793 through 1839. Much of his collection was sold at the Heritage auctions in Jan 2006.

From what I understand from some of my reading, Reiver was a pretty cool guy, who would chat about coins and impart his knowledge to pretty much anyone, whether he knew them or not. If you have any stories about personal encounters with him, I'd love to read them!

I picked up 2 of these coins (later, from ebay, not during the Heritage auction), just because I wanted to have a piece of that collection, not particularly because I collected copper. Actually, I didn't care much about copper (sorry). I mostly collected silver (I like shiny things!) But, after seeing these chocolate beauties on ebay and in hand, I kinda changed my mind about BN copper, and found a new appreciation!

Here are the two Reiver coins I...

These AE2 maiorinae are the last large Imperial denomination before the reform of Anastasius in the late 490s. Unlike the coinage of Cherson or the pre-Visigothic maiorinae from Septimania and Barcino, which are by definition local in scope and purpose, these Imperial maiorinae were legal tender throughout the Empire to sometime past the mid 390s or even to 400, pushed to be hoarded by the less worthy money issued after the death of Theodosius I and the problems that would pile up by 400. They are also extremely common (GLORIA ROMANORVM Emperor standing facing with standard and globe, Esty Type 41), being minted from six mints for three to four years for all three emperors: Theodosius and his heirs Arcadius and Honorius.

The purpose of this post is to show three coins of great quality, one for each member of the Theodosian dynasty, spectacular each in its own right. I have picked Nicomedia products,...

Hello All
My newest acquisition was recently purchased and just now arrived in my hands.
They are four Coins/Tokens/Medals, and I don't know the history about them.
At least the first, I really have doubt if it's a coin or medal.
Those are just for share with you.
Any comments are welcome and will be very much appreciated.

TRANS-MISSISSIPPI AND INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION
1898 OMAHA, NE
Medals: Official Medals struck in Mint Exhibit from dies made at Philadelphia Mint. Obverse is composite picture "of...the most beautiful women in the Trans-Mississippi country" while reverse was designed by T. R. Kimball, Omaha, Architect in Chief of exposition. About "25,000 of these coins were sold".

Obv. Female bust l.; above around Trans-Mississippi Exposition Omaha; below bust 1898
Rev. Mounted Indian spearing a buffalo; below 1848

HK-281 Silver. 34mm.
HK-282 Bronze.
HK-283 Brass.
HK-283a Copper....

I know that mine is a very small collection of Roman Republican coins compared to what many of you have, so it may seem silly of me even to mention. But 30 is a lot to me, and I'm very fond of almost every one of them.

Roman Republic, A. Postumius A.f. Sp.n. Albinus (Aulus Postumius Albinus, son of Aulus [mint magistrate ca. 96 BCE], and grandson of Spurius [Consul 110 BCE]), AR Serrate Denarius, 81 BCE, Rome mint. Obv. Veiled head of Hispania right, with disheveled hair; HISPAN behind / Rev. Togate figure standing left, raising right hand towards legionary eagle to left; fasces with ax to right; A •/ ALBIN/ N • S [AL in monogram] across fields; POST • A • F in exergue. Crawford 372/2, RSC I Postumia 8 (ill.), Sydenham 746, Sear RCV I 297 (ill.), BMCRR Rome 2839-42, Harlan RRM I Ch. 1 at pp. 6-7 [Harlan, Michael, Roman Republican Moneyers and their Coins, 81 BCE-64 BCE (2012)]. 19 mm., 3.92 g., 6 h. (Purchased from Brad Bowlin; Ex.“old French collection in Paris.”...

Today I thought it would be as good a time as any to post this coin that has graced the world coin section of my collection since 1997.

The coin is a massive 50 reales, struck in the name of Philip IV of Spain at Segovia, in 1635.

For many years I have eyed various examples of this coinage, and in 1997 I decided to bite the bullet, bidding on lot 2555 of the Superior Stamp & Coin Auction held on June 3-4, 1997.

I was successful, with a winning bid of around $25,000 + buyers fee. This was a huge sum to pay for one coin, and I had to sell a good portion of my collection at the time to help raise funds.

And, as fate would have it, both my wife and I were terminated from our employment in June 1997, at a local health care center as part of a merger and "downsizing" of staff.

Still, I raised the funds to pay the approximate $27,000 for this coin (time clouds my memory so I don't have the exact amount).

The coin arrived, in a custom coin holder secured with 8 plastic screws, two...

William the Conqueor penny, Spink 1257

William the Conqueror issued nice coins for the medieval period after he seized England in 1066. His coins were well made and came up to the legal standard with respect to the purity of their alloy. After William died in 1087, his son William II (a.k.a. Rufus) replaced him.



A somewhat better than average William II or "Rufus" penny struck with a broken obverse die. Spink 1261

Rufus’ coins were generally low quality pieces. The dies were often badly worn and there were questions as to whether or not the silver was up the legal standard. William’s bother, Robert pawned his kingdom, Normandy, to William for 10,000 marks. Since a mark at the time was worth 160 pence, that came to 1.6 million pence. Could this be reason why the quality of the British coinage reached a low state during this period?



A much better than average William II...

Firstly, I submit to your consideration a coin much like some of mine that you've seen in the past... or have you!?

The wonderful obverse ANT monogram is definitely for Antigonos. ... buuuut is that for Gonatas, as usually implied? Or Doson?
Is the NK related to the same NK as the ATGs?
What in the world is the monogram on the reverses top right? TNK(??)??
The reverse BAEL certainly claiming to be king.
And, the most obvious question of this marvel of ignominy is, whoes monogram is on the bottom of the reverse, DIE(?), Doson, some magistrate or place???

Antigonos II Gonatas
277/6-239 BC. Æ 18mm (3.85 g). Macedonian shield with monogram of Antigonos in central boss / Macedonian helmet; three monograms around. SNG Copenhagen 1222. Very fine. Ex: Savoca

The coins reverses upper left monogram surely resembles the NK that we saw half a century earlier in the name if Alexander the great. Unfortunately mine cuts off the bottom...

It was the blot on the American Revolution. It was the contradiction that undermined Thomas Jefferson’s soaring human rights rhetoric in the Declaration of Independence. It was the divisive issue that forced the framers of the Constitution insert language to preserve it, much to our embarrassment today. That source of national shame and mortification was slavery. Language concerning slavery appears four times in the U.S. constitution:

• Article I, sec. 9, clause 1 stated that the importation of slaves would continue for 20 years after the constitution was ratified, which legally, but not completely, ended the practice in 1808.

• Article V stated that no law could be passed to ban the importation of slaves until that same year. (Article V’s main function was the set forth the procedures for amending the Constitution.)

• Article IV, sec. 2 provided for a fugitive slave law which required that the states were obligated to return runaway slaves...