Coin Talk

From the Stack's auction at the Bellegio a couple weeks ago... I love coins with a story, and this one really has a story.

Piastre of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany aka Davenport-8386. Population 1/0 finer at PCGS. Reverse depicts Christ over the River Jordan.

First machine struck silver crown in Florence, very high tech for its day.

Interesting guy Francesco, likely off'd his Austrian wife to elope with his Venetian mistress Bianca Cappello, who likely off'd her husband just prior to marrying Francesco. They eventually died a day apart and historians have argued ever since if they were poisoned or died from malaria.

The art collection at the Uffizi and Pitti Palace? All of it belonged to Francesco, though the Uffizi itself dates to his father and the Pitti Palace much earlier.

There is a hotel in Florence called the Palazzo Bianca Cappello where the future duchess lived while waiting for the Duke to become "available". A street view pic of it below. It's...

Earlier this summer, I was lucky enough to bid on what I considered to be three very original bust dimes, all from the same little collection. I won them all. They were all part of an estate that was being settled, and the coins were sent to auction by his relatives. What made this so risky and exciting, however, is that the seller's pics made it all a huge guessing game as to what exactly I was bidding on. Were the coins AU? Were they UNC? Personally, I couldn't be sure, but I hoped. So I chased them in the bidding war.

Below you will see all 3 dimes. First, the seller's pics with the price I paid, followed by my pics, followed by the PCGS grades and TrueViews. Where exactly did these coins come from? They all arrived tucked into little paper envelopes. How fascinating is it that this collector had a relatively small collection of such pristine coins? I am amazed, and I feel very blessed. It's always a risk buying from bad pictures. I am not a traditional gambler, but I do...

Hello everyone! I've had these two odd tin cash type coins for awhile now and am finally getting around to researching them more and wanted to share the odd story of the coins' history here. These two examples are part of a scarce series of tin coins in the style of Chinese cash coins that were apparently minted locally in Palembang, Sumatra in present-day Indonesia.

If you're familiar at all with Chinese cash coins then you know that they are easily recognizable by the square center hole surrounded on all four sides by a Chinese character that together reads the legend, usually the emperor's name or the name of the era of rule. The hole in the center allowed for merchants to put standardized amounts of the coins onto a closed string for quick and easy trading.

ROMAN IMPERIAL COIN INSCRIPTIONAL LETTERING


My pen and ink rendition of typical
Capitalis Monumentalis lettering

Roman Imperial coin inscriptional letterforms are based on those of CAPITALIS MONUMENTALIS employed by stone cutters for edifices, monuments, tombstones, etc. A fine extant example is found on Trajan's column in Rome and the essential constructs of these letterforms are the models for all Majuscule (Capital) alphabets used in the western world. Stone cutters in particular still employ their distinctive proportions and terminating serifs. It should be noted that only twenty letters were normally used in the ancient Roman alphabet: A B C D E F G H I L M N O P Q R S T V X. Our modern J and U were not used, their equivalents being I and V respectively. Thus, our modern...

2 JIAO (20 Cents) COIN - REPUBLIC OF CHINA - YUAN SHIKAI
Date: A.D. 1916



Obverse: Portrait head left of Yuan Shikai - (1916) YEAR 5 OF THE REPUBLIC / REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Reverse: Lettering with wreath - "Five Pieces for One Yuan Two Jiao"

Engraver: Luigi Giorgi

This coin depicts Yuan Shikai, a high ranking military official, politician, warlord, and president of the Chinese Republic who attempted to place himself on the throne of a short lived new imperial dynasty. He is one of the most significant Chinese political figures in the late 19th and early 20th century. This coin type was dated 1914 (3), 1916 (5), and 1920 (9).

Under Yuan Shikai new regulations were promulgated under which 280 million older silver coins were recalled and a new series was issued bearing the portrait of Yuan Shikai himself. The dollar coin, known colloquially by some collectors as the "Fatman Dollar", became the most widely circulated coin in...

Dear friends of ancient mythology!

Today I would like to tell something about one of the countless gods of the East: Hadad.

The Coin:
Syria, Dium, Geta as Caesar, AD 209-211
AE 24, 11.37g, 2.35g, 0°
struck AD 205/6 (= year 268)
Obv.: ΠOVΠ C - ΓETAC K
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, bare-headed, r.
Rev.: HZC - ΔEIHN - ΩN (year 268)
Hadad (Jupiter Heliopolitanus), in typical scaly garment, wearing kalathos with
bull's horns, stg. frontal, holding eagle-tipped sceptre in r. hand and Nike in l.
hand; at his feet on each side a bull's protome looking outwards.
Ref.: Spijkerman p.118, 6, pl.24, 6; SNG ANS, 1281-2; BMC 1; Lindgren 2202;
Rosenberger IV, 34, 5; Meshorer 244; Hendin 848
very rare, VF, brown Patina

Mythology
Hadad is a West Semitic weather and storm god, son of the sky god Anu. He corresponds to the Accadic god Adad. His veneration is traceable from the end of the 3rd century BC, in...

For many years I have proudly owned a shekel of the first Jewish war, a period of upheaval, the loss of tens of thousands of lives and the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem.

The shekel came to me by way of a Ponterio & Associates auction, in the early 90's, as I recall. I was able to secure the coin for $875, I guess because it is darkly toned (hoard patina, graded VF) plus the fact that a small hoard became available at the time.

I've been looking to add a mate for this period. Buying another shekel, or half shekel, was (as still is) out of the question. So I looked around, on an on and off basis, at the bronze coins.

Finally, last week, I found one that was reasonably "affordable", at $99 (off center obverse, grade: about Fine). This coin, while somewhat scarce, is really nothing to write home about in terms of condition, but in light of the fact that anything better would cost exponential dollars, it is a decent example.

So, here are the two coins:

First...

This medal is a little more modern than what I usually collect but the obverse imagery spoke to me. It was created to commemorate the expansion of a Catholic church in Portugal.


OBVERSE: Of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Conquest, War, Famine, and Death), War rides a red horse and wields a sword, shown here, ready to dispatch two lost souls. As told in the Book of Revelations 6:4, “And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.” This medal was designed and signed by Miguel T., unknown to me except for this medal.

REVERSE: With a parish growing rapidly, the small Portuguese Church of Saint Martin of Aldoar (Igreja de Sao Martinho de Aldoar) dedicated the new Igreja Matriz de Aldoar in 1988, pictured on this medal’s reverse beneath a peacock in full display.

Edge: 400-1000

Diameter: 91mm...

Today political commentators talk about candidates and those in office who are constantly saying and doing things that “appeal to their base.” It is nothing new. In the 19th century candidates and office holders did the same thing.




Here is a political token that has been on my want list for at least 20 years. It is quite scarce. I have seen only about 4 or 5 pieces in auctions over the last two decades or so. For me the ideal piece would one struck in white metal with a hole at the top. This piece is struck on copper, which makes it rarer, with a layer of gold plating. It was perhaps given to a high official of the Democratic Party, or it might have been made for a 19th century collector. In any case this is the only piece that I have had to chance to buy when my finances dictated that I could buy it.

The obverse features a portrait of Martin Van Buren, who was Andrew Jackson’s protégé and successor. The slogan reads, “The prudence and principles...

Here's a fun one, if you like this sort of thing.
Robert II, ‘le Jeune,’ Comte de Dreux 1188-1218. AR denier parisis of Dreux.



Obv. [in two lines, partly retrograde:] HC-O [/] M[E]S (‘A COMES;’ of the Count.)
(Apparently a combination of the genitive case in Old French, à, with the more conventional, formulaic Medieval Latin comes. Other feudal issues, at least from the 12th century, have a similar juxtaposition of linguistic elements. Reminiscent of the formula of later Anglo-Saxon -Angevin English pennies, with the royal name and title in Latin, and the moneyer's signature in Old -Middle English.)
[From 3 o’clock:] X MI: ROBERTVS (“+ME[I?] ROBERTVS;” [of?] me, Robert).
Rev. Cross, Alpha (‘/\’) in lower right and (inverted) upper left angles.
+DRVCAS CASTA (Castle of Dreux).
(Boudeau 4, Duplessy 421, Legros 113, Poey d’Avant 91, Roberts 3935.)
This is one of a relatively few instances of French...