Coin Talk

Hello everyone! For several months I've been studying and creating a research piece that covers the numismatic history of the ancient maritime kingdoms of Southeast Asia that covers the pre-Islamic coin series from ancient Sumatra, Java, and the Philippines. The main polities covered are the Srivijaya of Sumatra, the Shailendra of Java, the Majapahit of Java, and the Ma-yi of the Philippines. There's a lot to it and it's been very interesting; I plan to share the majority of my findings here in time.

I wanted to introduce a new discovery that has never been documented anywhere else to the best of my knowledge. The discovery is a previously-unknown reverse design on a rare denomination of gold. Some context should be known about the coinage series first.

The island kingdoms of Southeast Asia are generally held to have been not very important in numismatic history. There was little everyday usage of coins until around 1300 CE when...

Filippo Maria Visconti


Bronze, 99.3 mm Ø, 389.4 g

By Antonio di Puccio Pisano, called Pisanello, c. 1441.

Obverse: Bust of Filippo Maria Visconti facing right, wearing soft-top cap and brocaded top embroidered with flowers and a crowned wreath encircling a dove. Around, PHILIPPVS MARIA · ANGLVS · DVX · MEDIOLANI · ETCETERA · PAPIE · ANGLERIE · QVE · COMES · AC · GENVE · DOMINVS (Filippo Maria Anglus, Duke of Milan et cetera, Count of Pavia and Angera, and Lord of Genoa), with a star separating the beginning and end of the inscription.

Reverse: At the left, Visconti on horseback prancing left, wearing full armor with biscione crest on helmet and holding lance. In the middle, another horseman wearing armor and holding lance. At the right, a page on horseback seen from behind. All within a mountainous landscape, with various buildings in the background, and a colossal female statue amongst...

This afternoon I received this beautiful denarius.


HADRIANVS AVG COS III P P
bare head left, draped
FORTVNAE REDVCI
Fortuna standing left with rudder on globe & cornucopiae, shaking hands with Hadrian

Hadrian 117-138
AR Denarius
Struck 134-138
3,32g/18mm
Ric 248 (not recorded with this left bust)

I was pretty excited that I could buy this coin from my Christmas money. In the first place because this is a beautiful piece with a beautiful portrait of Hadrian facing to the left. Also because the reverse political meaning is very interesting. The reverse shows Fortuna shaking Hadrian's hand. But the most special thing about this coin is that it is unpublished with this left-facing bust. So it's my first unpublished coin.

Left-facing busts of Hadrian on denarii are certainly not unique. They are even quite common. Remarkably, they are often unpublished. This may be due to their rarity, but it remains uncommon for RIC writers to rarely register...

I inherited the 10 cent note from my dad. It is quite a nice note, in fantastic condition. I don't know enough about how to grade notes to put a grade on it, but I would imagine it would be unc or at least au.

The 25 cent note I got from my niece who found it this past summer.

So, I was looking for a 50 cent note to complete the 5th issue set, and found this damaged one on the bay with a minimum bid of 3 bucks. I bid on it at the minimum and forgot about......well, no one else bid on it so I got it. It is in terrible shape, but I am pleased to have it for 3 bucks (+ $2 shipping) until I can upgrade down (probably way down) the road.

So, though it doesn't compare in quality with many of the paper collectors here (except the 10 cent note), I'm very happy with this complete set (for now).

And, as far as I can tell, this is a complete set of the 5th issue.....Correct?


Bob

p.s. Feel free to post your fractionals as well.....I love these...

This is a medal that I picked up a few years ago from one of my favorite sellers from Germany. It was kind of an impulse purchase. The quality of the engraving really spoke to me. That a medal was produced to commemorate such a minor (to me) event is kind of surprising. Being such a well-produced medal the fact that it is unsigned (per the seller)is surprising as well. I do see some letters (initials?) at the bottom of the reverse.

Below is the seller’s description:

On the laying of the foundation stone of the Trinity Church on 4 July.

Obverse: View of the church, on the left an angel with a palm branch, on the right an angel with an olive branch, above it the Trinity in clouds

Reverse: Writing in the heraldic wreath.

Regensburg-Stadt Am Henkel

Catalog: Plato 23.

Diameter: 40.5 mm
Weight: 19.68 g
Silver medal 1627
Unsigned

It doesn’t bother me in the least that someone mounted this at some point. The mount is well done, unlike many mounted...

Admittedly, I've become used to seeing a beautiful ladies face on an ancient Greek, and going, "No helmet, no Athena.", "No Crown, no Hera." "No bow, no Artemis." Fooled by Apollo again!


But I was pretty stoked to get such a nicely struck, near as struck Greek, for next to the price of religion (here in Utah they're giving it away for free!)


LYDIA, Sardes. Circa 133 BC-AD 14.
Æ.
Laureate head of Apollo right. / Club within laurel wreath; monogram above.
SNG Copenhagen 470-482. BMC 238
17 mm, 4,62 g



Was certainly excited to receive it, as in hand the little thing sings Apollo is so feminine to modern standards it's high-larious You can see where they didn't smooth the flan out enough before striking, the extra metal they left and that saweet monogram at the top of the reverse#class! What's not to love?


And...

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

The Coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE - drachm, 35.3g, 20.22g
Alexandria, AD 117/8 (RY 2)
Obv.: AVT KAIC TPAIANOC AΔPIANOC
Bust, draped, laureate, r.
Rev.: Euthenia, clad in garment of Isis (in chiton and peplos with the typical knot before her breast), wearing crown of Isis (sun disk between horns), leaning l., resting l. arm on small sphinx, laying r., and holding in raised r. hand grain-ears, poppies and lotus-flower(?).
in field LB (= year 2)
Ref.: Milne 844; BMC -
VF, green brown patina

Notes:
(1) The portrait of Hadrian is a bit unusual and reminds of Caligula. It seems that it needed some time until the Alexandrians got the right portrait!
(2) The typical knot at the breast is the so-called Knot of Isis, the Tit-Knot. This knot originally was a special knottet girdle tie und has relations to the religious sign of Ankh. The Ankh Cross was suggested in ancient Egypt as...

As we come to the end of 2019, and welcome in the New Year, it seems appropriate to reflect on time and the calendar. I photographed this clock in the old town square in Prague a few years ago. The clock dates from 1410 and was made by Mikuláš of Kadaň, clockmaker and Jan Šindel, astronomer and mathematician. It is an amazing work of art and science. In addition to the time, the clock shows the relative positions of the sun, moon, and constellations of the zodiac. It is the oldest working astronomical clock.

It takes about 365.2422 days for the Earth to revolve around the sun, not something that has always been well reflected in the calendar. The calendar of the Roman Republic fell short more than 10 days each year which meant that the seasons drifted against the calendar. The years were periodically reconciled with the addition of a “mensis intercalaris” – a.k.a. Mercedonius from merces for wages - although it was...

2019 for me was focused primarily on building my modern Hungarian type set. In working on this set, I discovered something that is not documented well in any English or Hungarian catalog that I have found, which is that there are three distinct strike types for ultra-modern Hungarian coins.

I consider the modern coinage period for Hungary to have started in 1946 for various reasons I have discussed before on this forum, however, I have not talked much about Hungarian ultra-moderns. After Hungary regained independence from the Soviets in 1989, there was a brief transitional coinage period, followed by a major transition for the Hungarian Mint. The mint incorporated in 1992, becoming the Hungarian Mint Ltd., with the National Bank of Hungary as the major shareholder (they would become the sole shareholder in 1996). This transformation of the mint began what I consider to be the ultra-modern period of Hungarian coinage.

The issues of 1992 were sparse, with a high mintage for...

Post your middle bronzes of Severus Alexander or Julia Mamaea or anything you feel is relevant.

The Scriptores Historia Augustae (SHA) is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman Emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers of the period 117 to 284. It is ostensibly a compilation of works by six different authors, but a recent computer analysis of its style has demonstrated that it is the work of a single author. It is a challenging source for historians because it contains kernels of truth, but these are interspersed with remarkable omens and fantastic anecdotes. At least one ruler has been entirely invented. The most clear-headed exposition of it all can be found on Jona Lendering's introduction to the work at Livius.org, which describes it as "something like an ancient mockumentary" and summarizes it as "a collection of (bogus) biographies of Roman emperors of the second and third centuries."[1]

The...