Coin Talk

Gordianus II and his father ruled for only 21 days. As he was proclaimed after his father and died in battle before him, Gordian II had, if only by a difference of some hours, the shortest reign of any Roman Emperor in the whole of the Empire´s history. His coins are even rarer than those of his father.



IMP CAES M ANT GORDIANVS AFR AVG - laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Gordian II right, seen from behind
VICTORIA AVGG S C - Victory advancing left, wreath upward in right hand, palm in left; S-C across fields.
AE Sestertius, Rome, April 238 aD
30mm / 17.21 gr / 1h
Banti (I Grandi Bronzi Imperiali, Vol. IV-2) Nr. 6 (4 specimens listed, this coin illustrated on p. 238); RIC 7 (plate XII, Nr.4, same obverse die); BMCRE 29 (plate 42, Nr. 29, illustrating specimen from Naples, same obverse die); Cohen 13 (citing specimen in Paris); Sear 8472.
From the collection Richard van de Vyvere-Colens (1837-1912); Charles Dupriez Sale Nr. 112 Bis (M. van de...

During the first half of the 13th century, and while the Spanish Reconquista was in full effect, gathering barons and knights from Provence to Lorraine, Burgundy, England and Germany to fight against the Moors in the Iberian territories, a rather obscure conflict took place between James I King of Aragon (Jaime I) and the nephew of Ermengol VIII de Sant Hilari, Guerau de Cabrera, for the succession of the County of Urgel, in Catalonia. Starting after the death of Aurembiaix, Ermengol's daughter in 1231, the conflict between King James (who had supported Aurembiaix and now supported her husband Peter (Pere) of Bourgogne-Portugal), and the Cabrera faction raged until 1235/6, when an impoverished Ponc de Cabrera, the younger son of Guerau, accepted the King's terms under the mediation of the bishops of Lerida and Urgel, and surrendered the cities of Lerida and Balaguer to the crown of Aragon.

In turn, Peter abandoned his claims to Urgel and received Majorca, Ibiza and some Balearic...

Some anonymous folles ["Class I"] have been attributed to the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus III (1078-1081). He has one other follis type that is not anonymous, Sear 1888. It is quite scarce (although low valued in Sear) and rarely comes at all nice (remember, we are talking about Byzantine copper). The Sear plate coin is not pleasing--the photograph is hard to decipher.

So, I was very pleased to get this one:

23-22 mm. 5,55 grams.
Christ standing facing, IC XC either side, eight-pointed stars below, either side.
C Φ
N Δ
in quadrants of cross with big dot at each end. Eight-pointed star in circle.
According to Whitting, Byzantine Coins, the letters abbreviate
May the cross (C) protect (Φ)
Nicephorus (N) emperor (Δ) [Despot]

If you have an interest in Byzantine coins and don't have Whitting, you are missing out on a lot of pleasure and information. It has many excellent enlarged photographs and a lot of commentary.

I have many auction-sale...

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

Here I want to share an article about the mythology of Troy.

But first: The name of the herdsman referring to on these coins has been passed down as Ordes, not Orodes as he is named in error in Bellinger! Orodes is the name of several Parthian kings.

1st coin:
Troas, Alexandreia, quasi-autonomous, AD 2nd-3rd century
AE 23, 4.5g, 23.25mm, 225°
obv. CO ALEX TRO
Bust of city-goddess (Tyche), draped and turreted, r.: behind vexillum inscribed CO/AV(?)
rev. CO[L?] AV TROAC
The herdsman Ordes, in short dress and wearing boots, advancing l., holding pedum
over l. shoulder, r. hand raised; r. behind him cattle leaping r., head turned l.; on the l. side grotto within laying cult-statue of Apollo Smintheus, above Apollo Smintheus stdg. r.
ref.: Bellinger A480 (Type 19); BMC 41
rare, about VF, weakness of strike on upper part of rev.

2nd coin:
Troas, Alexandreia, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 23, 6.99g, 23.29mm, 180°...

MAXIMVS CAES GERM – bare-headed and draped bust of Maximus right
PRINCIPI IVVENTVTIS – Maximus, in military attire, standing left, holding baton and spear, two standards set in ground to right
Sestertius, Rome September 236- April 238
31 mm / 20,36 gr
RIC 13, Cohen 14, BMCR 213, Sear 8411, Banti 6 (207 specimens)
ex Jean Elsen fixed price list , January-March 2019, Nr.140



Caius Iulius Verus Maximus was born ca 215 ad as the son of future emperor Maximinus Thrax and his wife Caecilia Paulina.

He reportedly lived in Rome during the rise of his father was engaged to a young lady named Iunia Fadilla, a descendant of Antoninus Pius. The wedding however never took place as Maximus was ordered to the German frontier to accompany his father on his military campaigns after the Thracian Giant´s succesful coup against Severus Alexander.

Maximus was raised to the rank of Caesar between 07 January and 16 May 236 and the roman mint...

Gallienus and Salonina had two sons depicted on coinage -- Valerian II and Saloninus. Let's see your coins of these two boys!

The year their eldest son, Valerian II (P Cornelius Licinius Valerianus), was born is not known with certainty; a date of AD 240 is a reasonable guess. Perhaps at the instigation of his grandfather, Valerian I, the younger Valerian was accorded the title Caesar shortly after Gallienus' elevation to the role of joint emperor with Valerian I, probably some time in AD 255 and no later than AD 256.

Valerian I and Gallienus soon issued coins in the boy's name with the idea of establishing an imperial dynasty extending to a third generation, something not seen in the Roman world since Commodus wore the purple. The most obvious allusion to this is the reverse type IOVI CRESCENTI ("the growing Jupiter"), which depicts Valerian II as the infant Jupiter riding on the back of the goat Amalthea.

The younger Valerian would have been a teenager -- 15 or 16 -- at the time...

The coin I'm sharing today is from a series I've been watching out for for quite some time and wasn't sure I'd ever be able to add to my collection. I was outbid for another(nicer) example of this type in CNG e-auction 408(by Clio himself if memory serves me right) and didn't expect to see another any time soon, so I was ecstatic when I found this coin on MA-Shops earlier this month. Even though it is worn and with a terribly struck reverse I didn't hesitate to buy it at all one I was certain of what it was.

This type and the series it is from was only relatively recently identified as a separate series from the Apulian spearhead bronzes(Crawford 88) by Roberto Russo in his 1998 paper on unpublished bronzes in Essays Hersh. Russo actually identified 3 different spearhead bronze series which he called 88A(the Apulian series), 88B(this series) and 88C(a later, likely post Second Punic War series). Since then, Andrew McCabe has shown rather convincingly that this "88B" series is...

I recently bought a digital microscope that could magnify objects up to 1600x (maybe not well, but it does work). One of the first things I looked at was a BU Morgan with a light wiping on the obverse.

This first image was taken at about 800x. You can see the flow lines expanding radially from right to left. You can also see the hairlines going from top left to bottom right. Note how they go over the E; that's how you can tell that they are not die polish.



Same magnification, just a different area. The flow lines are a bit clearer.



This image was taken at 1600x in the same location as the above image. You can clearly see the ridges that were etched into the die. These ridges reflect the light on one side, which is what causes the cartwheel luster. Also note how the cleaning hairlines disrupt these ridges. That is why an abrasive cleaning will destroy luster.



This image was also taken at...

Although Republic of Texas “red backs” are well-known to collectors, the pay warrants for the Texian navy and marines are truly scarce. I bought two and donated them to the Brigadier General John C. L. Scribner Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry. Of course, I made scans for myself. I also began assembling images of other notes in this series. Heritage Auctions has the best library of online sales catalogs listing many of these. I found a few others, as well. Of course, I also got books from the UT Austin library about the Texian Navy; and I visited university’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. I found online resources from the Texas State Historical Association and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. From those repositories, I began building a spreadsheet to correlate the names from the backs of the pay warrants to their places in the history of the Texian Navy.

“Remember the Alamo!” encapsulates the story of Texas...

Yuezhi. Arseiles. Late 1st century BC. AR Hemidrachm. Very rare.


The design of this coin imitates the design of the Indo-Greek hemidrachms but with the name of a very rare Yuezhi chief and a stylized lion of Babylonian tradition in the reverse

Ancient confederation of the silk road west of China. The Yuezhi 月氏 was a nomadic power that dominated much of the silk road west of China before being invaded by the Xiongnu and scattered out of the area which is now Xinjiang and central Asia. They eventually migrated west, invaded the Indo-Bactria kingdoms of Northern India and established the powerful Kushan Dynasty.

Source: Wikipedia.

The Yuezhi civilisation featured heavily in ancient a Chinese historical accounts. In particular during the Han Dynasty, the famous ambassador Zhang Qian made a historic diplomatic mission under the order of Han Wudi to forge an alliance against their common enemy, the Xiongnu. His accounts...