Coin Talk

Public Domain image, C. Comiers, "Pratique Curieuse", 1735.

The Sibylline books were consulted by Romans from the time of the republic through to the end of the Empire. The books were destroyed with the temple of Jupiter in 83 BC, but a copy was found and arbitrated. Augustus moved them to temple of Apollo in 12 BC. There are many references to these books over time, here are just three for illustration. Livy writes of the books being consulted in 399 BC after bout of pestilence:


This resulted in a lectisternium being set up for the first time i.e. a couch (pulvinar) for images of the gods to recline with a meal served to them on a table. Seutonius reports...

I accidentally started this on another thread, but I thought it might be fun to list animal on ancient coins in terms of rarity. I will throw something against the wall, if you disagree or want to add to it, just post and we can update it. It could actually be helpful to newcomers to the hobby if they want to buy a coin of their favorite animal to know how challenging it will be, (*cough* rhinos *cough*). Sorry, it still greaves me personally the low number of rhino coins, but I digress.

Here is a rough attempt to start it:

Very Common: Eagle, horses, lions, elephants, snakes
Common: Dolphins, "fish", bull/cow, Owl, bee, turtle,
Scarce: Pigs/boar, camel, crabs, mollusks, dogs/wolf, chickens, ducks, gazelle/deer, crocodile, goat, peacock, crayfish, rabbit/hare, donkey/mule, scorpion, octopus
Rare: Hippos, Ostrich, swan, stork/ibis, leopard/snow leopard, raven, fox, moose, manta ray
Very Rare: Apes, (1 type), rhino (2 types), Bear, (know of 1 now), seal
Extinct:

I had Bear as...

By 1872 some of the scandals that would plague the Grant presidency were coming to light. Chief among them was the Credit Mobilier scandal which involved the construction of the transcontinental railroad by the Union Pacific Corporation. A group of leading Union Pacific stockholders founded Credit Mobilier of America as a purchasing and construction company. The company's mission was to construct the tracks for the railroad's westward expansion. During this period the Federal Government was paying the Union Pacific Railroad Corporation generous subsidies for each mile of track it laid. Through overbilling and creative bookkeeping, Credit Mobilier reaped huge profits for its stockholders.



After vice presidnet Schuyler Colfax was implicated in the Credit Mobilier scandal, he was dropped from the Republican ticket in 1872.

To keep Congress on board with the scheme, company officers sold shares of Credit Mobilier stock at deeply discounted...

Two coins acquired back in November (yes, I'm finally catching up):

Coin 1. Sasanian Persia. AR drachm. Kavad I, 2nd reign (499-532), Royal Year 36. Obverse: Bust of king right, Pahlavi inscription before "KaVAT AFZUTU" (May Kavad Prosper). Reverse: Zoroastrian fire-altar with two attendants, star and crescent above, to right mintmark DYNAS, to left date 36. This coin: Picked from a dealer's "choose-your-own" pile of Kavad I drachms at the Baltimore Whitman coin show, November 2019.


Coin 2. Sasanian Persia. AR drachm. Kavad I, 2nd reign (499-532), Royal Year 34. Obverse: Bust of king right, Pahlavi inscription before "KaVAT AFZUTU" (May Kavad Prosper). Reverse: Zoroastrian fire-altar with two attendants, star and crescent above, to right mintmark AS, to left date 34. This coin: Picked from a dealer's "choose-your-own" pile of Kavad I drachms at the Baltimore Whitman coin show, November 2019.

Kavad was born...

BRONZE MEDAL - LEIPZIG WAR COMMEMORATIVE
Year: 1913



City of Leipzig Bronze Medal / Völkerschlachtdenkmal: Peoples Monument of the Battle of Leipzig - 100th Year Anniversary of the Battle of Nations.

This medal is dated 1913, it commemorates the 100th year anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig, also known as the "Battle of Nations". The Medal depicts the Völkerschlachtdenkmal (Peoples Monument of the Battle of Nations) in the city of Leipzig Germany. It depicts the giant armored statue of St. Michael standing guard at the base of the monument as well many other collosal statues both inside and on the exterior. This is one of several different medals and coins issued depicting the Völkerschlachtdenkmal.

To go along with the Parthian AE drachm of Vardanes I that I posted last week, here's another coin with some mystery over where it was struck. This time it's a Sasanian AR drachm:

Sasanian Persia. AR drachm. Hormazd IV (579-590 AD), Royal Year uncertain. Mintmark ZwZwN (see explanation below). Obverse: Crowned bust of king right, name and titles before and behind. Reverse: Zoroastrian fire-altar with two attendants, star and crescent above, to right mintmark in Pahlavi ZwZwN, to left date (unread). This coin: Purchased from Allen G. Berman at the Baltimore Whitman coin show, November 2019.

Hormazd IV was the son of Khusro I (531-579 AD); his mother was the daughter of a foreign khagan, though whether it was the Turkish or Khazar khagan seems to be in dispute. Hormazd clashed often with the nobles and the Zoroastrian religious leaders, and is said to have ordered the executions of over 13,000 of his noble and religious opponents. He fought a...

Hey everyone. I just wanted to let you know this is my first post ever on CT, and I would like to share some of the varieties of Seleucid Tetradrachms that I have recently studied. Please enjoy this post and let me know if any information is wrong or if you have any questions.

Antiochos and Apollo:

Antiochos I Soter spent his first 10 years of his reign as joint-ruler with his father Seleukos I Nikator. After his father died, he reigned from 281-261 BC. He also married Demitrios Poliorketes’ daughter Stratonice.

On the assassination of his father, keeping together the huge empire he had built proved to be a challenging task. The Goths, seeing a weakness in the Seleucid empire, attempted to invade Anatolia. Antiochos stepped in with the famous Seleucid war elephants acquired by his father. Thankfully, with the destruction of the invaders, Antiochos bore the title of Soter or “Savior”.

During his reign, Antiochos struck four Tetradrachm varieties. The majority of...

About Alphonse de France as Count of Toulouse I have written an entry a few months ago (It can be read here: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/al...sader-and-peer-of-france.329959/#post-3290764)

But before getting the hand of Jeanne de Toulouse in marriage and thus securing the inheritance of an old adversary of the Capetians, Raymond VII de Toulouse, the minor Alphonse received as appanage from his father, King Louis VIII of France, the County of Poitou (and Auvergne) as early as 1225. Both this granted appanage and the on and off-going conflict, brought on by the fallout from the Albigensian Crusade, pitted Capetian interests against the Saint-Gilles of Toulouse and the Marquisate de Provence, which culminated with the Saintoge War and the Battle of Taillebourg, where the combined armies of Louis IX of France and Alphonse achieved a brilliant victory over the Lusignans and their liege lord Henry III of England, in...

While Octavian was active in the south of the Italian peninsula in 38 b.C, he used Tarentum as base port for his campaign against the renegade Sextus Pompeius.

It may have been here that he struck his handsome and enigmatic DIVOS IVLIVS emission as the son of the divine C. Julius Caesar, which is not only a good example of the political propaganda of that time, but can also be seen as the prototype for all roman imperial portrait bronze coins to come.



CAESAR DIVI F - bare head of Octavian right
DIVOS IVLIVS - wreathed head of Divus Julius Caesar right
Sestertius (?), southern Italy, 38 b.C.
30 mm / 19,73 gr
RPC 620; Crawford 535/1; Sear Imperators 308

Struck with 21 obverse and 27 reverse dies, this was one of the most abundant bronze emissions produced during the final stage of the Roman Republic. A large number of contemporary imitations, most likely struck in Gaul, are known and feature a cruder style, thin flans and inferior metal.

There is a...

In my recent "Snakes of the Roman Republic" thread, @Alegandron posted a cistophoric tetradrachm from Mysia in Pergamon from 85-76 BCE -- a period when that area belonged to the Roman Republic. See https://www.cointalk.com/threads/snakes-of-the-roman-republic.361571/#post-4564530 . I had never seen that kind of coin before -- only cistophoric tetradrachms from the Imperial period -- and thought it was beautiful. I knew I wanted one like it. So I purchased this coin, and it arrived the other day:

Lydia, Tralleis/Tralles, AR Cistophoric Tetradrachm, 126/125 BCE, Ptol-, Magistrate. Obv. Cista mystica with lid ajar and serpent emerging; all within ivy wreath / Rev. Bowcase (gorytos) with two serpents (one to left and one to right, heads at top); H [= date = Year 8 = 126/125 BCE] over ΠTOΛ [PTOL] above, between serpents’ heads; TPAΛ [TRAL] in left field; to right, Dionysus in short chiton standing facing, head left, holding thyrsos in right hand and...