Coin Talk

Hello everyone,

Nikola Tesla.. was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist who is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
Born and raised in the Austrian Empire, Tesla studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without receiving a degree, and gained practical experience in the early 1880s working in telephony and at Continental Edison in the new electric power industry. He emigrated in 1884 to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen. He worked for a short time at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before he struck out on his own. With the help of partners to finance and market his ideas, Tesla set up laboratories and companies in New York to develop a range of electrical and mechanical devices. His alternating current (AC) induction motor and related polyphase AC patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, earned him...

Every United States commemorative coin has a story to tell, but the history surrounding the 1925 Stone Mountain half dollar is one of the most interesting tales in U.S. numismatics. The legislation that authorized this coin rekindled a debate that had started before the end of the Civil War, and the project that it partially funded would remain incomplete for more than 30 years.

The Daughters of the Confederacy Initiate the Project

Mrs. Helen Plane was a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). For some years, she supported an idea to establish a Confederate monument at Stone Mountain, which is located 15 miles northeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Her plan called for a 70 foot high statue of Robert E. Lee that would be carved into the side of the mountain.

In 1915, after she was elected president of the Atlanta chapter of the UDC, Mrs. Plane convinced other members of the group to ask sculptor Gutzon Borglum to do a feasibility study....

18th and 19th Century fisherman faced many perils at sea. Storms, hurricanes, shallow water reefs, pirates, wrecks, being swept overboard, drowning, these and many more plagued fishermen and some of these are still problems. A successful trip out to sea meant coming home with the holds full of fish and alive, coming back with empty holds could be a disaster, not coming back at all could crush a community. Many men were lost chasing food and profit. Fishermen often took risks to ensure success.
Many fishermen counted on the Lord and luck to help them through their journey. They did this through prayer and sometimes a talisman. These could be blessed or not, they could symbolize safety or a good harvest.
This particular talisman is for safety at sea; the showthalter was struck sometime between 1680-1780 at the Hungarian mint in Kremnitz, this medal is a copy of a 5 ducat piece designed by Christian Herman Roth between 1645-1690. In fact, this design, copied from the 5 ducat piece,...

The influence of Mithridates VI on the Greek world and it’s coins interest me a lot, and since I already made 2 write ups about it, and I will probably keep doing it when I get new coins, I thought it was nice to make a series about it. So this is part 3: The influence of Mithridates VI on the coastal cities of Thrace.

Please see the other 2 parts here:
Part 1: Cappadocia, The puppet kingdom of Mithridates VI Eupator
Part 2: Ionia and its surroundings, Welcome Mithridates to our city

Greek colonies found at the coast of Thrace and the Black Sea were located very advantageously at the sea, profiting immensely from trade.



The problem of the so...

First, someone (sorry I don’t remember who or what thread... much like my remembering the day of the week. I think it’s Thatday or possibly Thisday) had recently asked why we pronounce the Boston Celtics with the soft C and not the hard C, like they would’ve pronounced it themselves (though it wasn’t a name they gave themselves)?
A question I’d wondered myself! So, I looked it up and found a very informative article and podcast. It ultimately falls to how the English language has evolved over hundreds of years. Give it a listen or a read if you’d like: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wgbh.org/news/2018/03/27/how-we-live/why-we-pronounce-celtic-music-and-boston-celtics-differently?_amp=true


Which is my totally radical Segway



into my new coin!

But first, some...

During the sole reign of Gallienus, the Rome mint introduced a system of putting officina marks on coins. This may have been for purposes of quality control, helping to trace irregularities in coin weights and alloys.

Here are examples from each officina. Let's see your coins of Gallienus or Salonina with officina marks!

At first, the Rome mint used a letter abbreviation for the Latin number of the officina, such as P, S, T, or Q (prima, secunda, tertia, quarta) for the first four officinae, and the Roman numerals V and VI for the fifth and sixth. They could not use the letter abbreviation for "fifth," quinta, because it would have been indistinguishable from Q for quarta, or for "sixth," sexta, because it would have been indistinguishable from S for secunda.

P (=Prima, meaning "first"):


S (=Secunda, meaning "second"):


T (=Tertia, meaning "third"):...

Phoenicia - Tyre, 126 BC - AD 66 (struck 96/95 BC), Obverse: Laureate head of Melkart wearing a lion skin around his neck (not visible on this coin). Reverse: Eagle standing on prow, palm frond behind eagle, club of Melkart in left field. AR Shekel: 14.16 gm, 29 mm, 1 h. Photo courtesy of CNG.

The handsome autonomous Tyrian shekels were the most widely accepted silver coins circulating throughout the Levant for nearly 200 years because of their consistent weight (14.00-14.25 gm), and high purity. Robert Deutsch did a metallurgical test on 6 of these shekels and their purity averaged 96.16 %. Aramaic, Greek, and Arab speaking people accepted these coins without question. The Tyrian shekel and half shekel were the only coins accepted by the Jews for their annual Temple tax. During the Roman occupation the Tyrian shekel was worth 4 denarii. So why did these coins disappear from circulation?
During the Roman occupation the 2nd most common...

It's time for another article from the archives. I hope that you enjoy it.

This one needs lots of pictures, so it will take me a two or three messages to post all of it.


Today the nickel five cent piece is just behind the cent when it comes to modern coins that are on “life support.” Like the cent, the nickel has little purchasing power, and it now costs the mint more than five cents to make a five cent piece. The day might not be far in the future when the nickel will either have be modified from its present form (the new half dime?) or dropped as a circulating coin.

Like the cent the five cent piece has been a part of our monetary system since its inception. In April 1792, Congress passed the first coinage act which some collectors refer to as “Act One.” The Coinage Act of 1792 established ten denominations of coins from the half cent through the eagle or ten dollar gold piece and defined their weights and compositions. The Coinage Act also authorized the...

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in Harden County, Kentucky. Lincoln once said that his childhood could be condensed into one sentence from Gray’s Elegy, “The short and simple annals of the poor.” His parents, Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, struggled to survive on the American frontier. That struggle involved many hours of back breaking work and frequent shortages of the basic necessities.

Thomas Lincoln moved his family several times during Abraham’s childhood and teenage years. Thomas moved his family to another farm in Kentucky when Abraham was two years old and later moved to Indiana and finally Illinois before the future president set out on his own. The Lincoln family moves were usually prompted by a desire to find better land, but the move from Kentucky to Indiana reflected Thomas’ desire not to live in a state that allowed slavery.

Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died in 1818 when he was nine years old. It was a devastating blow for...

Ancient Iranian Numismatics: In Memory of David Sellwood. Mostafa Faghfoury (editor). 238 + xxviii pages. UCI Jordan Center for Persian Studies (2020).


David Sellwood (1925-2012) is a name well-known to anyone interested in ancient Persian coins. He wrote two editions of "An Introduction to the Coinage of Parthia", which is still the standard reference for Parthian coins, as well as other works on Parthian and Sasanian numismatics. The current volume serves as a celebration of his life and work, as well as a convenient excuse to collect a number of new papers on ancient Iranian numismatics by various authors. After introductory sections giving a brief biography of David Sellwood, as well as memories and tributes from various colleagues and a complete bibliography of his numismatic publications, we reach the section of novel numismatic papers. There is one paper on Seleucid coins, four papers on Parthian coins and history, two papers on the history and coins of Persis, and...