Coin Talk

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

As motto on top of my book "Münzen und antike Mythologie" I have chosen the following words of Gottfried Benn ('Roman des Phänotyps'):

"But millenia are living in our souls,
Lost, silents, dust: Kain, Zenobia,
The Atreids sway their Thyrsos rods from afar."

And as first coin in my book I have chosen Apollo Smintheus. This has sentimental reasons: I recall very well how we have begun to read Homer's Ilias in the school.
The first coin I want to present is a coin of Commodus. It is an AE28 from Alexandreia. The legends are in Latin because this city was a Roman colony.

1st Coin:
Commodus, AD 180-192
AE 28, 7.81g, 27.74mm, 45°
obv. AVT CAI(sic!) M AV COM - MODO AVG BA
Laureate head r
rev. COL AVG - TROAD
Statue of Apollo Smintheus, in himation, quiver over r. shoulder, stg. facing on small cippus, holding bow in l. hand and and sacrificing from patera in r. hand over flaming tripod.
Ref.: not in Bellinger (cf. A193); not in...

I have owned this coin for some years, but only rephotographed it recently and I decided to research its background more thoroughly. Please post comments, other coins from this city, Sabina provincials, or anything you feel is relevant.


Sabina, AD 117-137
Roman provincial Æ 17.3 mm, 4.65 g.
Trachonitis, Gaba, AD 134-135.
Obv: ΒΑC-CΑΒЄΙΝΑ, bare-headed and draped bust right.
Rev: ΓΑΒ-ΗΝѠΝ, Zeus naked standing l., drapery hanging on his l. arm, resting on long sceptre with his r. hand, his l. on hip; in l. field, star and ΡЧΔ (city year 194 = AD 134/5).
Refs: RPC III, 3952; Rosenberger II Gaba 14; Sofaer 28 (same dies); Kindler 29.

About Gaba:

We don't know as much about the city of Gaba in Trachonitis as we would like. We're not even sure of its location in antiquity.

After the civil war between Antigonus II Mattathias and Herod in 37 BC, Herod established several military colonies...

Another Roman provincial coin caught my interest…this coin, like the others, leading to undiscovered people, places, culture and events (at least undiscovered by me). After some wandering I found this monograph by Jane DeRose Evans in “COINS FROM THE EXCAVATIONS AT SARDIS: THEIR ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXTS, COINS FROM THE 1973 TO 2013 EXCAVATIONS”, a worthwhile read at the intersection of numismatics and archeology. I enjoyed the readable descriptions of challenges and methods to establish context for coins e.g.

• Circulation: how fast, how many, how far and how long
• Date of coins, artifacts or strata
• Purpose of local and imperial coins
• Source mints: where, when, and how they operated
• Find types: primary, secondary, tertiary as deposited coins move from initial location

First, where...

Many people know Mithridates VI, king of Pontos from 120-63 BC, the king who caused the Romans a lot of pain in three different wars. He was ambitious and wanted the Pontic Kingdom to be the dominant power in the Black sea region, and this ambition let him to some success as well.



After he subjugated Colchis and the Bosporian kingdom, he focused his attention on Anatolia. He made an alliance with Nikomedes III, king of Bithynia and conquered Paphlagonia and Galatia together. However, soon it became clear to Mithridates that Nikomedes III was trying to form an anti-Pontic alliance with the expanding Roman Republic, and defeated him in a series of battles.

Afterwards, the son of Nikomedes III, Nikomedes IV came to rule Bithynia, a puppet of the Romans. Mithridates tried to overthrow him but failed, which led Nikomedes IV to declare war on him. Two Roman legions and the army of Nikomedes IV invaded Pontos in 89 BC, being outnumbered, it...

Ex-David Queller/Mass. Historical Society - 1810 50c Pickup

David Queller (1921-2014) was a passionate collector of US coinage, probably most famous for his acquisition of the 1804 “Reed-Hawn” Draped Bust Dollar, known as “The King of American Coins” and one of 15 known examples for $475k in 1993 and its subsequent sale for $3.7m at Heritage Auctions in 2008. (NGC’s article on the history of that coin and Queller here, and a 2008 video interview with Mr. Queller by Heritage here.) He was urged to keep bidding at the time by his son, and the collaborative efforts of his family members in his numismatic pursuits led to what became the Queller Family Collection.




I came across this bust half and loved it for its own sake immediately, but as I was intrigued by the flip I started digging and was...

Greetings fellow inmates!

I just learned to day the governor is going to make our house arrest offcial. I hope that I will be able to go out for food.

Given all the doom and gloom, I decided to dust off another old article from 2010. I never published this one so I "fattened it up" a little.


In the late 1780s a glut of circulating, light weight copper coins was damaging the fragile United States economy. Some of these coppers were legitimate pieces that several states were issuing under the provisions of the Articles of Confederation. Under that form of government, which preceded the U.S. Constitution, each state was allowed to establish their own monetary system and issue money to support it. There were also foreign coins in circulation, which had been the standard practice since the colonial period.



The 1887-8 Massachusetts copper coins were the best made of the pre-Constitution state coinages....

This post will probably scare most of those Coin Collectors that think all coins are Doubled Dies and every mark on them MUST be a MInt error. And it may make experts ponder when they see a light zincoln, what actually happened to it.

So even though the story starts out nice and kind it does turn into a nightmare for some, nah, a devilish nightmare. So turn away now whilst you still can.

So for this year I finally broke down and "processed" my circulation change, and more specifically the cents/pennnies as my cent tub was overflowing.


I normally separate them by decade and then store them away. I may or may not in the future actually search them That's a plan but you never know.

But first, as I thought about this for a few days I noticed whilst exercising that I had a few cups of coins in them on a desk next to my stair stepper? Odd, as I keep the cups for separating coins and they are in a different location. Of course, then I noticed I had...

In another thread, @Limes gave me a good suggestion :"If you still have more time, how about writing a background story on each coin?" So with more time lately for my favorite hobby, I revisited some old friends. I found a similarity between a provincial coin of Caracalla from Alexandria Troas and an Imperial one from Antoninus Pius struck in Rome. At first look, it seems they don't have nothing in common. Can you find the "likeness" between the two specimen ???





They are both featuring the same ichonographic detail: a Cippus. But what is it exactly ?
It is a low column of stone, sometimes round but often of rectangular shape, and used as a mark of division of land, for indicating the distance of places or as a sepulchral monument. On many Cippi are found the letters TTL meaning "Sit tibi terra levis" (May the earth rest lightly on you) which is a latin funerary inscription. On...

Since there was recently a thread for Art Deco coins and medals, I thought I'd start one for coins and medals from a slightly earlier period -- covering Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau and related styles -- and post some of my own from that period.

Great Britain, 1882, AE Commemorative Medal for the Corporation of the City of London (No. 17), The Dedication of Epping Forest, by Charles Wiener. Obv. Bust of Queen Victoria l., wearing the small diamond crown, sash and Orders/ Rev. Londinia standing facing the seated Queen within a forest setting, holding gate open to winding pathway, IT GIVES ME THE GREATEST SATISFACTION TO DEDICATE THIS BEAUTIFUL FOREST FOR THE USE AND ENJOYMENT OF MY PEOPLE FOR ALL TIME. EPPING FOREST, 6 MAY 1882. Eimer 1689, BHM 3128, Welch 17. 75 mm., 268 g.





Great Britain, 1837-1897, AR Official Royal Mint Medal to Commemorate 60th Anniversary of Victoria's Reign. Obv. Bust l., crowned, veiled and...

A Roman Republican as with a Janus obverse and a prow reverse has been on my want list for quite some time, and I have been waiting for the right coin to come up. Two weeks ago, I finally found a nice specimen for a price I was willing to pay, and it arrived this morning:


Roman Republic, As (uncial standard), 169–158 BC, moneyer: C. Cluvius Saxula, Rome mint. Obv: head of Janus, I above. Rev: prow right, C·SAX (ligated) above, ROMA below. 35 mm, 25.98 g. Ref: Crawford 173/1.

A couple of ancient writers discuss and explain these coins in detail, which is the main reason I wanted one. (EDIT: Just to clarify, what follows is a little account of the reception of this type of coin by some writers during the Roman Empire. For a historically more reliable origin story of the devices on the coin, see the informative post by @Carausius below.)

In his Saturnalia, the 5th century philosopher Macrobius tells us...