Coin Talk

Coin 1: Roman Empire, silver denarius of Julia Maesa, circa 222-235 AD

XF, some light cabinet toning.



Coin 2: "Watermelon Inversion": monster-toned 1965 SMS Lincoln Memorial cent, PCGS SP66 RB

From the WingedLiberty "Color of Money" collection on the PCGS Registry. Population 24 with 3 higher as of 3/2/20.



The previous owner called it "Greenhead Lincoln". I changed the name to "Watermelon Inversion" 'cause it's pink on the outside and green on the inside, and I thought the name sounded more like, rad, man. LOL.

Lovely toning or not, I'd never have bought a...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... Whoops, this is Dickens and this post is to compare two draped bust quarters which might well have been still in circulation when Dickens was publishing.

The first coin is an 1805 in an ICG holder graded F-15. I bought this at a local show last year for my type set because I thought it had a lot of meat on the bone for the grade, looked nice, and I negotiated a nice price.

The second is an 1806 in a NGC holder graded F-12 with a CAC green bean. This coin is out there now in auction and this post is NOT intended to denigrate this coin or in any other way interfere in the auctioning of this coin. I have hidden the serial number and other identifiers in an excess of caution.

The purpose here is ask the erudite membership if I should consider crossing my coin to PCGS or NGC and then asking for a CAC bean. Crossing and submission is not something I have ever contemplated until now-for any coin. It is also to ask if the...

Seleucus I was arguably the most successful of the Diadochi in the years after Alexander III's death. Seleucus started his career out as a captain an elite infantry unit, the hypaspistai, and accompanied Alexander in his campaigns to Persia and India. Seleucus was a small fry in the power negotiations between Alexander's generals in wake of the great conquer's death in 323 BCE. In gratitude for helping eliminate Perdiccas in 321, Seleucus was granted lucrative satrapy of Babylon. Unlike most Macedonian satraps, Seleucus treated the local population with reverence and respect. Seleucus accomplished this by honoring the local priest class and gods. In addition, Seleucus's wife Apama, was Sogdian royalty (an Iranian ethic group), which no doubt helped his position with the locals.

After a second round of civil war between the Diadochi, Seleucus was forced to flee to Egypt to the court of Ptolemy I Soter. After assisting Ptolemy in his war with Antigonus in Syria, Seleucus was given...

1918-S Mule US Philippine issue: One of the great, underrated rarities of modern numismatics.


Sometime in 1918, an obverse die prepared for the Twenty Centavo, was inadvertently used while striking Five Centavos. It is believed the error was apparently discovered rather quickly as the "Mule" has proven to be very elusive. The finest know is a single MS65 graded by PCGS with a total of nine recorded in mint state by PCGS. The 1918-S Mule, can be found in lower grades, but still presents a challenge for problem free examples in fine or better. NGC has graded ten examples ranging from EF40-AU58 with none lower and a mere two in mint sate. PCGS has graded twenty seven examples ranging from Poor 2 - AU58. That is a total of 48 from the two larger grading companies and ICG reporting none. That is less than the famed 1906-S Peso!


A quick search on Heritage revealed only two examples sold, with the last in 2008. There is a lower grade example currently on ebay for less than $100, but...

Here is a very interesting coin received in the latest JAZ Numismatics auction of 2/27/20. It depicts winged Nike holding a small Cabeirus and Palm. Just to give you an idea of how little is known about this deity reflect upon the fact that it has no Wikipedia entry. Hence, we have to turn to other sources for a provenance.

CABEIRI
(Group Κάβειροι), mystic divinities who occur in various parts of the ancient world. The obscurity that hangs over them, and the contradictions respecting them in the accounts of the ancients themselves, have opened a wide field for speculation to modern writers on mythology, each of whom has been tempted to propound a theory of his own. The meaning of the name Cabeiri is quite uncertain, and has been traced to nearly all the languages of the East, and even to those of the North; but one etymology seems as plausible as...

The German coinage of the 12th century is extremely diverse and at times hectic, as baronial and ecclesiastical mints were often more prolific, important and profitable than Royal or even Imperial ones. One of these mints, located at Regensburg, had been a Royal mint, striking coinage for the Kings of Germany between 947 and 1070, before becoming the capital and main mint of the united Duchy of Bavaria, and striking for the barons of the House of Welf and Babenberg.

One of these lords was Heinrich XI von Babenberg, called by contemporaries and successors Jasomirgott, who ruled as both Duke of Bavaria and Margrave of Austria from 1141/3 to 1156.

His coinage as Duke of Bavaria from Regensburg in the 1140s is struck on wide flans, usually with flat areas, and is quite scarce. This specimen is better than the average for the type:



AR23x21mm, 1.06g, silver dunnpfennig, minted at Regensburg, cca. 1143-1145/50.
Head facing slightly...

Aequitas, the Roman counterpart to the Greek Dikaiosyne, was the personification of equity and fairness, particularly in commerce and business. She is similar to Justitia in her iconography, but Justitia was the personification of justice and fairness in legal matters.

Aequitas is almost always represented as a female figure, clothed in the stola, generally standing but occasionally seated, holding a pair of scales, or very rarely a patera or branch in the right hand, and in the left a cornucopiae or scepter. Some numismatists consider the scepter-like object to be a pertica (measuring rod), which makes sense as a counterpart to the scales as an object for measuring items in the course of commercial transactions.

She appears on coins of numerous emperors and empresses from the first through third centuries. Show your Aequitas coins or anything you feel is relevant!


Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161.
Roman AR denarius, 3.25 g, 18 mm, 6 h....

An American Congresswoman once stated that politics "was all about the Benjamins" referring to United States $100 dollar bills which have a picture of Benjamin Franklin on them.

Although the Crusades (AD 1095-1291) were propagandized as "holy wars", they were mainly a matter of loot.

One could say that the Crusades were "all about the Bezants", the "bezant" being a slang term for a Byzantine gold coin.

During the Crusades hundreds of thousands of European noblemen, soldiers, peasants, and women poured into the Middle East which they regarded as the "Holy Land".

Their original goal was to drive the Moslem occupiers out but soon Crusaders began forming states like ones in Europe.

At the time, the only hard money (coins) in Europe were small silver coins called by various names, pennies, deniers, pfennigs, weighing about 1 to 1-1/2 grams and made of silver or billon (an alloy of some silver but mostly copper). Some bore the name of a king or emperor but local dukes, barons,...

I am happy to have struck a major coin off my bucket list much sooner than I thought I would.



Geta Æ sestertius. Rome, late 211 AD. P SEPTIMIVS GETA PIVS AVG BRIT, laureate and bearded bust of Geta right / VOTA PVBLICA, Geta, togate and veiled, standing left, sacrificing out of patera over tripod behind which a bull reclines; S-C across fields. RIC 187a; C. 232; BMCRE 235. 27.16 g, 31 mm.

On this sestertius, Geta is depicted in pleasing style with a newly grown, long and curly beard, with an unmistakable resemblance to Septimius. Cassius Dio relates that the troops felt kindly towards Geta since his appearance was very similar to his father's. It must have been a point of contention or even an outright provocation to Caracalla when Geta began fashioning himself so overtly in their father's image.

The reverse celebrates the vota publica, or public vows to the emperor. Every year on January 3rd the people assembled to offer their collective...

Here is an essay I wrote a couple years ago for my local club. Perhaps you will enjoy it.

Henry VII, 1485 - 1509

The Tudor Dynasty began in England in 1485 when forces under the command of Henry Tudor defeated an army led by King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Richard III was killed in that conflict and would be the last British king to die on the battlefield. Henry Tudor's victory marked the end of a 30 year period known as The War of the Roses. During that time the feuding houses of Lancaster and York had fought over the British crown. The "roses" referred to the symbols of the two factions. The House of Lancaster adopted the red rose while the Yorkists fought under the white rose.

Henry Tudor, who was a member of the Lancaster faction, declared himself King Henry VII. He immediately began to consolidate his position by marrying Elizabeth of York who was the daughter of King Edward IV (ruled 1461 to 1483) and heiress to the Yorkist cause....