Coin Talk

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....

Nectanebo II, (flourished 4th century bce), third and last king (reigned 360–343 bce) of the 30th dynasty of Egypt; he was the last of the native Egyptian kings



...and this thread aint about him.



This thread is about just how far a coin can fall due to our (mis)perceptions/identifications, hoard finds etc.
It seems nuts to me that we can find a hoard of 45,000 Attic owls and they still remain so expensive. Or something like the Black Sea Hoard, our own @Ed Snible put together a very thorough and eye opening article on this http://snible.org/coins/black_sea_hoard.html, and now most folks feel about those coins



Cut to last year, I must say that when I read that, I too could own...

Here is my latest addition to the numismatic family. I recently purchased this off of my favorite seller on MA-Shops.com. It had been on my watching list for over 6 months and I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger. This piece is way outside of my normal budget but I was recently able to sell off some unwanted items to help finance the acquisition. In addition, the seller was open to me making the purchase through a payment plan.



Davenport shows 3 varieties of this piece in German Secular Talers 1600-1700 and surprisingly this is not one of them. I like collecting coins that are out of the ordinary. This one qualifies for a number of reasons. Mining Thaler's from the 1600s, in general, are scarce. There are lots of varieties but I don't consider any of them common. The depiction of St. Jacob also appealed to me. This is the only coin in my collection with him portrayed. I couldn't find any link between him and the Lauthenthal area. In addition,...

Hi all

I'm currently reading "The Numismatic Aspects of Leprosy" (yes, there is such a thing) by McFadden/Grost/Marr.
It's an interesting book, listing more than 1000 different tokens and bank notes used in leper colonies in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Danish West Indies, Hawaii, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nigeria, Panama, Philippines, Thailand and Venezuela.

With the exception of tokens from Colombia, The Philippines and Venezuela, these tokens are very rare, and there are few collectors. The background for issuing them were threefold: To prevent spreading the disease through coinage (which was unrealistic), preventing the patients at the colonies from getting legal tender with which they could escape the colony, and preventing black market transactions with outside merchants.

I only have one Colombia 50 centavo and a Venezuela fractional Bolivar. I would love to see more of these tokens, if any of you have some in your collection.




The book...

Here is Part 2 of the Tudor Dynasty

Edward VI was groomed to be king from the time he was born. He was blessed with superior intellect and was schooled by the best tutors. He began to study Greek and Latin at age five and was well versed in the history of the Protestant Reformation in northern Europe. When he became king at age nine in 1547, he was said to be learned and precocious, and his intellect and religious piety were noted throughout the continent. The only thing that was left out of his life was a childhood, and Henry VIII's sixth wife, Catherine Parr, was the closest thing he ever had to a mother.

Given the king's age more senior officials assumed primary responsibility for ruling the country. King Henry VIII had made provisions for a ruling regency council, but one of its members, Edward Seymour, who was the king's uncle and his late mother's brother, out maneuvered the others and made himself regent under the title, Duke of Summerset.

Like King Edward,...

It must be obvious to all of us that we seem to be in danger of a serious epidemic. World markets are reacting adversely to news of an incipient plague and the accompanying economic, not to say human damage that may arise. Most of us on this site know, of course, that world wide epidemics, pandemics, are not a new phenomenon. The Ancient World of Classical Greece and Rome suffered through several which are well documented by both contemporary writings and recent DNA evidence from skeletal remains. The question I would like to raise is, is it possible to see the havoc caused by such pandemics in the coinage of the periods involved.

Well, let's take a look at what we know about four ancient epidemics or plagues( loimos to the Greeks, pestilentia or pestis to Latin speakers). First a bit about that of the Plague of Athens, well known to readers of Thucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War. The plague broke out, or at least most manifested itself, in the second year of the...

"THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH"

About the history
Martinian the usurper. Emperor for only 3 months in 324 AD. We know nothing about his origins. He was the magister officiorum of Licinius I, in other words his bodyguard. During the civil war between Constantine and Licinius, Martinian was appointed co-emperor by Licinius after the defeat at the battle of Adrianople. He was then sent to Lampsacus with his army to try to stop Constantine's armada, without any success. Licinius had to run away from Byzantium and was soon joined by Martinian for the Battle of Chrysopolis where they finally got crushed. Both Licinius and Martinian were later captured but had their lives spared by the intervention of Constantine's sister (and also Licinius'wife). But Constantine changed his mind and had them executed in 325 AD.
This is the official version. In fact the only one told by modern historians. It is based on stories written by 2...

The city of Milan is one of the most important urban centers of Italy and has been so for the past 2000 years, while also recognized as vital for the control of Italy at least since the third century. Milan was also (before Ravenna) at the center of a historical shift in the manifestation of power and politics. How?

In the summer of 268, while Gaul had been effectively separated and ruled by Postumus as an independent kingdom -- the "Secessionist Empire" -- Aureolus, a general and knight under Gallienus openly rebelled against the rightful emperor and, after a botched attempt at taking Italy, he retreated to Mediolanum, where he offered his support to Postumus. Besieged by Gallienus and his generals -- including the scoffing Claudius (the future Claudius II Gothicus 268-270) and Aurelian (the future emperor Aurelian 270-275) -- his political gambit manifested itself in the coinage he minted in Milan for Postumus. This coinage was a series of EQVIT coins (a nod to the cavalry he...

Here's my sole win from Frank S. Robinson's most recent auction:

Indo-Parthians. Abarshahr mint (?). AE drachm. Successors of Sanabares II (second half of second century AD). Obverse: Bust of king left, wearing diadem with triangular bow behind head. Reverse: Seated archer right, Abarshahr mint symbol (A above Pi) below bow, inscription behind (either badly blundered Greek or not-so-blundered Aramaic-Parthian). Sellwood 93.6-8, Shore 479, Sunrise 504, Koch Group 12. This coin: Frank S. Robinson Auction 111, Lot 114 (February 11, 2020).

This coin is part of the enigmatic "Sanabares" bronze coins that are part of the Indo-Parthian series, but are listed by David Sellwood as the last type (93) in his definitive work on Parthian coins. Sanabares I was apparently a rebel against the Parthians in the eastern part of the empire, though his exact dates are disputed (mid-to late-1st century AD seems to be the usual range). He may have been part of...