Coin Talk

2 days ago I was browsing a site and saw this coin. It brought back to mind a recurring theme of late. It seems I can go years without seeing particular coins I am interested in and then all of a sudden several appear seemingly all at once. I am not sure what is responsible for this phenomenon but it is certainly is interesting.

This coin is a case in point. Several months ago I came upon an auction on Heritage for a Domitian RIC 72 from the Morris collection. It was the first time in 4 years that I saw one come up for auction. So naturally I pursued it and won it. It is supposedly R2-very few examples known. I believed this because I had never seen one come to market until the Morris collection example.

A couple of months later another example appeared at Heritage and sold for a very respectable price. It commanded quite a lot of attention. I did not buy this one since as much as I would have liked to, I cannot buy every coin I like.

A couple of months ago I was checking the...

Echoes of Byzantium

I originally posted this in Coin Chat, but I think it sits best in Ancients - even though this post is not specifically devoted solely to ancient coins. Anyway...

As should be no surprise to anyone who knows me on this forum, I have a passion for history, especially the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire, and ancient Greece.

All my Christmases came true late last year, when the other half agreed to a holiday to Greece completely devoted to history (and food and wine). I will do another post on ancient Greece, but this one focusses on the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire.

On our Byzantine tour, we visited Athens (more known for ancient Greece, but there is a cultural museum dedicated to the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine), Meteora, Thessaloniki (the logic being it was the “second capital” of Byzantium), and Mt Athos.

Here are some historical highlights from the trip, including (of course) coins.

Byzantine architecture

Byzantine...

This has been an interesting challenge. Haven't completed it yet but it seems somewhat doable.



The portrait was to feature Sun Yat Sen who was the first president of the Republic of China. These coins were struck when China was literally falling apart as various provinces were striking their own coinage. A unified coinage was required and this meant huge production was required. The only mint that could fulfill this was from the other end of the world - Austria (!). This can be easily identified by the "A" mintmark.

Mintmark "A". 20 fen with mintmark "A" can be surprisingly difficult to find.



Something interesting to note is that master dies were prepared in Philadelphia and shipped to Shanghai. Coins struck in Austria do have some minor differences.

Even at the start of this coinage, nickel coins were meant to be struck in pure nickel. However at Tientsin mint, 1936...

I was lately classifying my Roman coins by iconographic elements ; patera, paludamentum, cornucopiae, standards, etc...and caduceus. I have never noticed I own half a dozen of them. They say “curiosity killed the cat”. But the cat has 9 lives, hasn’t it ? So I was wondering where this staff comes from. Did some research, lots of reading and here’s the results:

The caduceus is a rod, entwined at one end by 2 snakes, each of whose bodies folds again in the form of two half-circles, whilst the head passes above the wand. It is derived from the Greek karykeion or "herald's staff", itself based on the word "eruko" meaning restrain, control.



Prudence is generally supposed to be symbolized by these two serpents, and the wings which are sometimes added to the caduceus, are the representation of diligence. It was an attribute peculiar to the...

Lots of goodies in this one!

All lots end Sunday, 1/12 starting at about 4:30 PM EST

https://www.ebay.com/sch/ashwill0324/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

An expressive tiny silver obol from Side in Pamphylia, apparently a rare variety as Athena transitions from a more archaic (eye facing viewer) to a classical style (eye facing forward). Stylistically, probably from the mid/late 5th century BC


https://www.ebay.com/itm/254473008483


A coin of THE one and only - Julius Caesar! Minted in Thessalonica in Macedon under Octavian - a bit rough, but this is the only format to get a portrait of this famous Roman dictator without straying far over $100.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/254473009442


A rough but identifiable sestertius of a tough early Imperial personality - Nero Claudius Drusus, the brother of...

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

Harpocrates is one of the most famous gods of ancient Egypt. I hope to be able to tell you something new in this article.

1st Coin:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Macrinus, AD 217-218
AE 18, 3.14g, 17.55mm, 180°
Obv.: AVT K M OΠEΛΛI CE - VH MAKPINOC
Laureate head r.
Rev.: NIKOΠOΛIT - ΩN ΠPOC ICT[P]
Harpokrates, nude, stg. l., holding clothes and cornucopiae in r. arm and
raising r. hand to his mouth.
Ref.: a) not in AMNG
b) not in Varbanov
c) Hristova/Hoeft/Jekov (2018) No. 8.23.30.1 (plate coin)
very rare, F+/about VF, green Patina


2nd Coin:
Julia Domna AD 193-217, wife of Septimius Severus
AR - Denar, 3.5g, 18mm, 180°
Rome, AD 196-211, struck under Severus
Obv.: IVLIA - AVGVSTA
Bust, draped, r., hair waved in five waves and coiled at back
Rev.: SAECVLI - FELICITAS
Isis, draped, with polos on head, stg. r, foot on prow, holding the infant Horus
at her breast, and sistrum (or rattle) in r....

My first purchase this year was a batch of five Byzantine folles from eBay, otherwise undescribed. One was weird and worn with an odd reverse - just an M and a cross. I had no idea what it was until I got it in hand and I did a little digging on the Internet.

Turns out it is a Justinian I follis from the Salona (or possibly the Ravenna) mint. It is thought this was from a military issue for the Gothic Wars - so I learned from a CNG auction:

"The correct attribution of this unsigned series of bronzes remains uncertain, but numerous examples have been found in the environs of Salona in Illyria, an important Byzantine fort and staging area for military activity in Italy. Both Belisarius and Narses used it as a headquarters in their campaigns against the Ostrogothic king Baduila (Totila, 541-552), who conducted a brilliant guerrilla campaign against superior Imperial forces until his death at Busta Gallorum in 552. There is some debate about the date of coinage at this...

It's a slow day at work so I was working on cleaning up the files on my computer. I came across this piece I wrote a while back. I've never shared it here so, enjoy.

This piece appealed to me for multiple reasons. Not only does it have a stunning reverse but it is a numismatic item with a numismatic topic. It doesn’t get better than this for me.

AUSTRIA: Vienna 1816 42mm Medal Franz Neumann, dir. Of coin cabinets at Wien Mus – White Metal




This medal was produced to honor the passing of Franz Neumann the director of Coin Cabinets at the Wien Museum in Vienna Austria in 1816. Here is a short history of this amazing museum and its holdings.

Coin Collection

The Coin Collection is one of the five largest and most important coin collections in the world. With some 600,000 objects from three millennia, it contains not only coins but also paper money, medallions, orders, etc. Some 2,000 objects can be seen in the three halls housing the permanent...

PHOTO: CNG RESEARCH (NOT MINE, ALAS). Galerius. AD 305-311. Æ Follis (26mm, 6.55 g, 6h). Cyzicus mint, 2nd officina. Struck circa AD 308-309. GAL MAXIMIANVS P F AVG, laureate bust right / VIRTVTI E-XERCITVS, Mars advancing right, holding trophy and transverse spear.

So students of the First Tetrarchy know that Diocletian identified the Eastern Empire with Jove, while the West under Maximian was associated with Hercules. But things get complicated when each Augustus and his Caesar adopt protective deities. I’ve encountered contradictory information on this score.

Paul Stephenson, in Constantine: Roman Emperor, Christian Victor, states, “The situation was complicated further when the Caesars took patron gods of their own, with Constantius favouring Mars, popular in the west, and Galerius venerating the eastern favourite, Sol Invictus” (91).

Timothy Barnes, however, in...

Hello everyone! For several months I've been studying and creating a research piece that covers the numismatic history of the ancient maritime kingdoms of Southeast Asia that covers the pre-Islamic coin series from ancient Sumatra, Java, and the Philippines. The main polities covered are the Srivijaya of Sumatra, the Shailendra of Java, the Majapahit of Java, and the Ma-yi of the Philippines. There's a lot to it and it's been very interesting; I plan to share the majority of my findings here in time.

I wanted to introduce a new discovery that has never been documented anywhere else to the best of my knowledge. The discovery is a previously-unknown reverse design on a rare denomination of gold. Some context should be known about the coinage series first.

The island kingdoms of Southeast Asia are generally held to have been not very important in numismatic history. There was little everyday usage of coins until around 1300 CE when...