Coin Talk

This is a medal that I picked up a few years ago from one of my favorite sellers from Germany. It was kind of an impulse purchase. The quality of the engraving really spoke to me. That a medal was produced to commemorate such a minor (to me) event is kind of surprising. Being such a well-produced medal the fact that it is unsigned (per the seller)is surprising as well. I do see some letters (initials?) at the bottom of the reverse.

Below is the seller’s description:

On the laying of the foundation stone of the Trinity Church on 4 July.

Obverse: View of the church, on the left an angel with a palm branch, on the right an angel with an olive branch, above it the Trinity in clouds

Reverse: Writing in the heraldic wreath.

Regensburg-Stadt Am Henkel

Catalog: Plato 23.

Diameter: 40.5 mm
Weight: 19.68 g
Silver medal 1627
Unsigned

It doesn’t bother me in the least that someone mounted this at some point. The mount is well done, unlike many mounted...

Admittedly, I've become used to seeing a beautiful ladies face on an ancient Greek, and going, "No helmet, no Athena.", "No Crown, no Hera." "No bow, no Artemis." Fooled by Apollo again!


But I was pretty stoked to get such a nicely struck, near as struck Greek, for next to the price of religion (here in Utah they're giving it away for free!)


LYDIA, Sardes. Circa 133 BC-AD 14.
Æ.
Laureate head of Apollo right. / Club within laurel wreath; monogram above.
SNG Copenhagen 470-482. BMC 238
17 mm, 4,62 g



Was certainly excited to receive it, as in hand the little thing sings Apollo is so feminine to modern standards it's high-larious You can see where they didn't smooth the flan out enough before striking, the extra metal they left and that saweet monogram at the top of the reverse#class! What's not to love?


And...

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

The Coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE - drachm, 35.3g, 20.22g
Alexandria, AD 117/8 (RY 2)
Obv.: AVT KAIC TPAIANOC AΔPIANOC
Bust, draped, laureate, r.
Rev.: Euthenia, clad in garment of Isis (in chiton and peplos with the typical knot before her breast), wearing crown of Isis (sun disk between horns), leaning l., resting l. arm on small sphinx, laying r., and holding in raised r. hand grain-ears, poppies and lotus-flower(?).
in field LB (= year 2)
Ref.: Milne 844; BMC -
VF, green brown patina

Notes:
(1) The portrait of Hadrian is a bit unusual and reminds of Caligula. It seems that it needed some time until the Alexandrians got the right portrait!
(2) The typical knot at the breast is the so-called Knot of Isis, the Tit-Knot. This knot originally was a special knottet girdle tie und has relations to the religious sign of Ankh. The Ankh Cross was suggested in ancient Egypt as...

As we come to the end of 2019, and welcome in the New Year, it seems appropriate to reflect on time and the calendar. I photographed this clock in the old town square in Prague a few years ago. The clock dates from 1410 and was made by Mikuláš of Kadaň, clockmaker and Jan Šindel, astronomer and mathematician. It is an amazing work of art and science. In addition to the time, the clock shows the relative positions of the sun, moon, and constellations of the zodiac. It is the oldest working astronomical clock.

It takes about 365.2422 days for the Earth to revolve around the sun, not something that has always been well reflected in the calendar. The calendar of the Roman Republic fell short more than 10 days each year which meant that the seasons drifted against the calendar. The years were periodically reconciled with the addition of a “mensis intercalaris” – a.k.a. Mercedonius from merces for wages - although it was...

2019 for me was focused primarily on building my modern Hungarian type set. In working on this set, I discovered something that is not documented well in any English or Hungarian catalog that I have found, which is that there are three distinct strike types for ultra-modern Hungarian coins.

I consider the modern coinage period for Hungary to have started in 1946 for various reasons I have discussed before on this forum, however, I have not talked much about Hungarian ultra-moderns. After Hungary regained independence from the Soviets in 1989, there was a brief transitional coinage period, followed by a major transition for the Hungarian Mint. The mint incorporated in 1992, becoming the Hungarian Mint Ltd., with the National Bank of Hungary as the major shareholder (they would become the sole shareholder in 1996). This transformation of the mint began what I consider to be the ultra-modern period of Hungarian coinage.

The issues of 1992 were sparse, with a high mintage for...

Post your middle bronzes of Severus Alexander or Julia Mamaea or anything you feel is relevant.

The Scriptores Historia Augustae (SHA) is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman Emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers of the period 117 to 284. It is ostensibly a compilation of works by six different authors, but a recent computer analysis of its style has demonstrated that it is the work of a single author. It is a challenging source for historians because it contains kernels of truth, but these are interspersed with remarkable omens and fantastic anecdotes. At least one ruler has been entirely invented. The most clear-headed exposition of it all can be found on Jona Lendering's introduction to the work at Livius.org, which describes it as "something like an ancient mockumentary" and summarizes it as "a collection of (bogus) biographies of Roman emperors of the second and third centuries."[1]

The...

The virtue of Pietas, religious or filial devotion, was one of great importance to the ancient Romans, and Pius was a cognomen reserved for those who could demonstrate that they had it by the bucketloads. Antoninus Pius was one of those guys, and he so burnished the idea that a good ruler should also embody this virtue that even sociopathic and fruitcake emperors like Caracalla and Elagabalus would, decades later, take his name in wholesale fashion for their own, patently false advertising be damned.

But, Antoninus wasn't always called Pius. We know this because the earliest coins struck in his name as emperor made no mention of his PIVS-ness at all. On these rare issues, struck in the weeks following Hadrian's death on 10 July 138, he is either simply IMP ANTONINVS AVGVSTVS, IMP T AEL CAES ANTONINVS AVG, or IMP CAES AEL ANTONINVS AVG.

The story goes that Antoninus, not even six months into his job as Caesar, was with Hadrian when the latter died at his villa in the seaside...

So Dies Natalis Solis Invicti is already over here, and today in my part of the world, the annular solar eclipse was fully visible, with the maximum annular phase reached at 13:23 hrs.



After we ooh'ed and aah'ed over the "Ring of Fire" that we won't be experiencing here for another 40 years, it occurred to me that the moon-impeded daytime lighting seemed just about right for a little coin photography.

There were a few coins that were already in my photography queue, but I figured I would include, as a tribute to Luna and Sol, the following two subjects...


CARACALLA
AR Antoninianus. 5.18g, 23.6mm. Rome mint, AD 217. RIC IV 284a corr. (draped and cuirassed; see plate); RSC 396a. O: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG GERM, radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right, seen from behind. R: P M TR P XX COS IIII P P, Diana Lucifera (or Luna) wearing crescent on head, fold of drapery in circle round head, holding reins...

In this thread bcuda wrote This is true for many of us. Collectors in big cities may belong to a coin club and find ancient-coin-collecting friends, but many of us have to collect alone.

Be glad you live in the 21st century. I collected utterly alone with ancient-coin books for my companions for many years prior to the internet. Ancient-coin dealers who sent out paper fixed-price lists would advertise (in Coin World and elsewhere) that you could get their lists if you would write and ask for them. I did. At the time I lived in Montana and mail was usually a day slower than to the coasts so the coins I wanted were often already sold. When a catalog came in the mail my wife would call my office...