Coin Talk

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...

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

Here is the next contribution to the theme Roman-Egyptian mythology. The cause for this article was the following coin, especially the meaning of the IS on the upper field of its reverse which has fascinated me.

The coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE - drachm, 35.4mm, 26.43g
Alexandria, 129/30 (RY 12)
Obv.: AVT KAI - TPAI AΔPIA CEB
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
Rev.: Rivergod Nilus, bearded and laureate, nude to hips, leaning l., holding cornucopiae in outstretched r. hand and reed in l. arm, resting with l. arm on small hippopotamus, stg. r.,
in ex. LΔΩΔEK (= year 12)
in upper field LS
Ref.: Milne 1267; Dattari 1805; Köln 993; Emmet 1015
about VF, blue-green patina

IS = 16 (cubits), means the optimal level of the flood of the Nile. The S should be read as 'digamma', not as 'stigma'! The cubit was the unit length measured from elbow to the tip of the...

Happy Birthday, Sol Invictus

December 25 is the birthday of the Roman Sun God, Sol Invictus

Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means "the birthday of the unconquered Sun".

The use of the title Sol Invictus allowed several solar deities to be worshipped
collectively, including Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god, Sol, the god of Emperor
Aurelian, and Mithras, a soldiers' god of Persian origin.

Emperor Elagabalus (AD 218-222) introduced the festival, and it reached the height
of its popularity under Aurelian, who promoted it as an empire-wide holiday.

The festival was placed on the date of the solstice because this was on this day
that the Sun reversed its southward retreat and proved itself to be
"unconquered".

These coins are from the emperors Antoninus Pius (AD 138-161), Aurelian (AD 270-275),
and Constantine (AD 306-337).


Antoninus Pius Provincial AE 23 - Emesa, Syria...

Well, I've finally caught up to where i can start posting my Baltimore show wins from last month. How about we start with a nice double-struck Parthian?

Parthian Kingdom, Seleukia-on-the-Tigris mint. AR tetradrachm. Gotarzes II (c.40-51 AD). Dated 361 Seleukid Era (=49/50 AD), month off flan. Obverse: Diademed bust of king left. Reverse: King seated right, receiving diadem from Tyche who holds cornucopia, Greek inscription around. Multiply struck on both sides. Sellwood 65.25-27, Shore 362. This coin: Purchased from Marcos Xagoraris (Aristos Ancients) at Baltimore Whitman Coin Expo, November 2019.

Vardanes I and Gotarzes II were brothers from different mothers, though both were legitimate offspring of their father Artabanos II (or IV, as we discussed earlier). Artabanos died in 38 AD. Details of the succession are unclear, but it appears Gotarzes may have taken the throne briefly, only to be overthrown. Gotarzes tried to reclaim the...

As all of us know the Roman Empire coinage underwent a great, some may say catastrophic, debasement in the mid to later part of the Third Century. For a while the Roman mints did a pretty good job of disguising the debasement by some kind of enrichment process that left the surfaces of their silver coinage looking like the earlier silver. The silver of the double denarius of Gordian III, circa 242 AD, was under the 50% fineness grade but it still looked like a silver coin. By the beginning of the reign of Valerian in circa 253 AD it appeared that the Romans were still using an amalgam of silver and copper, that is a heated alloy of the two metals with copper so predominating, that coins of this period often have a copper tinge to them when first minted and then turn a kind of dark, dirty gray in color. But at some point, I am guessing here, but around 260 AD, the Roman mints seemed to have abandoned their coins of a base amalgam and gone to making the coins of essentially copper...

Coming up for sale next month is a coin that represents something of a dilemma in the British series of Wreath Crowns. As many readers know, the wreath crowns were struck from 1927 through 1936 (excepting the one year 1935 "Rocking Horse" crown).
The 1927s were all issued in proof, though Brits often refer to the crowns of this year as "specimen". After that in numbers ranging from the 1934 low of 932 pcs. to 1928 of some 7k pcs. these were struck and largely released through banks at Christmas time for service as presents, or at least so goes the literary records.
In addition, some specially prepared coins were struck each year, and these have been referred to in various sources as specimen, proof, VIP proof, VIP Record proof, etc.

There are several problems with discriminating ordinary currency from these special issues in that the ordinary currency runs were very low with many proof-like pieces known from all dates. Some of these even have edges with finning and appearing...

While researching the Byzantine bronzes that come my way, I kept coming across online references to the Byzantine shops at Sardis. Finally I bought the book, The Byzantine Shops at Sardis by J. Stephens Crawford.which is a handsome cloth-bound quarto from Harvard University Press (1990). Mine is ex-Carnegie Mellon Library in Pittsburgh and it was only about $3 on eBay.

Here's the story - one day around 617 A.D., the shops at Sardis burnt down. There were a bunch of them, along a kind of portico against a large bath complex and a big Synagogue. From the findings, archaeologists think that the shops were a mixture of manufacturing (textiles, dyes mostly) and restaurant/taverns. Kind of like a cross between a US strip mall and small industrial park.

Nobody knows why they burnt down - the Persians are a likely culprit. But here's the interesting part - the ruins were never investigated, and only partially built over. Which makes the shops at Sardis a kind of...

Full reverse indent (two of them actually). How'd it happen? A second cent planchet was directly on top of this one in the collar when the dies struck. Notice how smooth the surface pattern is. As is common, look how designs from both sides have indirectly transferred into it.



Now look at the full reverse indent on this nickel. Notice the surface pattern appears textured - not smooth like the cents - but it is not a split planchet; it weighs 5.0 grams, the standard weight for a nickel.



I believe this was caused by the textured, striated side of a split planchet being hammered into the reverse side of this nickel. The label implies it is simply the result of "two coins struck together." Clearly there is enough room to state it's a "Full Reverse Indent from a Split Planchet." It makes a big difference...