Coin Talk

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

Some notes on the mysterious Veiovis:

1st Coin:
Roman Republic, Mn. Fonteius, gens Fonteia
AR - Denarius, Rome, 85 B.C.
Obv.: Head of Apollo Veiovis r., wearing laurel wreath with berries
behind MN FONTEI
[below thunderbolt,] CF under chin
Rev.: Winged young genius on a goat riding r., before and behind the hats of the
Dioscuri, decorated with stars,
in ex. thyrsos, all in laurel wreath.
Ref.: Crawford 353/1d; Sydenham 724b; Fonteia 11
VF, pretty details of the goat

The reverse imitates a statue in the temple of Veiovis in Rome which shows the young genius riding the goat Amalthea. According to the myth, Amalthea had suckled Jupiter on Mount Ida on Crete. The cornucopiae is said to have originated from her horns.

The figure of Veiovis is very mysterious. I found the most detailed explanation at the famous Wissowa (RE), in his article 'Religion und Kultus der Römer, München 1912:

Exactly in the middle...

Feeling induced by @ValiantKnight in this thread to find a coin with a church official, I turned to this very recent addition to my small collection of 11th and 12th century pennies of Western Europe (where I live).

AR Pfennig, Cologne, Archbishop Philip von Heinsberg (1167-1191). Obv. The Archbishop frontal, seated, with crozier and Bible. …HILIPVS? Rev. A building with towers, a cupola and something like a parasol. COLONIA PAI… 17.5 mm, 1.45 gr. Hävernick 509 e?



I wondered a lot about the building. The reverse type is based on an earlier pfennig type, here's one of the first examples:



This pfennig was minted in Goslar about 1100. The type is called a Burgpfennig, literally Castle Penny. One sees a temple with a cross and flanking towers...

The mythical account of Troas (modern northwestern Turkey) is briefly as follows. Teucer, the first king of the Troad, had a daughter who married Dardanus, the chieftain of Dardania, to the northeast of the Troad. The union produced two sons, Ilus and Erichthonius. Erichthonius was, in turn, the father of Tros, from whom the country and people were named Troas and Troes, respectively. Tros had a son, Ilus (apparently named after his uncle), who founded a city known as Ilium or Troy, after Ilus and Tros, and thus became its first king. After him ruled Laomedon, and after him, Priam of Homeric fame.[1]

The city Alexandria was founded ca. 310 BCE by Antigonus, and was settled by colonists from Cebren, Colone, Hamaxitus, Neandrea, and Scepsis. At first, the city was called Antigoneia, but renamed Alexandria about 300 BCE in memory of Alexander the Great.[2]


Alexandria Troas lies on the Mediterranean coast of the Troad, north of the Gulf of...

I recently purchased this wonderful As of Geta, RIC 129(b), Aesculapius standing between two snakes, in distyle temple. The coin is large - almost 27mm, I’ll post the weight shortly. The coin was struck in that mysterious period when the Rome mint was striking very few bronzes - this was more than made up for by the beautiful bronzes that were struck throughout the empire, especially in the East. It may be that the bronzes from the Rome mint during the period of low mintage were struck as presentation pieces - the beauty of this coin certainly points to it being struck for a special occasion. Note the unusual left facing bust and the obverse inscription which fully spells out “Caesar” instead of the more common “caes.”

I apologize for the poor photo - I will try to put up better ones and include the weight but I wanted to share this as soon as possible. I am aware of only one other example of this type, including identical bust type and left facing portrait - from the same dies,...

One more coin to post before I get to my November Baltimore show acquisitions:

Indo-Parthians. Margiana mint. AE drachm. Sanabares (possibly c.50-65 AD, or else c. 125 AD). Obverse: King's head right, hair in distinct waves, crescent and star before. Reverse: Archer seated right, Margiana mint-symbol below bow, somewhat blundered Greek legend around "Basileos Sanabares" (Of the King Sanabares). Sellwood 93.1, Shore 477, Sunrise 503, Koch Group 8 or 9. This coin: Frank S. Robinson Auction 110, lot 111 (October 29, 2019).

This coin type is the last one listed in the late David Sellwood's catalogue of Parthian coins, and after I tried to do some more research I can see why he shoved these troublesome coins into the back of the book. It was struck in Margiana, an area in the eastern Parthian kingdom in what is now eastern Uzbekistan, in the name of "King Sanabares" Traditional scholarship has placed Sanabares as a rebel against the Parthians...

Another level of counterfeit early dollars has been hitting the internet and TPG’s over the past several years.

One of the 1st we saw was an 1802 example from an internet venue back in early 2018. While we were discussing it in a Face Book Group I administer Coin Week also was also reporting it with an NGC article with the same images; apparently it was submitted for certification and kicked back and then attempted to sell raw. Upon further review NGC posted their article on 9/16/2014, so these have been “out there” for a while!

The Coin Week article: https://coinweek.com/counterfeits/counterfeit-coin-detection-1802-draped-bust-silver-dollar/

Images of the subject 1802:


This “coin” does not match any genuine 1802 variety and has one significant obvious feature we nicknamed the “flattened 1”. The internet listing was removed as a counterfeit.

Recently an apparent version with the “1801” date has been seen for sale on the internet....

Dear Friends of ancient Mythology!

Today I have time enough to add a new article about Egyptian mythology.

The coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE33, drachm, 22.10g
Alexandria, AD 133/134 (year 18)
Obv.: AVT KAIC TPAIANOC - AΔPIANOC CEB
Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
Rev.: Agathodaimon, bearded, erected r., and Uraeus-Snake, erected l., confronted;
Agathodaimon wearing shkent (double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt) and
holding kerykeion with his tail; Uraeus-Snake wearing crown of Isis (sundisk
between horns) and holding sistrum.
across field L IH (year 18)
Ref.: Dattari 7901
Very rare, VF


Agathodaimon:
Agathodaimon, lat. Agathodaemon, was in Greek mythology the 'good spirit' of grain fileds and vineyards. Usually the Greeks drank a cup of pure wine in his honour at the end of each meal (according to Aristophanes, Equites, 106). He was also regarded as the protecting spirit of the state and of...

Here's a recent inexpensive coin purchase that led me to a surprising realization about Parthian coinage:

Parthian Kingdom. AE chalkos (12 mm, 1.20 g). Artabanos* (c.10-38 AD). Obverse: Diademed bust left with square beard. Reverse: King on horseback right. Sellwood 63.21, Shore 575. This coin: Pars Coins Auction 3, lot 173 (2019), $30 final bid.

Artabanos* took the Parthian throne about 10 AD, during an unsettled time for the region. Vonones I had spent much of his life in Roman territory and proved too Hellenized/Romanized for the Parthian nobles- he didn't like hunting, feasting, or (the real deal-breaker) horseback-riding. The nobles induced Artabanos to give up his job as king of the Parthian dependency Media Atropatene (Azerbaijan) and fight Vonones for the throne. Vonones was forced to flee back to the Romans, and Artabanos took up the Parthian crown. During a later dispute with the Romans over Armenia, Artabanos was forced from the...

I thought I would post some positive news on our local coin show. The 71st street coin show is located at 2100 E. 71st street, Indianapolis. The show is hosted by fuba coins. Last Sunday was packed with dealers and visitors. 55 plus tables of all types of Numismatics were available. This show keeps growing year after year. I went to the Indiana State coin show the day before. The 71st street show is as good or better. The best part of the show is that a breakfast buffet is served in the hall next door and is delicious. It’s a donation breakfast with the proceeds benefiting different groups thoughout the year. If you are going to be in the Indianapolis area in 2020, checkout the schedule attached.

Some weeks ago, I tried my luck on a new auction on Biddr. Although I have maybe already too many Roman Provincial coins, I decided to go now for a few large Provincials with unusual reverses (@dougsmit inspired me to look this way, branching off from my standard Go for Portraits, Best Condition drive) on Zeus Auctions Nr. 1 (in Britain).

This is the first of them, a 32 mm coin from Anazarbus, Cilicia. It’s about 20 miles east of Adana, in the armpit of nowadays Turkey, not far from Tarsus, that other great city of Cilicia, where Paulus was born.

It’s a Koinoboulion type, that represents voting in a community council: the personification of the vote, a female holding a cornucopia, seating on a chair behind a flowering branch, tosses a pebble in a vessel. The surrounding text says something like ‘The metropolis of Anazarbos/ the freedom of the council’ and the year: ET Gamma-Xi-Sigma = 263, that’s 244/5, the first year of the emperor Philip the...