Coin Talk

Around the mid 1160s, the Holy Sepulchre complex, whose building began as early as the 1140s, during the reign of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, is finished and then consecrated in 1167. The new building unifies the older basilicas and ancient structures, some of them dating back to 329/30, built by orders of Constantine at the pleas of his mother, who had been on pilgrimage there in the second half of the 320s. At its consecration, the new Crusader structure was as majestic and important as any European cathedral of the day, although arguably more complex, having to contend with all the history it tried to incorporate, and was the seat of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.



Remnants of the portico curtain of the Holy Sepulchre curia, embedded into later structures in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, dating to around 1160.


The importance of this structure cannot be overstated, and in the wake of its service, King...

The Greek goddess Nemesis appears on numerous ancient coins. On Roman imperial coins, she is typically depicted as winged, holding a caduceus or olive-branch and sometimes with a snake at her feet. On Roman provincial coins, she often appears without wings, wearing a chiton, holding a bridle, scales, or cubit-rule, and with a wheel at her feet.

Post your coins that portray her!

In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis was the goddess who enacted retribution against those who succumb to hubris. The best description of her role and attributes, in my opinion, is a hymn to the goddess written by Mesomedes.

Mesomedes of Crete was a Roman-era Greek kitharode and lyric poet. He was a freedman and favorite of Emperor Hadrian, who made him his chief musician; he also served under Hadrian's successor, Antoninus Pius.

Only 15 of his poems have come down to us, but four of them have survived along with musical notation! His "Hymn to Nemesis" is one of of these. As such, modern musicologists are...

I visited the Baltimore Whitman Coin Expo on Saturday, November 16th. I got to the show about 30 minutes later than intended, but 10:30am wasn’t too late. Per my usual, I purchased some raffle tickets and headed in. I think I had the opportunity to see the whole floor and stop in front of just about every booth. Up until around 1:00pm, the show was pretty busy, but dealers started packing up over time and the Expo was mostly a ghost town around 3:00pm.

I had the pleasure of meeting with @furryfrog02 , who very generously provided me my first West Point Quarter and gave me an extra for my grandfather, who also collects coins. His son seemed deep into digging through ancients, so I gave him a Talon Head IKE dollar and we parted ways.

I spent the most time chatting with Ernest Swauger from VIP-Coins and Collectibles. I purchased a few coins from him at the PAN show in Pennsylvania, when we last met. He’s got a great inventory of...

Unpacking a Greek Inscription on a provincial AE 33 of Tarsus

I was enamored by the hunting scene on the reverse of this sestertius-sized provincial of Trajan Decius minted in Tarsus and acquired it earlier today from a British auction firm. Confused by the alphabet soup of abbreviations in its inscription, I cracked out BMC 21 and Sear and read the introductory materials to learn more about it. The research proved fruitful and I'd like to share what I learned about the various letters and abbreviations.


Trajan Decius. AD 249-251.
Roman provincial Æ 33 mm, 18.78 g.
Cilicia, Tarsus, AD 249-251.
Obv: ΑV ΚΑΙ Γ ΜЄϹ ΚVΙΝ ΔЄΚΙΟϹ ΤΡΑΙΑΝΟϹ, Π Π, radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right.
Rev: ΤΑΡϹΟV ΜΗΤΡΟΠΟΛЄΩϹ Γ Β, Α Μ Κ. Artemis standing right, drawing arrow from quiver and holding bow and arrow; at feet on either side, deer standing left and dog running right with raised...

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

I want to post a series of articles about coins from Alexandria. Here is the first one.

The Coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE - tetradrachm, 24mm, 12.82g, 330°
struck AD 127/8 (year 12)
Obv.: AVT KAI - TPAI AΔPIA CEB
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
Rev.: L ΔΩΔE - KATOV (year 12)
God Ptah-Sokar- Osiris, wrapped in mummy bandages, bearded, sun disk on
head, stg. r., holding with both hands sceptre with jackal head (Anubis sceptre)
Ref.: Milne 1262; Köln 982; Emmet 883; BMC 637; Dattari 1445; Hunter 637;
Mionnet 1050
Rare, VF


The Creator God Ptah, the composer, ist one of oldest Egyptian gods. He is known from the 1st dynasty and his main cult location was Memphis, the metropolis of the old Empire of Lower Egypt. It is said that he has ruled already 9000 years previous to all other gods.

Nevertheless he never was member of the first rank of Egyptian gods. He always...

This is a small AE coin, 10x12mm 1.15g that caught my attention with the odd looking plant on the reverse. Not having much experience with Greek coins, I needed somewhere to start. It didn't take long to find some info, a quick search in Coryssa with a weight range (0.5-2.0g) and "Tyche" found a few coins and one close to this one helped narrow down region and reverse description. This site then gave some additional help.

Phoenicia, Arados 142 - 146 BC
AE 12x10mm 1.15g, Hemichalkous
Obv: Turreted head of Tyche right, chignon & braided ponytail, palm frond behind.
Rev: Aphlaston (Aplustre), Phoenician letters in left field, Aradian era date right

I'm not certain of the date and legends, but it seems to fall somewhere in the 142-146 BC range based on other...

I spent much of today at the Baltimore Whitman Coin Expo, arriving around 10:45 AM and leaving about 4:15 PM, with only a short break for lunch about 2 PM. Overall, the show seemed pretty active, with most of the dealers that I checked out (mainly in the Ancients and World sections) having at least one customer most of the time. Had good conversations with a number of dealers, especially Tom Wood of Ephesus Numismatics and Allen G. Berman. (Tom Wood was especially talkative, and we had a good discussion of Nabataean history, numismatic references, and more.) I bought quite a few coins, none of them budget-busters but lots of very decent, meat-and-potatoes (by my standards) coins, plus some cheap ones just for fun. I took quick photos of all of them to share here. I apologize for the poor photo quality, but a) I was rushed, and b) it's already past sunset, so I couldn't use sunlight as I usually do for my coin photos.

First, three silver drachms from Allen G. Berman:...

The Hudson-Fulton Celebration from September 25 to October 9, 1909 in New York and New Jersey was an elaborate commemoration of the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson's discovery of the Hudson River and the 100th anniversary of Robert Fulton's first successful commercial application of the paddle steamer. The maritime achievements of Hudson and Fulton foreshadowed the importance of the river to New York's progress and identity. Organizers used the event not only to display the success of the two men, but also the status of New York City as a world city and the achievements of its citizens. This was kind of New York City’s coming out party on the world stage.

In conjunction with this exhibition the American Numismatic Society (ANS) commissioned a medal. The medal was designed by Emil Fuchs and struck by Whitehead and Hoag.



Obverse: Henry Hudson and sailors on the Halve Maen watch the hoisting of a heavy article from outside the ship. Around top,...

During my research on Gothic imitative coinage I came across these two coins:

Nr.1 (weight: 5,54 g) was found in the western Ukraine (Chernivtsi region, Sokiryansky district) and was identified as the barbaric imitation of a Roman Aureus.



Nr.2 (weight 5,49 g) was sold as a genuine Aureus of Maximianus (RIC 610, from the Cyzikus mint) by Nomos for 2.200 SFR:



Now tell me, doesn´t this look like the very same coin with the traces of mounting on the obverse and the detail below the figure on the reverse filed away?

If so, what is this? To me the obverse looks official in style, while the reverse has a "first generation barbarian" appeal.

While working on my Roman Imperial set of each individual as Caesar / Augustus / Divus, I came to realize that despite the impressive historical record that Roman coins leave for us, sometimes the pages of history and the pieces of metal in our trays don't always match up. Without going into the esoterics of history, I noticed that there were many holes in my set that history tells us shouldn't be holes.

A few off the top of my head:

- Given that Augustus allowed his BFF provincial governors to strike coins, and that so many provincial coins were made for Gaius and Lucius, why were none made for Nero Claudius Drusus while he was Caesar?

- With the sole exceptions of Vindex and Clodius Macer, how come no usurpers struck coins until the 193-197 AD civil wars? Avidius Cassius, in particular, seems like he should have issued coins?

- Even though Lucius Verus clearly took a back seat to Marcus Aurelius, I was surprised to learn that there is not a single extant coin of Verus struck...