Coin Talk

Emperor Marcus Aurelius was part of the so called ‘five good emperors’ (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius), or ‘adoptive emperors’ (idem) or ‘the antonines’ (Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus and Commodus). The era ended when Marcus Aurelius appointed his son, Commodus, as his heir.

Marcus Aurelius was, together with Lucius Verus, the successor of Antoninus Pius. Under the reign of Antoninus Pius, the Roman Empire experienced its most peaceful and prosporus period in history. By the time Marcus Aurelius was to ascend the throne, he was 40 years old. Marcus Aurelius was to be known as a philosofical and gentle emperor. Despite his charactaristics, it would become his destiny to be consumed with frontier warfare and other devestating occurences such as the outbreak of the plague which was brought back to Roman territory by the army that fought the Parthians.

The denarius shown below is one of the many, many coins struck under Marcus Aurelius...

I've been waiting (not very) patiently for my Halloween presents to myself. And...


Ok, Ok. It's only one present but the spooky little girl says "Theeeeey're here" not "Iiiiit's here".
I purchased this coin, of course, for the Ketos Sea Monster (Latinized as Cetus)!


(Mosaic with a ketos found at Caulonia (Monasterace) in the Casa del Drago, 3rd century BCE)

Fabled as a maiden munching monstrosity slayed in various tales by such all around bad dudes as Herakles and Perseus!!! There is even a constellation named after this ancient beast (I borrowed @TIF's identification as mine was listed by the seller as being unknown and having a horse on the obverse also, her and I have the much more rare right facing version)


CARIA, Halikarnassos (reassigned from Kindya)
500-496 BCE...

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

Here I want to talk about the most important Roman god: Juppiter Optimus Maximus.

The Coin:
Roman Republic, Petillius Capitolinus, gens Petillia
AR - Denarius, 18.1mm, 3.82g
Rome, 43 B.C.
Obv.: Eagle with spread wings stands half right on thunderbolt
above PETILLIVS, below CAPITOLINVS
Rev.: Front side of hexastyle temple of Iuppiter Capitolinus with three-stage
stairs; pearl ribbons or garlands hanging down in the middle of the intercolumns,
in the pediment frontally sitting figure(?), as corner acroteres each two
horse protomes, above each one a standing figure with sceptre, on the gable top
two horse protomes and a charioteer.
on the sides S - F
Ref.: Crawford 487/2b; Sydenham 1151; Petillia 3
almost VF

Note:
SF stands for Sacris Faciundis. Petillius was undoubtedly one of the XV viri sacris faciundis responsible for the religious ceremonies. The family seems to have held one of the hereditary...

This Saloninus is my first purchase for three months, so I attempted a little biography
using the recent German literature and showing the few Antoniniani that I have:


Publius Licinius Cornelius Saloninus Valerianus was born ca. 248-250 AD as the second son of the future Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina.



It is most likely that Gallienus as a Senator predominantly lived in Rome before his accession to the throne in 253 AD (Geiger, Gallienus, p.81), so we might assume the capital itself to be the most likely birthplace of Saloninus.

The widely published birth year of ca. 242 AD (see Wikipedia et.al.) must be wrong. The only way to estimate the approximate age of Saloninus is by taking into account his surviving portraits. On his coins he is clearly pictured as a boy, comparable to the figure of Philip II, who had already been appointed Caesar at the age of seven, and not as the...

It never seems to fail - whenever this subject comes up or makes the headlines in the trade papers I go off on one of my tirades It appears this time is no different

But instead of writing something entirely new, and because there are so many here who are either new to the hobby or that do not know me that well I have decided instead to revisit some material on the subject so that those who are not aware - may be.

Back in March of 2002 the PNG, Professional Numismatist Guild ( an organization made up of coin dealers ) decided to conduct a survey about grading companies amongst its members. This survey was much discussed in the numismatic field and for a while it appeared the PNG would not even make the results public. But they did - in the fall of 2002.
PNG Survey

Now if you think this survey was being discussed before the results were published - that was nothing to what happened...

So I have been looking for a Carolingian coin for a while and finally with this example, I believed to have a rather nice one. Until it turned out not to be a Carolingian coin, but a silver penny by Heinrich II, or Henry II (973 - 1024). This colourful person became duke of Bavaria in 995 (at the age of 22) and king of Germany at 1002, following the sudden death of his cousin Otto III, king of Italy in 1004 and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1014. That's quite a career.

So when Otto III, at the age of 21 experienced a revolt against him in Italy, Henry II was asked to join with reinforcements. However, when Henry II was on his way, Otto III died, leaving no children or instructions for the Imperial succession. Henry II probably thought 'well, since I'm here already ...' and demanded Archbishop Heribert of Cologne to give him the Imperial Regalia. However, this clever fellow had sent these ahead of the funeral procession to one of the rival candidates for the throne. So...

Recently I've been focusing on completing the sets of minor types from the Hungarian periods I collect, and I have just completed the set of 10 fillér types.

The 10 fillér denomination was introduced in 1892 when Austria-Hungary adopted the korona monetary system (gold standard), and the denomination was produced until 1997. The 10 fillér set consists of 11 business strike types and one proof-only type, though I also have two (or three) patterns for this denomination to share here as well.

Classic 10 Fillér Types

The Austro-Hungarian Compromise
Austro-Hungarian Korona (1892-1916)

Hungary 1894KB Nickel 10 Fillér
NGC MS66
KM-482 (1892-1914)



A beautiful workhorse coin with enough dates of high mintage that it is fairly easy to find a gem example for multiple years.

Hungary 1916KB Nickel-Brass 10 Fillér
NGC MS63
KM-494 (1914-1916)



A three-year type that is tougher to find in...

Hello everyone! I wanted to share here my lovely AE Cash imitation from the Central Asian Silk Road.

These coins are part of a wider series of mostly anonymous AE cash coins that were minted and circulated around the Central Asian valleys where trade flourished from Tang Dynasty China of the East to the Byzantines and greater...

Following the entries that I have written this early summer about Vierzon (and its 12th century coinage, which can be read here) and Nogent-le-Roi (and its 11th century coinage, which can be read here), here is another obscure autonomous realm of middle medieval France.

Saint Aignan, Celles-sur-Cher, Vierzon, Gien in Berry.

The castle and territory of Saint Aignan was awarded by Odo II (Eudes) of Blois as Count of Champagne to his vassal Geoffroi de Donzy sometime around 1000/1010 to become his fief and power base in Berry. Geoffroi, who started the Maison de Donzy, involved himself in the Blois-Normandy war of 1008-14 and was eventually murdered as a result of the...

Many of us on like black backgrounds for our coin images. Achieving a uniformly black background can be a challenge. Ideally, we would like for the background to be solid black without having to digitally edit the images.

Shooting against a black background is best even if you plan to digitally paint the background black. If you shoot against anything with color, the color is reflected onto the edges of your coin and it is just about impossible to correct.

Even though I painted my homemade copy stand and coin platform with matte black paint, there was still quite a bit of light reflected from the paint, made worse by the bright light shone upon the coin.

I'd love to paint my copy stand and platform with Vantablack but it is not available to the public. There is one artist licensed to use Vantablack-- Anish Kapoor. Enter Stuart Semple, an artist with a grudge. Incensed that he could not use...