Coin Talk

If ever there was a surprise Roman emperor, perhaps it was Claudius, who ruled from 41 to 54 AD. He may have been born with a birth defect, or he have suffered from cerebral palsy. Whatever his problems were, it left him with “an uncouthness” that left him a family outcast. Some probably viewed him as mentally challenged, but that was clearly not the case.

Perhaps to compensate for the snubbing, he became an accomplished scholar. He wrote 20 books on Etruscan history, eight books on Carthaginian history and eight autobiographical memoirs. Unfortunately, all of these works have been lost, but it is clear that his mind was sharp and clear.

After the insane emperor, Caligula, was murdered, the praetorian guard chose Claudius as emperor. Although there were some plots to remove him, Claudius held on to power by establishing his hold on the army and taking Britain as a new colony, perhaps as a diversion. He named his son Britannicus in honor of that addition to the empire.

Although...

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

Here I have a Republican coin I want to present together with its mythological background. It is one of my most beautiful Republican coins and I'm a bit proud to have it in my collection.

The Coin:
It is a denarius of the mintmaster C. Sulpicius C. f. Gala of the gens Sulpicia.
AR - denarius, 20mm, 3.67g
Rome, 106 BC
Obv.: Conjugate heads of the Di Penates, laureate, l.
D.P.P. before (abbreviation of Di Penates Publici)
Rev.: Two male figures standing vis-a-vis, both holding spears, the right one points
with r. hand to a sow, laying between them to left.
above N (control mark)
in ex. C.SVLPICI.C.F
Ref.: Crawford 312/1; Sydenham 572; Sulpicia 1
rare, EF

The scene of the rev. is often called an oath scene. But the depiction of a Fetial sacrifice at an oath scene is not much likely because the victim animal was always killed with a silex sacrum (a sacrificing key made of stone), and this is not seen here....

I’m not a knowledgeable ancients collector as many on this site already know but from time to time I cross over to the dark side and I think I was just lucky today. My intended bid was outbid by a lonnngg way and then I checked.....I had inadvertently added another digit to my bid amount making it a 6 figure sum....stupid...YES!!!


I'm so grateful all the other bidders had their wits about them and had not put in ridiculously high bids otherwise I'd certainly be in a spot of bother. My excuse was that it was 6AM here and unfortunately due to a minor crisis, I had only managed to get 3 hours sleep at night . End result.....I got the coin.....

I had done some brief research prior to bidding, of course, and I'm aware these coins are highly sought after, not found easily or plentiful. So if I have to sell some bullion or even some lesser tetradrachms or denarii, I think this is something worth keeping for many years.

I realise it is not the famed decadrachm but I found...

Introduction

We often say on the forum that we are just temporary custodians of our collections and that someday we will pass them along to future generations of collectors. Many of the coins in our collections, however, have already spent many decades (or more!) in the collections of the past. Sometimes we know nothing of the history of our coins and sometimes we have little more than a name of a past collection from sale listings or old tags. Since it can often be hard to find information on these previous collections and collectors I thought I would start a series of threads that highlight some of my own research as I make progress toward learning more about the old collections that some of my coins once resided in.

In this thread I would like to highlight the Dr. Walter Neussel Collection.


Dr. Walter Neussel Collection

My notes on the...

I went to the Getty Villa in Malibu, CA the other day and was amazed at their incredible collection of very nice, very valuable, very old gold and silver coins. Here are some of my favorites!
(apologies that some pics are blurry, I didn't review each photo after taking)

Athenian Owl Tetradrachm


(forgot attribution) Sea Turtle

(forgot) Goat

Opontion Soldier tet?

(forgot) tet?

(forgot) Lyre tet?

Aureus with bust of Sibyl by L. Cestius and C. Norbanus.
Rome Mint, 43 BC
Has a very neat "collector's mark" of the Este family to left of portrait.


Medallion of Tetrarchs (no denomination)
Augusta Treverorum (Trier) AD 293-294

I got this by accident in an eBay lot and had a hard time attributing it. I thought it was Constans II or something from Heraclius. Apparently this is an Islamic imitation of a Byzantine follis - I found a couple of others online in auction records (see my attribution notes below).

Interestingly, they both had the same fake Byzantine reign-date, although mine is out of order compared to the two I found in auctions. I enhanced some of the details, since my specimen is pretty cruddy. That loopy thing around the emperor seems to be a characteristic of these Umayyad imitations - I've never really seen that on a Byzantine coin, although many of you out there have a lot more experience than I do at this sort of thing.

Any corrections would be welcome. And please share any of this sort of thing you might have.



Umayyad Caliphate Æ Fals
Mu'awiya I ibn Abi Sufyan
(c. 660s - 680 A.D.)
Dimashq (Damascus) Mint
Standing imperial figure, with...

Before there were slabs, there were Capital Plastics holders. They provided excellent protection for the coin. There were open stock items and custom made holders. The custom holders could be ordered with specific sizes for the openings and custom lettering. I used to have custom made holders all of my top coins.

Here are a couple of "open stock" holders for Morgan dollars. The first was for the varieties of 1878. It in interesting to note that the 1878, Reverse of '79 dollar was included in this set.



Here is the 1878, Reverse of 1879 dollar, which should have been included in this set.



Here is an "All Mints" collection. An extra spot was added to show the obverse.



I have never been a big Morgan Dollar collector. I have a Proof for my type set, these two sets and that's it. These sets provde a bit...

The role of medieval Scandinavia in international trade has become more clear in recent decades through archaeological studies, in addition to examining numismatics. In early Scandinavian History, coins would be used primarily as bullion, and payments made through weight rather than the number of coins. This is clear due to the number of Viking hoards that have been found containing silver coins along with other precious metals folded and mutilated. In the early Middle Ages, large numbers of Abbasid Dirhams have been found in Scandinavian hoards. There have been some records of contact between Muslims and Scandinavians, particularly the account of Ibn Fadlan who spent some time with a people called the Rus (the fore-bearers to the Russians, which some believe to be Scandinavian, but could possibly be Slavs). Ibn Fadlan describes many aspects of the Rus’ lives, most famously the burial ritual surrounding one of their chieftains. In addition, he describes the women of the Rus...

I became a collector in the mid-1990’s, but before that I was a voracious reader so it was a natural progression to colleting books. Only after a number of years did I gain a focus in the book collecting field: Fakes, Frauds, Forgers & Hoaxes. Curious and limited as such a specialized field may sound the material is quite available, for almost as long as the word has been written there have been available works made with the intention of deceiving as to authorship, origin, date, age, period, culture or source.


To the consternation of many of my biblio-friends I took up coin collecting about 5 years ago after the rediscovery of my childhood collections that had survived intact in my mother’s attic. The thought that two collections, two intense interests, could coexist seemed...