Coin Talk

Most numismatists believe that the 1907 High Relief $20 gold piece is the most beautiful U.S. coin. This piece was the “pet baby” of President Theodore Roosevelt who started the “Renaissance of American Coinage” which extended from 1907 to 1921.

In 1905 President Roosevelt met with Augustus St. Gaudens who was viewed as the greatest American artist of his era. Roosevelt was very dissatisfied with the designs of the coins which were then in circulation and wanted to introduce a series of U.S. coinage designs that would be on a par with America’s emerging greatness. The president asked St. Gaudens to redesign every U.S. coin from the cent to the double eagle. St. Gaudens had more assignments than he could complete, and he was also becoming progressively ill with terminal cancer. Therefore he drew up the designs and assigned an artist, Henry Herring, who worked in the St. Gaudens studio, to execute the models.

St. Gaudens...

Dear Friends of ancient mythology!

Romulus has been depicted on coins not before Augustus. It was said that Augustus was flirting with the idea to take the name Romulus for himself. But as we know he has abstained it. Romulus indeed was the founder of the city, but as first king definitely not a good example for the Republic. Quite the opposite to it he was seen as tyrant and Cicero compared some of his adversaries like Sulla, Lepidus or Caesar with Romulus. At Horaz the mythological fratricide became the original guilt ('Erbschuld') which was responsible for the misery of the Civil War. And that was the reason why Augustus quit the adoption of the name Romulus. It was not until the Flavians when Roman mythological themes occured on coins again.

The Coin:
Hadrian, AD 117-138
AR - denarius, 20mm, 3.33g
Rome, AD 134-138
Obv.: HADRIANVS - AVG COS III PP
Laureate head r.
Rev.: ROMVLO - CONDITORI
Romulus, bare-headed, in military cloak, walking tip-toed r., holding transverse...

I am pretty geeked out over this one, ugly as it may be. This is an AE from Cilicia issued by Tarkondimotos, a king with Roman sympathies who died at the Battle of Actium fighting for Marc Anthony. Tarkondimotos spent his entire career supporting Rome, but always the wrong guy - Pompey against Caesar, then Cassius, then Marc Anthony. The Battle of Actium put an end to this, and the coin was countermarked shortly thereafter with an anchor by his son Philopator I, who was hoping, probably, for another royal pardon from Octavian (nope).

In addition to being fairly unattractive, this coin puzzled me at first and I wasn't planning on bidding on it - a "Seleucid" anchor countermark on a coin issued this late seemed flaky to me. I doubted there'd be much information. The day the auction was closing I did a halfhearted search online and found that this issue was somewhat abundant, with several examples on FORVM and elsewhere. It was the FORVM listings...

A long-term goal of mine is to collect coins from all of Spain's history up until 1500. Still missing pre-Roman Iberian, and high medieval, but I can happily announce that I achieved a milestone very recently by acquiring, not one, not two, but three coins of Muslim Spain, or in Arabic, al-Andalus (الأندلس). I was not too confident in being able to identify whether a coin advertised as from al-Andalus really was the real deal, but after some research recently into Andalusian coins I decided to take the plunge.

Al-Hakam I, Emirate of Cordoba
AR dirham
Obv: (center, in Arabic) "There is no God but Allah. He has no equal"
(in margins, in Arabic) “In the name of Allah. this Dirham was struck in al-Andalus in the year six and ninety and one-hundred ” (AH 196)
Rev: (center, in Arabic) "Allah is One God. The eternal and indivisible, who has not begotten, and has not been begotten and never is there His equal"
(in margins, in Arabic)...

A recent internet listing for an 1804 "C-6" half cent was the motivation to pull this information together for presentation. I actually sent a note to the seller about the listed example (which he responded that it is genuine and came from a respected US auction house) as follows:

Coming from "a famous American auction house" really doesn't mean much in my opinion in the current environment of high grade counterfeits; I have documented fakes sold in 3 of the major ones here with all being in top Third Party Grader's slabs as well. In each case all that protects the buyer is his own knowledge and the auctions houses'/ TPG's guarantee, like yours.

The 1804 C-6 is a commonly used platform for current counterfeits and always warrants a second look. In the case of yours I'll start with the obverse- I have included an image of yours to a known genuine example (attached).

This die pairing ALWAYS has the spiked chin feature, but yours is diminished...

CORRECTION: These coins WERE Not originally minted for commerce, as I was originally told & were strictly meant as a Commerative
Gold Bullion mintage.
A dab of History:
Mexico has been an independent country since its independence from Spain, in September 1821 & this Mexican 50 Peso gold coin was first minted /dated 1921, 100 years after this date & thusly named 'The Centenario'. To my knowledge, it is one of two* largest gold coins minted in consecutive years
gold-weight wise, (Containing 1.20565 ounces of pure gold). This coin was designed by Emilio del Moral & is edge lettered:
"INDEPENDENCIA Y LIBERTAD”.
*Only the Peruvian 100 Gold Soles contains more gold. (1.3543 ounces) & is larger.
The 100 Soles was only minted from 1950-1970.
The Centenario Mintage
Year Quantity minted
1921 180,000
1922 463,000
1923 432,000
1924 439,000
1925 716,000
1926 600,000
1927 606,000
1928 538,000
1929 458,000
1930 372,000
1931 137,000
1943 89,000
1944 593,000
1945 1,012,000
1946...

As usual, my annual ANA pickups of freebies given out, not complete by any means.
The Sample slabs given out by ANACS, P & D mints, and PCGS.
NGC did not have any, and if you asked they were kind of nasty.


Fun Show give aways.


US Mint had a survey, and on completion you got this $1 coin in the snap tite holder



First a pin supporting legislation for the 100 anniversary coin for the last Morgan & first year peace $'s.

eBay give away, good for $10 on eBay, free $10.
Then CONECA tokens, and the mint/BEP give away of $25 of shredded money.

I've been having a blast collecting these Macedonian shield coins. Though I probably haven't taken enough time to stop and post about some of the really interesting types.
Here is one such type that I just received in the mail today!
It is a half unit (Fiddy Cents). Of the Macedonian shield coins we only know of half and quarter units by weight. Liampi believes there may have been full units. Though, none have come to light.
With a unique looking helmet on the reverse, the boss (center of shield) on the obverese is so very basic, so primitive and so phallic!
You can just hear the ancient soldiers on the March, "This is my weapon. This is my club. This one's for fighting. This one's for love."


Alexander III the Great
336-323 B.C. AE half unit (15 mm, 4.45 g, 5 h). Amphipolis mint, ca. 325-310 B.C. Macedonian shield ornamented with central club / B-A, Macedonian helmet. Price 419. Near VF, green patina.

The club:


A quick...

Introduction

I was looking over my first year denarii for Domitian as Augustus, and was surprised to find that I had collected 10 of these coins. While there are some common coins in this first year, my examples are either R or R2. (R3 is the highest level of rarity and means one example was known to the authors of RIC at the time of publication).

This may be old news for many of you, but I just discovered a new grading system used by Italian dealer Moruzzi which incorporates not only "grade" (with a maximum of 70), but also rarity, metal and patina, style, "coinage", and provenance (with a maxium of 100 each)

Here is, for example, a Sestertius of Marcus Aurelius from their inventory:



And here is the coin:


That one literally jumped at me because i have one from the same obverse die:



The "grade" of 45/70 is translated as "good very fine" by the seller.
Mine is only "very fine" (reverse "good fine"), so would that be a 35 or 40/100?

The "rarity" of 30/100 can only be in terms of ancient coins (if it were a modern american coin, it would certainly be extermely rare, but with Banti listing 10 specimens of RIC 795 and 65 of similar types, it is not hard to find for a Sestertius, so I can agree with that).

The "metal and patina" seems...