As others have said, it is like picking your favorite child. I'll look at my photos & pick my favorite of the day.
Here is mine: Emperor Nerva, struck 96 A.D. I love that its toning & how its like its never been cleaned.
Wow @ 60+ yrs old and collecting since 1958 that is a hard question as I like so many coin types,but Lincolns,Wheat - LMC - Shield is one I hunt the most! I go some many to pick from my 50+ year 1 is not 1 I can answer easily:smile:thumb: http://
I always pause when I get to these coins in my collection. They are not my favorite #1 today but I pause because I like them. Any proof Morgan dollar. This one is an 1885. 1885 Newfoundland 10 cent with mintage of only 8,000. Virtually all of them were lost to circulation. Any of the Burma peacock coins. This one is an 1852 1 kyat. Any coin from the Central American Republic with the mountains & sun device. This one is a counter struck cob. My famous ancient Greek coin. This includes the image of the Athens owl with Athena on the other side.
That Greek coin is amazing! When you say famous, are you referring to the general design, or that particular coin? Is it a one, or few of a kind? Or are they generally available?
Redwin, call me crazy, but I'm starting to get the feeling that you Reeeeeeaaaaaalllllllllllyyyyyyyy like that coin!!
Of course! Because I am very sure no ONE HAS IT! It is ONLY ME.. This coin has No duplicate...here is a 55 seconds video of this coin [video=youtube;vhb05-fBcPU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhb05-fBcPU[/video] thank you.
I think the general design is famous. When I originally purchased the coin I started a thread titled something like "I got an example of the famous Greek Coin" :smile I know very little about ancient coins. I understand that the silver mines of Athens supplied enough riches to allow the Greek civilization to flourish. A bunch of these 449-413 BC tetradrachm coins were manufactured to pay the army personnel in the Peloponnesian wars. They also made smaller & larger denominations in silver with the same recognizable owl/Athena designs.
I'm not an expert but I have also read a little about Greek ancients. The prominence of it is that it was the currency of Athens Greece which was the power center of the ancient world at that time. Each major city had their own symbol on their coinage. For Athens, it was the owl. The AOE on the right is pronounced "Athe", which is a shortened version of Athens to fit it on the coin. This partial wording was common on ancients as an additional identifier. Their coinage would have been similar to the US dollar of it's time. Widely recognizable and accepted through out all cities. This coin is pictured quite often in advertisements today and is still widely known. The quality of the details and their placement on the planchet greatly affects the price on these. That is a really nice quality one and I could probable guess fairly close to it's value. (Not cheap!) It is theorized when they were being made (by hand with hammers) that some people took care in their work and made good quality ones, while others simply just "got the job done". Some let the design fall where it may on the planchet. Or, it may have been difficult to do well which resulted in many poor quality ones. So there are widely varying qualities of them out there. I would love to own one some day myself.
I've found some owl coin examples on ebay, I think I'll follow sales for a while and eventually try to land one. I really like those coins, talk about high relief! Plus, that owl reminds me of Clash of the Titans, one of my favorite childhood movies. :smile
Double denomination coins aren't as rare as you make them out to be. http://coins.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=1125&lotNo=1378 http://coins.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=1125&lotNo=1380 http://coins.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=1125&lotNo=1381 http://coins.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=1125&lotNo=1382