Mine is simply a coin from the Lanna Kingdom in northern Thailand, about 1300 AD. My wife is from northern Thailand, and I have started a collection of Thai coins. That, and I am just too lazy to worry about changing my avatar.
Mine is from a photo taken of a dragon of Marduk, part of the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon. It just speaks to the myth and history junkie in me (that's right, it said, "Use me as your Cointalk avatar!"). From the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.
Mine's a tribute to a Haughty, self absorbed, over confident fighter pilot from WW2. The devil did rack up an impressive group of 'kills' though........
I got my name from Rocky Balboa because he says you know after everything, but thought I would go with a different Rocky for my avatar because I am a sucker for the old cartoons still.
Mine has Christ Jesus on the obverse holding the Gospels, struck around 1000 AD. must drive the Atheist crazy.
Maybe I should change mine to "Philly Jesus" the police did arrest him LOL http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20141118_Philly_Jesus_offers_advice_for_Pope_Francis__visit.html
Ummm, this "was" my avatar at the last place that I coined at (eh-heh-heh) ... However, it must of somehow rubbed the mods the wrong way (they must have hated Miller beer?) so ever since then I've tried to keep my avatar "fresh" (I change it up quite frequently)
My two main hobbies are coins and photography so my avatar is a self portrait of me taking a coin photo. The camera was placed in the position of the supporting dowel for coin to be photographed and the picture was taken shooting up inside my closet where my camera rig is located as I am lowering a coin into position. Light was provided by the lamps used for shooting coins and a flash that bounced light around the inside of the closet to soften things a bit. At top left is a closet wire shelf with boxes above the rig. At right is a bit of the closet folding door and a bright spot which is one of the lights. Just above my shoulder is the ceiling fixture in the room outside the closet. I selected a coin (a Constantius II Chi-Rho) with very recognizable large detail but I did not have enough depth of field for it to be sharp. The camera was tripped with a remote release in my hand out of the photo. I shot about twenty and selected the one with best placement (meaning with the hand or camera not covering all of my face). Those who have been around a while may recall me using others but I agree with the idea that we might be recognized by our avatars so they should not be too random or too frequently swapped. In my mind, sharing avatars is related to sharing our desktop image. I have been using the above for several years and could redo it with some more favorite coins but it was a lot of work to get just the way I wanted it. Anyone wishing to see the effect will need to download and install it as your Windows desktop image. Most important!, choose the option to have it repeated (middle option on Windows Vista - all I have on my desktop). I faded the image so the icons on the desktop would not be hard to see. Has anyone tried an interlocking tiled desktop?
=> ahaha, this is the exact reason why I continuously swap-out my avatar (it is more difficult for a predator to spot and eat a chameleon)