Hello everyone! It has been a while since I have contributed here. 2023 has been a busy year for me, with a full time job, working part-time for two major dealers, and planning a wedding. However, I haven’t stopped adding coin to my collection. This year saw a transition from lots of low/mid-value coins to a few higher-value coins. I trimmed a lot from my collection this year and made it much more focused. So without further ado (and in acquisition order): 1. Athenian Owl. At the 2023 Winter FUN show, I saw this owl tet at Johnathan Kern’s table. The obverse was well-centered, well-struck, and still had quite a bit of crest. This coin had exactly the look I was looking for, and the price point was exactly what I was wanting to pay, so I bought it with zero hesitation. 2. Florence Fiorino di Stella. I am in love with the early silver florins struck in Florence between 1232 and 1267. I saw this example on eBay, and I kept it in my watchlist until it was listed for less than it sold for in Heritage back in 2020. It stood out to me because of its deep colorful toning. I won it unopposed. 3. Merovingian Metz Denier. Sometimes, a coin shows up for sale that is just so much nicer than any other examples that have been on the market that you need to go out of your way to buy it. This was one such coin. I have been after this type since 2018 or so, but I never found one I liked at my preferred price point. These go for minimum $300 in crappy condition, and upwards of $600 for nice examples. This one was $800, and it was by far the nicest I had seen in the last 5 years. It’s a fully-lustrous uncirculated specimen. I bought it immediately and have zero regrets. 4. Chinese Ming Knives. This one is cheating a bit, but it was all part of a single acquisition, so I will include it as its own entry. I bought a collection of 117 Ming Knife coins earlier this year. I kept 9 that were either super high grade or very interesting varieties. These are those nine. The collection as a whole was fun to examine and catalogue. 5. Metz Florin. Last year, I met a local coin friend who had transitioned from coin dealing to engineering and moved to my city. He owned a coin that I really wanted, this gold florin struck in Metz, France circa 1450. To add icing to the cake, it was ex. Eliasberg, a provenance I had been wanting in my collection for some time. This year, he needed quick cash for a large coin purchase, so he gave me a fair price and I bought it. I wasn’t really prepared to buy it, but I was even less prepared to not buy it. 6. Transitional hollow-handle spade coin. This coin showed up in a UK auction completely by surprise. It was described as a (relatively) very common hollow-handle spade type, but the shoulders were flat rather than sloped. In addition, the listed mass indicated that this spade was a smaller size than normal examples of this spade type. Coupled with the inscription (“Wu”, a city name) and the diagonally-sloping lines, the evidence showed that this was an incredibly rare transitional type. I had to fight for it, but I won it in the end at a much higher-than-planned expense. 7. Kai Yuan Zhu Wu. This coin probably has the most interesting acquisition story this year. I had seen this type in a Wu Zhu book by Gratzer and Fishman, and I fell in love with it because it combined the new coinage (Kai Yuan Tong Bao) and the old coinage (Wu Zhu). I spied an example of this type on a group lot of lead cash coins, and I won the lot. After receiving the coin, I realized that this coin was the plate coin in the Wu Zhu book, *AND* this coin was from one of the authors’ collections! 8. Pointed-foot hollow-handled spade. I wasn’t planning on buying this coin, but the Chinese numismatic market had just collapsed, and buyers were afraid to bid. I saw it going cheap, and I realized that it was a rare variant of the type (narrow crotch with angled corners, the common variety has rounded corners). I placed a lowball bid (half of its value), and I won it! 9. Rounded-foot hollow-handle spade. One of the rarest spade types are those with rounded feet and a rounded head. I had been after a nice example of one of these spades for a while, but the available examples were either problematic or beyond my reach at the moment. A few months ago, a collection of round-foot spades was posted in an auction. Several were fake, but the balance were absolutely genuine. The presence of fakes spooked many serious buyers, so I managed to grab this example for less than half of its market value. I chased another example, but had to bow out, and I bought another one for a friend which had a provenance to 1912. 10. Da Chao Tong Bao. My last major purchase this year was a silver cash coin issued (likely) by Kublai Khan. This coin was issued to commemorate the conquest of China by the Mongols, and it is one of the only (if not *the* only) official coins cast in silver for general circulation. I had bid on several examples over the past two years, but I didn’t have any luck until this piece. However, I am okay with that because this example is fully original with find patina while also having a clear inscription. Most Da Chao examples are heavily cleaned or completely stripped of their original patina to make them palatable to western collectors. My example is notable for being an exception. I hope you enjoyed my top 10 for 2023!
nice and diverse collection, You collect a different version of cast bronze. Congrats on finding a coin you wanted in a lot. I have a few scale weight treasures filtered from lot sales.
Quite a fascinating little insight to a selection of types I know next to nothing about. Fascinating.
That's a beautiful and eclectic group for 2023! Aside from the excellent classical owl, the Metz florin and the Florence Fiorino di Stella really stand out on the coin side. I also love the knife and spade money. I love them all! Congrats!
Supberb top X! My picks 1/ Metz AV Florin 2/ Merovingian AR Denar Metz 3/ Florence AR Fiorini di Stella Thanks for sharing... John
Awsome, coins Type. I showed them to my brother not really a collector. He was drooling all over the spade and knife coins. The Florin and Denier are definitely my favorites.
