The raw ones aren't photographed, but Santa was good to me this year. Unfortunately the LCS mainly has slabbed ancients, but the Pompey,Jr. is a type I've been wanting for a long time. I used the NGC lookup photos. Aaron Berk has addressed the negative comments (brushed, in this case), and the risks of encapsulating an ancient which isn't gold or silver, since most AE's are cleaned in a way that they would incur negative comments. Unless it's something really bad like tooling or bronze disease, just knock down the (fairly useless) surface rating and be done with it. I'd also grade it at F+, but it could pass for a modern VF, I suppose. Like a Numisforums member opined, a grade for an ancient coin with a picture is kind of superfluous, anyway. My second favorite was a raw coin of Odessos, Thrace. Here's the ID tag. The Anonymous follis was in a big, dumb megaslab, a slab within a slab, with one side featuring a picture of Christ and a small history of the Basil II anonymous folles (which came 60+ years before this, weren't even the first ones, and had nothing to do with this). The slab is big and thick enough that it's free-standing. Unlike the magnificent Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, Nicephorus III was an elderly general who was out of his league during a time of extreme crisis, and didn't do that much. He was overthrown by the capable Alexius I. I didn't have a Class I, by the way. There was also a NGC Widow's mite and a couple of raw Byzantines from a budget collection offered as stocking stuffers. The patinas are so dark on those that they're hard to ID and will be even harder to photograph. I don't really collect the fractionals so my ID skills weren't the best, but Sear's book worked it out for me, it's a K not an XX, so it's Maurice Tiberius. The other is pentanummia of some sort. Oh, I forgot, there's an NGC Andronicus II Basilikon. I don't really collect the late stuff, but it's only the second one I have, and it's kinda neat. My folks don't heavily shop online and it's generally whatever the coin store has (sometimes nice coins are there), but the top two coins were a big hit. All the coins ranked an A+ on the thoughtfulness and generosity scale. The widow's mite and anonymous follis are also very Christmas-related. If I were less of a klutz and had some decent tools, the slabs would go bye-bye and they'd be raw coins. That can always be fixed at some later date. This is the coin I gave my father, a nice denarius of Trajan: The LCS specializes in American coins, and is fairly well-known for it. It isn't the glory days of Mark Mendelssohn's coin shop, but it's nice to have an LCS that carries ancients. Generally speaking, slabbed ancients aren't really intended for the hardcore ancients collector, more for the modern collector who is used to slabs and who might dabble in ancients. All in all, it was a pretty good year for the LCS.
Very nice! As someone who still has not dabbled in ancients (some day!), I can appreciate a slab but also understand those that see no use for them.
Whoo, Pompey! Oodles of history in that one! I have never owned one. I agree. This is why, despite the fact that I reject all non-ancient coins that got "details" grades from a TPG, I am more lenient when it comes to NGC's italicized comments on an ancient coin's slab label. That doesn't count the same as a "problem" would with a more modern milled coin, in my opinion. Nothin' wrong with these, despite the italicized NGC comments on the labels. Heck, they even gave this Claudius sestertius their ★ "star" rating. It's the only NGC "star" coin I currently own. This is one of the few ancients I've bought that was already in a slab. I tend to buy them raw and submit them myself. Yes, I'm an unrepentant slabber of ancients. I do it mostly for consistency with the rest of my collection. This Justinian tremissis was a pleasant surprise when I submitted it. CNG had called it "good VF, wavy flan", or something like that. NGC did note the wavy flan (they called it "wrinkled"), but they also recognized its superior strike and called it Mint State.
