Oh man, the drought is over! I haven't picked up an ancient coin since July!!! Brutal! Went to a small coin show in Evansville Indiana over the weekend, done by a local coin club every Saturday after Thanksgiving. Plus there is a casino at the place they have the show, so my wife goes and plays slots while I gamble buying coins. I think it's about the 4th year I've gone, several people still remembered me as "the ancients guy". LOL! Mainly US stuff, had to look hard to find some world coins even, but found some cool ones I'll post in the world coins thread. I did find a couple ancients and an acient style modern coin however. First, a coin that I tough looked descent, but it was in a stapled flip and I couldn't open it up. Through the glare it looked ok. I needed a coin of Victorinus so I took a gamble for 12 bucks. FAIL. Man, this this is much rougher than I thought. It does look better in hand...but not that much. Oh well, you win some you loose some. Here is a modern coin, but I'll post it here anyway. Modern era coins struck like ancients are always something I'm interested in, and this is one of the last struck coins made in Afghanistan, dated 1878. There aren't many stuck coins later than this period, I know someone has one here from the 20th century. Within a couple of years Afghanistan switched to milled coins. Decent rupee for 10 bucks! I'll call this one a win! Here is a cool little medieval coin I picked up, for 39 bucks I'll chalk this up as a win as well. This is a sharp little coin! I have a few Hungarian "Bela" coins, but didn't have one of Bela II. I guess this guy was called "Bela The blind". Seems as a child he was blinded in one of the usual Byzantine style change of power/mutilation things that seem to go on quite a bit at the time. Well, I don't know the details, but he made it to the throne despite his lack of eyes. Ironic that those missing eyes are so prominent on his coin. Post anything you would like! How about a nice Victorinus? Some stuck moderns? Anything from from medieval Hungary?
Geez, that's a long drought I bet that 'rough Ant' grows on you a bit and it becomes 'even money' at your cost.....and I do like that 'Bela' !!! I'll pile on with one of my examples of Victorinus/Pax:
chrsmat71, next time, l will post bela coins..l always find hungarian or turkish coins..and some bela coins we selling for 5 euros..
First coins since July?? Did they have you tied to that wagon or what? But hey, the important thing is that you're off it now, right? I don't collect them, but that Bela II looks like a mean little medieval and a very nice score. I actually like reading up on medieval and Byzantine history and killed some time reading Bela's wiki page while minding the kid this morning. Oh, and btw, I like what you did with the coin descriptions worked into the pics. I sometimes feel like trying something like that with my pics. Here's my Victorinus, which I'll now have to cut-and-paste a description to... VICTORINIUS AE Antoninianus. 3.0g, 19.7mm. Trier mint, AD 269-270. RIC V 118; AGK 14b; Cohen 79. O: IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG, radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right. R: PA-X A-VG, Pax standing left, holding branch and sceptre; V in left field, star in right.
It looks like you had a good day at the coin show. I am like you, sometimes our local coin shows have too few ancient dealers. The next show in Houston is a modest one on 12/8 - 9. I am not sure how many ancient dealers will be there. That increases the looking needed to find something. I found a pile of coins labeled Constantine era for $10 from a non-ancient dealer. I thought they were a good find.
Here's my Victorinus. Not bad for $26 + shipping. Took two weeks to arrive in the mail from the Netherlands.
Here is my Victorinus... @chrsmat71 , that is a good score for Southern Indiana! I took a hard look at Evansville to move there last year... I was bound and determined that would be the FURTHEST North that I would move to... RI Victorinus 269-270 CE BI Ant Gallic Empire PAX PEACE, coin-bro!
Thanks for the comments everyone! Yeah, I'm frequently to lazy to copy and paste my attribution along with the coins pic, so I thought I would give this a try and see if it works. It is a bit more difficult to edit if you need to, but not much. You guys have some nice looking Victorinius, the more I look at mine, the less I like it. What a turd. Oh well, I like my other coins. Hey @Alegandron , if you ever move to Evansville, let me know and I'll swing in for a visit! I'm not that far away.
I was born in IN (New Castle) but have not lived there since 1968 when I was graduated from Wabash College. In the day, there were good coin shops for ancients in downtown Indianapolis. This is my only Victorinus with the longer obverse legend IMP C PIAV VICTORINVS P F AVG but the usual small flan lost much of the start. The reverse is FIDES MILITVM.
This is the wrong Bela but I liked this scyphate in the Byzantine style but with much better workmanship. HUNGARY. Béla III. 1172-1196. Æ 25mm SANCTA mARIA, Virgin seated facing, holding sceptre and Holy Infant. / REX (R inverted) BELA to left, REX SCS to right, two kings seated facing I did not know Paul Saxton.
