My Secret Saturnalia Santa Unveiled

I'm proud to post my wonderful Secret Saturnalia gift again—and name my generous and modest benefactor who is none other than @LaCointessa ! I love this coin and have made it my official Favorite and Final Coin of 2017.

 

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Fantastic coin and ravishing presentation!!! @LaCointessa did well!

 

A huge ditto!! I love both the coin and the presentation!

 

Yeppers- great stuff.

 

Stunning coin and presentation!

 

@Deacon Ray! What an honor. Your art is incredible! Please permit me some minutes to calm down and come back and leave my impressions and thoughts. They are all jumbled up and whirling around for the moment and I can hardly type. Wow!

 

Very fine gift to be sure! Kudos to you LaCointessa!

 

Nice coin and presentation!

 

What a lovely gift!

 

Amazing gift and presentation!

Thanks,
Jacob

 

There are some thoughts I would like to share.

1. @John Anthony helped reassure me about my selection of the coin when I expressed concern about whether @Deacon Ray would like it since I went looking at the coins he loves and this poor little coin was nothing like anything else I saw him collecting. Thank you John Anthony.

2. @TIF probably has no idea that she gave me peace about whether the coin was one that a serious, experienced, knowledgeable collector would enjoy having in his collection. When TIF posted her favorite coins for 2017 and had one of these coins included, it blew my mind! I did not see many of them when I searched around. I figured that if TIF had one and treasured it, it could not be a bad coin for Deacon Ray to have in his collection. I sighed a deep sigh of relief. And something about both of them having comparable examples of that coin pleases me and makes me smile.

3. @Deacon Ray. I feel I want/need to be quiet (i) to enjoy and not cause the lovely feeling generated by the honor you have bestowed to quickly evapoate; and, (ii) because I still have not found sufficient words to thank you for graciously accepting the inexpensive gift of this unsophisticated student of ancient coins; treating it as worthy of your
high praise; and, creating elegant art to display the strange little coin. I am still pondering and enjoying the art.

May G-d’s blessings continue to rain down upon you, Deacon Ray.
(And upon all of us.)

 

Cool choice of gift, @LaCointessa. "Strange little coin" quite aptly describes it and its charms. Thanks to @chrsmat71, I think a couple of us picked up an example or two last year. Great presentation as usual, DR!

 

Sweet

 

But, @zumbly, this is a version I did not see when I looked for examples of it. Do you happen to have an attribution for it handy? Thank you for posting this. Your coin makes me want to go off to do more research because while it is definitely the same, it looks extremely different as to style. Can you tell us anything more about it? Thank you.

 

Ack, sorry for not including the details. You're correct that it's not the same variety as the one you got Deacon Ray, which has the nymph "advancing right". Mine, which I've attributed as SNG Copenhagen 146, has the following obverse description in that reference : "Naked nymph standing to front, legs crossed, attacked by serpent entwining her; at her feet l., over-turning two-handled vase."

For a little more info on the type, here's something from Ed Snible from a thread just last month :

I'm afraid I know nothing beyond this, except that the hero mentioned in the local myth is conspicuously absent on our coins. I think he does appear on some of those "super-rare Provincial coins", though.

 

Ya done good, LaCointessa!

Erin

 

@John Anthony is the man behind the Secret Saturnalia...he helped me too. I forget who jokingly referred to him as a "pusher" in an old thread. But, he's living up to that moniker!

Great stuff.

 

@John Anthony really edifies this regarding the Coin Talk Ancients Forum. He truly adds a lot of VALUE to Ancients:



Here is a cool coin that I captured from @John Anthony ... Big Fun!


Trajan, AD 98-117.
Æ As, 26mm, 11.0g, 6h; Rome mint.
Obv: IMP CAES NER TRAIANO OPTIMO AVG GER DAC PARTHICO P M TR P COS VI P P; Laureate and draped bust right.
Rev: SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS; Victory, draped, advancing right, holding wreath in right hand and palm frond in left; S-C
Reference: RIC 675.

 

Yep, saying he adds a lot of value is an understatement. Although, I always feel bad mentioning one person because there are another 10 that we can say the same thing about.

That is a really cool coin, by the way. Trajan always gets my attention, but that is a particularly interesting coin from pretty much any angle.

 

Thank you very much for this information. It certainly does add to the mystery, @zumbly. A hero afoot! How exciting!

The only things I can add is that I have seen at least one attribution describing the nymph as “struggling” with the serpent; I have read where @dougsmit describes the nymph as “kissing” the serpent; and, while I initially thought the nymph was naked, a few days ago I discovered an attribution describing her as wearing a garment. I think I do make that out.

One other thing. I am not able to make out the head facing left of the nymph, which description I have seen in at least two attributions of this coin.