Ancient Roman (various denominations, dates, etc.)

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by USCoinCollector42, Jun 19, 2018.

  1. Ken Dorney

    Ken Dorney Yea, I'm Cool That Way...

    That coin looks just fine and is authentic. Patina looks good to me from the photo.
     
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  3. arashpour

    arashpour Well-Known Member

    @Ken Dorney Thanks I am happy it is real patina I was always worried its chemically made!
     
  4. IdesOfMarch01

    IdesOfMarch01 Well-Known Member

    I generally concur with the above observations, at least for those coins with which I have some familiarity, and would add the following:

    A. These coins, popularly called "quadrigatus," are popular and pretty cool coins. Your obverse portrait is better-than-average style, but the coin suffers from the flan crack. You might do some research on CNG and acsearch.com to get an idea of its value.

    D. This coin is very, very likely to be tooled, especially the reverse. Note the distinctive outline of the palm tree's trunk, which is much more sharply delineated than the overall wear would seem to allow. The obverse has been smoothed, which isn't that unusual and doesn't detract from value in the way that the reverse tooling does.

    G. This coin is not in my area of collecting, other than my familiarity with 1st and 2nd century Roman gold coins, but its appearance seems very odd to me for reasons that I can't quite articulate. Maybe it's the flan extending past the raised boundary of the coin at 4 o'clock on the obverse, but the coin just doesn't seem right.
     
  5. Severus Alexander

    Severus Alexander find me at NumisForums

    I just looked into this a bit, and I think it looks odd because it's a (relatively rare) Arles mint coin. Compare this CNG example:
    Screen Shot 2018-06-20 at 12.20.27 PM.jpg

    I have a siliqua from Arles with a similarly odd style:
    Screen Shot 2018-06-20 at 12.23.58 PM.jpg

    Very strange use of the initial "K" in the mintmark on the solidus!
     
  6. USCoinCollector42

    USCoinCollector42 Well-Known Member

    4A89587D-73FA-488F-9FAB-2EFB3A1DCB45.jpeg
    F4679FD6-4E73-4B2A-A938-58C72D23F8CE.jpeg A9D592DD-8764-4899-B9D4-B02FDB533D34.jpeg

    Here are more photos of the gold coin. Many people have been pointing out a supposed seam on the rim of the coin. Hopefully these pictures help because I want to confirm that the coin is real.

    image.jpg
    image.jpg
     
  7. Marsyas Mike

    Marsyas Mike Well-Known Member

    I really enjoyed this post, both the OP coins and the opinions expressed.

    As a bottom-feeder collector with a limited budget, I have to say I am perhaps more forgiving of problems than a more serious collector is. Most of my ancient suffer from some problem or another and yet I enjoy them a lot.

    There is one comment I'd like to make about damage and pricing. Years ago (30!) I used to scoop up world crowns with holes or jewelry mounts because dealers back then used to sell them at a fraction of what they were worth (10% catalogue value, or melt). To this day I search eBay's jewelry sections for such coins. This way I can get coins I otherwise couldn't afford. They aren't really "hole fillers" - they are my "permanent" collection!

    Although I do not collect for investment purposes, I do find that holed or jewelry-marked coins tend to actually be pretty pricey on eBay the past 10 or 15 years. I recently sold a 1790s Mexico 8 reales for $40. It was nice-looking but had a hole and I bought it from a local dealer for $8 c. 1995. This kind of price rise does not seem atypical to me.

    Ancients are harder to gauge because of the array of "problems" they tend to suffer from. But my suspicion is that tooling/smoothing isn't a huge issue with mid-range common sestertii on eBay - not so much as at the "real" coin auction houses.
     
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