You know you should buy the coin when...

@TIF, I publicly swear you will be the first told and offered to buy it if and when time comes to part with it. Stay tuned !! (it might take a while though )

Q

 

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Thanks, Q, but since we're roughly the same age I hope that day never comes .

 

One that spoke WITH me:

Any of the Etrurian AR coins can be tough little guys to get. 5 Asses are really tough, and I also found the 1 As is tough to find due to their small size (under 1g)


Etruria Populonia
AR 5 Asses 3rd C BCE 2.0g
Obv: Young Hd Left V behind
Rev: Blank
Ref: HN 173 Vecchi Rasna III 52 ex NAC 29 No 9
Comments: RARE (one of 5 known - this is the best of the 5 that I have seen)

 

The Syrian Domna Venus from the rear coins come with the Rome legend VENERI VICTR as well but Rome did not use the VENER VICTOR option.

Of course there is the unusual Eastern spelled out VENERI VICTRICI

which would be most unusual were it not for the same mint die reading VENEBI VICTBICI.

 

You know you should buy the coin when....

TIF wants it!

Because she has impeccable taste for great coins....



John

 

Perhaps what we are seeing here is the beginning of the vultures circling other vultures who think they are doing the circling. I suspect that quite a few of us are aware of coins in each other's collections that we would love to have. I, for one, would really prefer certain of my coins go to good homes than be sold at public auctions to someone buying them as part of an illicit money laundering operation. I am aware of a half dozen of my coins that I know would have meaning to someone I know. I even have a couple coins that I had promised to someone younger than I am but they died first. At the moment, I am 'between' people to suggest my family contact when they want to dispose of my coins. Most of my favorite dealers are retiring (or worse). If anyone has a good answer for this situation, I would be interested i hearing it. Big dealers like CNG do not want collections like mine where 90% would be beneath their standards. In a month there will be a big show in Baltimore where I will see a half dozen dealers who consider anything under $500 to be bargain box junk.

Thirty years ago, I knew several young professionals. Something happened to them. They got old.

I am told that young people today value having experiences rather than things (like coins). Will a few of them with convert later and start seeking non-investment hobby materials???

 

"non-investment hobby materials".. I like it.
Tough situation.. I guess a question would be are you thinking of paring down your collection while you are still current? If so perhaps hold a few PM auctions for those special coins and only invite those who you would be happy to hand your coins over to... that is an option I suppose. Is that viable? I don't know.
If you are planning for after you assume room temperature .. maybe include a list with your estate of people you trust to deal with your coins and know your wishes? Assuming the person inheriting has no ancient coin interest they would probably appreciate the guidance.

Best of luck with your decision .. and I hope this all happens far into the future.

 

One of the coins that I waffled over the most but finally knew I had to buy was this "CA" series triens overstruck on Oiniadai, Akarnania Zeus/Acheloüs. This was always my favorite coin in the entire @stevex6 collection, one I would have bid on in the CNG sale where he won it had I not exhausted my budget earlier on and it was by far my favorite example of this type among around 50 examples in my photofile. When his collection went up for sale I knew I wanted it, but the price was a little steep and even after the dealer Steve consigned his coins to lowered to price closer to the CNG sale price I still felt the coin was a bit expensive for my tastes but I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

I think what finally made me buy it was seeing that the eBay listing had expired and panicking a bit thinking it had sold. Once I saw that it had been re-listed it was a no brainer and I quickly hit that "buy it now" button and brought it home. The rational side of me still feels like I may have overpaid a bit for it at about $370 shipped but it's quickly become one my favorite coins, easily in the top 5 and I've paid more for coins I liked less so I really can't complain. To me it was well worth it.

Roman Republic Æ Triens(20mm, 5.88g, 12h), anonymous("CA" series), 209-195 B.C., Canusium(?) mint. Helmeted head of Minerva right; above, •••• / Prow right; above, ROMA; below, ••••; to right, CA. Crawford 100/3; Sydenham 309c
Overstruck on Oiniadai, Akarnania Zeus/Acheloüs, cf. BCD Akarnania 345-348 for undertype. For CA triens overstruck on Oiniadai cf. Hersh NC 1953, 14 and cf. Crawford Table XVIII, 91
Ex Stevex6 Collection via coin.ages, eBay, January 27 2018, ex RBW Collection, CNG e-auction 364, December 2 2015, lot 90, ex Stacks Coin Galleries, August 20 1986, lot 117, ex Frederick S. Knobloch Collection, Stacks May 4 1978, lot 90

A nice illustration if you can't quite make out all the undertype:

 

I know what you mean. Years ago before the internet, I would talk to Tom Cederlind on the phone about coins from his latest mail catalog and always purchase one over the phone. When I would go to bed afterward, I would just dream about the coin I just bought. It was a great feeling.

 

I like how the overstrike is perfectly aligned on the reverse to make it look like the prow was a face.

 

I really anted that one, too. I had told Steve I thought he paid too much back when it was new to us all but that is how you get better coins: you pay too much. I went on the theory that only a certain minority of collectors would consider a coin that messy of any interest let alone of 'special' interest that would make the price reasonable. I am glad it found a home that can appreciate it. I regret that Steve bailed out and am happy that most of his better coins found a home. This is one I wish I had been able to justify in my mind. I hope you will be please with it for the long term. Maybe it has a brother that will come my way some day????

 

I admired that one many times and have some regrets about not snagging it. I'm glad it wen to someone here-- someone who truly appreciates it!

 

Hello everybody, I'm a French, and this is my first thread on CT. I used to look to your talks, and I wished to thank you for what I benefit from all of you. My American language is limited, then feel free to correct me, and please, speak to me with simple words. I'm lost with idiomatic expressions, and my maximum humor I can pleasingly understand is TIF's dyslexic insomniac atheist !



@VenusCoins authors : Venus' trying to hide something, but what ?

@Roman_Collector : nice Philistis, but why a monetary system with this 5 litrai, in parallel with a 16 litrai ?

@ancient_coin_hunter : fantastic Balbinus.

@SeverusAlexander : rare to find an officina mentioned on a such nice silver coin. Thanks for sharing.

@TypeCoin971793 : really nice eye appeal of your Roman coins, and at the moment I don't know anything about your Gold Key/Knife. But it seems to have constituted a considerable nest egg.

@panzerman : I have decided to try to understand imperfection, ans I can sleep better since. Close ty your aureus, I'm not sure I could !

@chrsmat71 : how not appreciating Syracusan coins ?

@H8_modern @TIF : nice very speaking mythological scenes, that we can find again under Titus' reign.

@Ken Dorney : to much to say about your coins. Your arguments are interesting.

@Eduard : I can easily share the arguments that led you impacting your budget.

@Cucumbor : I don't speak about your coin that's a pinnacle in its category.

@Alegandron : I'm particularly sensitive to your Etrurian coin especially cause its decimal system was soon established, and Romans didn't understand the benefit they could bring to their culture.

Simplification isn't always chosen. Your coin is in addition admirable.

@red_spork coin : I'm always interested in overstruck Republican bronze coins as they can be witnesses of monetary reforms . Your coin tells a story I don't know, but I registered it a long time ago, before it becomes yours, waiting the day I will learn more about it. Nice coin.

@all_of_you : thank you to have help me to fill in my photographic documentation, embellished by your comments.

What I most love, when acquiring a coin, is the research, and when I (imagine) I have linked some facts, as everybody I suppose, comes satisfaction.

The coin I have decided to speak about, doesn't belong to me. I proposed to a friend of mine to buy it. And I wrote this sheet, the way I'm used to presenting some of his coins, and some of mines.

What's first questioning when you see this coin, is that the exactly same coin does exist with ITALIA written in place of VITELIU. No need to be Champollion deciphering the Rosetta stone to state the parallel of languages.

Thank to Carthago for his photo : https://www.cointalk.com/threads/roman-social-war-italian-bull-goring-a-roman-wolf.270756/page-2

As I wrote it in French, this VITELIU denarius is a symbol of the fights against inequalities, reaching its paroxysm with this episode, when power expression assert itself by assassinating a tribune of the plebeians who was asking Roman citizenship for Italian people. A revolt follows, sufficiently significant to produce a varied coinage.

It's interesting to notice that representatives of the “Socii” (allied) revolt are using, on the VITELIU denarius, a language non specific to Rome, Greek or Latin with which it shares his roots, but a typical italic one : Oscan. The insurgents used Latin too, as established by Carthago's denarius : the minimum was to be understood by most of people and by ennemies. (But not all of the Oscan coins were though translated in Latin : idea, just as an aside).

For a long time, I was questioning about Italy's etymology, Wikipedia postulating this entity is a geographic one, what's uncertain, as Mathilde Mahé-Simon (Ecole normale supérieure, Paris; L’Italie chez Tite-Live : l’ambiguïté d’un concept) conclude at the end of her deep study, where geographic, ethnic, politic and juridical origins are discussed, considering that all epigraphic sources (I exaggerate, cause her study concern exhaustively just Tite Live, but her other references are numerous) didn't focussed on one of these notions, but on a semantically fluctuant concept. What's soon pleasing, is that the first occurrence of the word ITALIA is stated with these Marsic denarii !

Wikipedia noticed, according to Virgile's Aeneid, that Italia was the name Italos of a king, that Herakles would have named the place Italia while looking for an animal of Geryon's cattle, that aithô referring in Greek to fire could have explain why, for closest Eastern people considering the glow of a sunset on the west, called Italy aithalia, not forgetting to bring together the origin of the radical of Etna.

I digressed briefly, cause trying to understand modestly the evolution of languages, considering primitive alphabets, predominantly consonantal, so far I can have perceived, translation in different modern languages appeared to me more evident by excluding vowels, and holding an etymological root of a comparing word in my language more than a more direct equivalent.

The last hypothesis of Wikipedia about Italia's etymology, states that it could have been “borrowed via Greek from Oscan Víteliú 'land of calves' (cf. Lat vitulus "calf", Umb vitlo "calf")”.

That's what I had observed when trying to understand the greek etymology of the word ETOYC.

I don't remember where, but someone wrote an article wondering if dates were merely dates or no on many Greek coins. The ones with ETOYC (read et'-os, year in Greek) abbreviated or not are not doubtful, nor thanthe ones introduced by what looks like an L but isn't (Egyptian origin: maybe the vertical bar defines an origin point, and the horizontal bar indicates a duration). But many other coins without these comput (=calendar) indicators can be discussed.

To precise ETOYC's concept, I first noted that those were the same words in ancient and modern Greek.

https://archive.org/details/dictionnairety00bois/page/292

(it's in French, sorry !)

It refers to the year, and by extension, to animals of their first year of life, giving an example: calf, French “veau” (pronounced “vo”) that can be compared to Sanskrit “vatsah”, and Vedic “sa-vatarau”, and even Aeolian “etalon” (same word as in French : “étalon” = American stallion); and it refers by an other extension, on the opposite side, to many years (there's no contradiction, just imagine that many years of use of a word transform its meanings -what Mathilde Mahé-Simon called semantic flux-, and derision for example, is a cultural way that everybody uses that implies often two opposite meanings for a same word), and gave the words “vetus veteris” = vieux, in French “vétuste” (= very old, obsolete).

In France, if you say to a 50 years old lady that she looks 20, there's no derision, you just try to save your life...

Hence, the denarius of Q Voconius Vitulus, well knownfor its punning allusion to his cognomen Vitulus, comes clear.

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10452475n.r=denarius 526?rk=193134;0

And our VITELIU denarius too : illustrates an armed warrier (=metaphor for war) close to a calf (I'm kidding, a big bull) (=metaphor for Italian people). Maybe Roman citizens could have speak about Italian people using derision, considering them as calves, and therefore, insurgents have decided to illustrate a well grown calf, now a big bull goring a she-wolf (what cannot be seen, here is another interpretation), Rome of course.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1154172&partId=1&searchText=1867%2c0101.1110&page=1

Hoping I wasn't too boring, and I have interested some of you, even though these stories are more and more widespread.

Waiting for your answers, questions, critics or remarks.

 

Haha... welcome, @Aestimare!

I'm glad you understood the joke . (I hope that's what you are referring to.)

...

@Carthago, @Alegandron, and @Volodya (and others) might have some insight into your questions.

Interesting that you bring up L ETOYC. The question about origin and meaning of the "L" preceding the year on Egyptian coins has been discussed here before but I don't think there were any good answers.

I'm not sure I understood the rest of it but I'll try again later today.

 

Bienvenue @Aestimare d'un français à un autre français !

Q

 

@ TIF : Thank you TIF, to have tried to understand. This is my turn, to begin to understand my American is poor.

@ Cucumbor : sur le plan esthétique et qualitatif, vos pièces ont bien amélioré mes bases de données ! Merci.

 

Thanks
Q

 

Wow! @Aestimare I really like the Social War period of Roman History... the War that Rome WON militarily, but LOST politically. They conceded ALL demands to Italia, save for some tribes (Samnites) that were severely persecuted afterwards.
The Social War was the culmination of the Gracchii Brother's failed reforms, and the dawn of the Imperators - Marius and Sulla arose from this warring period to wreak havoc. Ultimately, this all caused the downfall of the Roman Republic.

OH! And WELCOME to CoinTalk... thanks for you great 1st posting!

Here are some of my Marsic Confederation denarii:


Seller's Attribution:
The Social War, Marsic Confederation AR Denarius. Bovianum(?)-(Capital of the Samnite Confederation since 9th C. BCE), 89 BC. Laureate head of Italia left, VITELIV = ITALIA in Oscan script / Soldier standing facing, head right, foot on uncertain object, holding inverted spear and sword, recumbent bull to right facing; retrograde B in exergue. Campana 122 (same dies); Sear 230 HN Italy 407. 3.93g, 20mm, 3h. Near Very Fine. From the Eucharius Collection Sear 230 SCARCE



(Seller's attribution)
The Social War, Marsic Confederation AR Denarius. Corfinium, 89 BC. Laureate head of Italia right, wearing pearl necklace; ITALIA behind, X (mark of value) below chin / Italia, seated left on shields, holding sceptre in right hand and sword in left, being crowned with wreath by Victory who stands behind; retrograde B(?) in exergue. Campana 105, Series 7a (same obverse die); Sear 228 w/ control mark inverted B; HN Italy 412a. 3.60g, 20mm, 8h. Near Very Fine. Cleaning marks to rev. 18 known Rare. HN Italy 412a Sear 228 RARE



Seller's attribution:
Social War, Marsic Confed., 90-88 BC, Sy.621, Italia hd l./ Youth & sacrificial pig, 8 soldiers around; VF, centered, some lt surface imperfections mainly on rev, some uneven darkish toning, full clear details. Very rare. Sear 227

 

aGAIN a winner

 

@Alegandron :
I totally share your passion for this intense period, but there are so many fascinating stories, so various approaches and engraving styles, so diverse cultures that can be linked. Impossible to stop to a single historic fact. And those coins aren't cheap... Very nice indeed !

VITELIU, ITALIA, mark of value X. Your VITELIU seems to present a good definition of the object under the warrior's foot. Any personal idea about it ?