Surprising find of the day: Flavian edition

I recently purchased a large lot that was poorly described because it was described as having mostly my denomination of interest. Well, beware buying lots that have minimal documentation! I took a majorish risk and got, hmm, a box full of surprises. After seeing the first half was predominantly Constantine era bronzes- not what I was going for- the second half yielded enough interesting stuff that I wasn’t too disappointed.

Among a lot of unexpected things, there was a Titus denarius described as unlisted (in the old edition). So I busted out my new Flavian edition thinking ‘this will be a snap’. Finally found it and it was RIC 695 (V) R3 (known only from the British museum photo file)! So supposing that this couldn’t be right, I went to the plates to double check and guess what, not only is it correct- it was THIS coin. How does a coin like this drop out of sight for generation and then randomly surface among a bunch of miscellaneous constantinian bronzes and some other random stuff?? Not a Flavian collection, not a Roman silver collection. I don’t get it but am tickled none the less.

 

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WOW

 

That is superduper cool! What a wonderful surprise, and good job finding the plate image!

 

A truly great find. Congratulations on this terrific acquisition. Another good reason to buy the book.

I too have a RIC reference coin. It is RIC 773 and you have seen it before. There is no picture in RIC.

 

Cool !!

 

What a wonderful surprise! I’m jealous of your find. I think another one was sold in 2017 :

 

I have a guess. Someone owed it and realized it was a keeper so they did not sell it for 50 years or so. There are at least three people on this list, I believe, that have owned a coin for 50 years or more. In my case, I will have owned my longest term coin a century when I am only 115 or so. Wish me luck. The question is why that person did not have a plan for the divestment of his coins better than in a pile of random stuff. I wonder every year how many collections of ancient coins pass on to heirs that know no better than to take them to a general antique dealer who knows less about them than the family. I wonder every year how many 'only one known' coins are destroyed or taken to the dump with all the rest of silly old grandpa's stuff. Be glad the coin came back.

 

British Museum photo file, eh? I can't imagine the British Museum not keeping it for their own collection, so it must have belonged to someone else. I looked for a copy of it in the British Museum, thinking they may have upgraded the coin and sold yours, but ...

 

Yeah, I'm one of those "silly old grandpas" and My kids and grandkids don't know a thing about coins, much less how to evaluate or market them.
Just how to spend them.

 

What a terrific find. Congrats!

 

Wow! A tremendous find in my book! I'm missing only 20 of Titus' denarii, and that's one of them. Congrats on your fluke find!

 

Remarkable find. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit jealous!

Congrats!

 

I really like hearing about finds like this one. Good score, Aleph.

Doug makes a compelling case for why this sort of thing happens. While I've never scored anything as spectacular as Aleph's Titus denarius, I have gotten a lot of stuff from unidentified listings on eBay that seem to be from estates....and paid less for them than if the seller knew what he/she had.

Saying that, I know the whole "estate find in Grandpa's basement" is a common eBay sellers' ploy to tart up ancient junk (or worse yet, fakes). I'm just saying that sometimes, there really is a Grandpa's Basement.

 

Every year millions of grandpas die leaving junk and treasure for someone to deal with. Of those many have nothing but junk but more had things that none of their heirs understood. Some think they will get rich on junk while others throw treasures into the trash. We would be doing a service to humanity if we could change this but we will not. Old coins that can't be spent are obviously junk.

 

Wow! What a wonderful find - congratulations!

 

I really like the look of 690. Any ideas on the rarity? Thanks in advance.

Edit. After looking on Wild Winds I can't find any reference so it probably is rare.

 

It is rare: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1181848

 

I know Vespasian had a similar looking coin with Cos v in between laural trees. Did rulers like to copy coin designs of each other?

 

At times that does seem to be the case. Per the auction blurb in the ACsearch example cited, this reverse was borrowed from a similar denarius of Augustus.

We've probably had a thread about it in the past. Maybe this would be a good time for someone to start such thread again .

 

I'll create a thread.