I purchased this at CoinFest this past weekend....It is the most I've ever spent for a single coin ($50) and it is my first ancient silver...my 4th Roman coin overall...It's darker in real life, the camera flash made it brighter....the reverse color is closer but not accurate... on another note, it seems I've finally figured out how to take pictures of coins! One oddity here...the portrait looks a lot like my uncle...that is the first thing my mom said when I showed it to her after we got home...Wouldn't that be something, my family IS Italian! The reverse picture was taken in the early morning sunlight, where the obverse was taken in my room at night with the camera flash only, both had the other stuff cropped out to just be the coin... It is about my favorite purchase of the show, and might be my favorite in my entire collection...So hard to choose...but it darn well better be considering it doubled the most I've ever spent for a coin in my collection!
Do post a description, for those of us who don't keep portraits of the emperors in our wallets. (I do, of course.) Very neat portrait of Antoninus Pius on that one. Quite a pronounced mustache.
congrats :bow :very nice coin coin congrats iam shocked that you got it for $50 great pick up i like the nicks on the this type of coin a lot here would not agree with me but that is me dave
Try shooting in natural daylight (not direct, bright sun but open overcast) either outside or next to a north window. Rotate the coin under the camera until you get the angle light that seems most flattering. Your reverse shows bottom light which is rarely as pleasing as top. Flash is hard to visualize before you shoot. I usually use artificial light because it allows shooting any time of day but if you are only shooting four coins, it hardly seems time to buy a lighting rig quite yet. Other hints: http://dougsmith.ancients.info/ph2008.html TRP XX dates the coin to 156-157 AD. The reverse has been described by various workers as either Tranquillitas or Annona (I prefer Annona) standing holding a rudder and a modius filled with corn ears. Her left foot rests on the prow of a ship. Whoever she is, the type refers to the emperor's role in providing imported grain (at this period, Rome would have starved without supply ships from Egypt, etc.). It is a decent coin (worth the price) which I hope will be joined by many others in the years to come. http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?search=antoninus+pius+annona+denarius+prow&view_mode=1&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&page=1#1 Above is one in better condition but I think yours has nicer die work. There are several others lower down on the page.
Thanks for the comments! Ardatirion, you really carry a list of emporers in your wallet? That is....awesome! Gee, all I carry is a list of modern US coins I am looking for lol. Dougsmit, are you Doug Smith from the website you linked? I love that site! Stainless gave me a link to it a while ago and I ended up spending about 4 hours on there reading, and I feel I still only scratched the surface! I have not had too much time lately so I have not been able to read more yet but I plan to soon, from September to the end of October is my busiest time of the year. I know what you mean about the reverse picture. It's nasty. I need to reshoot another one. I am still learning how to take coin pictures and still experimenting! It doesn't help that there is a shadow across it...likely from the hand strap on my camera! How do you date the Roman coins? I know that XX means 20 but how do you determine 20 of what? (I would guess his rule, of cource the XX is not the only part of the date. One of the things I wish to find out is about dates/timekeeping in the past. I know the system currently in use came much later; after the fall of the Roman Empire and one of the things I wonder is how time was kept before that. Here is the info that came with it...since I am still new and basically clueless I have to trust it...the comments I got made me happy because I am flying blind basically...(My thoughts in parenthesis) Antoninus Pius AR denarius 3.35g (The same size as a US dime) 117-138 AD (How does that reconcile with the date Dougsmit posted?) Emporor Head right Annona stg r.. foot on prow RIC 260 Reverse flan flaw (I am much more accpeting of defects on ancient coins) Thanks again!
Lol, Not really a wallet, but memorization (at last for me). it is automatic after you see enough coins of each emperor, I now have most of them, but do occasinally have troubles with the unusual styled ones. The link I gave you, I believe was Jamesicus. Nice coin, a nice addition to your growing collection stainles
Roman coins do not all get dated to a specific year. A common dating is just to give the dates of the rule of the emperor pictured. 117-138 AD are the reign dates for emperor Hadrian and has no relation to this coin at all. 138-161 AD are the dates for Antoninus Pius. This coin has three other points that allow narrowing down the date further. On the obverse we see IMP II or Imperator for the second time. This refers to the number of times the emperor was honored for his military adventures. Pius was not much into this and only accepted the honor twice. The last was in 143 AD so all this does is narrow the coin down to that date or later. Consul was the highest civilian office in the Republic but continued as an office during the Empire with emperors holding it whenever they desired. Pius was COnSul IIII times as shown on this coin with the last being in 145 AD dating this coin to that date or later. The good dating device here is the office of Tribunitia Potestas or TRPOT as shown here (just TRP is more common with most rulers who used this office to date coins). This office was renewed yearly. Not all emperors used the same date for assuming a new TRP number. Without looking it up, I believe Pius was one that used a date of 10 December so TRPOT XX would fall from December 156 to December of 157. Many emperors held offices like these three but did not consistently mark them on their coins. Some Roman coins are dated by students who have figured out a pattern of issues and assigned specific types to dates based on the best available scholarship. My favorite emperor, Septimius Severus, changed the obverse legend style several times during his reign so we can group coins into early, middle and late periods even before we start looking at the numbers that some of them bear. Other rulers debased the purity of silver or changed weight standards during their reigns so we can date coins at least roughly by observing these factors. Your coin does have a reverse flan flaw and you are correct to be more accepting of it than you would be on a modern coin. Grading ancients is very much a matter of opinion since you might be more or less accepting of such a flaw than I would be while I might be more inclined to seek a coin with better wear or centering or any of many other things that happened to the coin when it was struck or in the centuries that have passed since then. I did a series of pages on the subject and whould be able to expand it today to twice that size. Grading is a subject that meets many varied opinions. How much more wear would you accept on a coin like yours that did not have the flan flaw? http://dougsmith.ancients.info/grade.html
I believe stainless might agree that after a while we tend to recognize the faces of these 200 or so people rather like we do the faces of our friends and family. Obviously some are more distinctive than others and some are like distant cousins we see only once in a while. In later periods when it gets stylized we not only recognize the face but start to see that the face is 'Eastern' or 'Alexandria'. If you stay with it long enough you may even start looking at specific die styles and convince yourself that two coins in your collection were cut by the same artist. Some ancient coin collectors are in it for the 'art' and go further in these ways than do the history buffs who have memorized not only the names but all the associated dates. You saw an uncle in the face of Pius. You may later find other people you know remind you of people on the coins.
WOW. I am impressed to say the least. I can't even properly put into words how much that post there impressed me! With your permission I would like to add that entire first paragraph into my Excel coin collection chart. I didn't have a chance yet to pull out my chart of Emporors...I really should convert it to Excel at some point! Grades don't mean a whole lot to me...I chose this one because I could afford it, the dealer (Fred B. Shore) had a lot of nice Romans that interested me but this one was in my price range (and at that it was double what I've spent for any single other coin!) I would be willing to accept a lot more flaws then this, basically, I looked at this one, determined that the flaw on the back was not enough to make me dislike the coin or feel I paid too much for it, so I brought it home. Basically as long as I can figure out who is on the coin (the issuer) it has a home in my collection! Actually, if the price is right (Under $5 generally) they don't even have to be identifable, that can always come later. I love history and I love coins...it goes toghter quite well This is the same person talking who has a collection of coins that look as if they are run over by trucks and is actually happier to find them sometimes then good quality coins...LOL Thanks again! I looked for a bowing emoticon but couldn't find one! I think you gave me both links Stainless On a related topic, does anyone else find that the more different Roman coins you get the more you want to add to that collection and learn more about them?
Wow, that is incredible. I only hope that I can do that some day! I'm still a rookie really, only collecting coins for 17 months and Ancients for 14. I really wish I had more funds that I could put towards adding more to my collection I actually wouldn't be surprised if I really WAS related to these people! My family comes from an area in Italy that was within a day's walk of Rome, or so I've been told. I'm deatly afraid of airplanes (heights mainly) so I have not been able to get over there and find out for sure. Until two generations ago my family was 100% Italian and my brother (the family historian) has been able to trace the family back to the early 1700s in Italy. I wish records had been kept through the Medieval times!
That is exactly how I started out. Eventually, you'll probably acquire a desire for nicer quality coins. Give it time. And no, I don't carry their pictures in my wallet. That's in my head.
