pprp's top 5 for 2021

This year was a very challenging one, as auction competition and hammer prices increased a lot. I was at the verge of dropping the hobby, but in the end, I took as a personal challenge to fight against the dealer/advisor hordes who are backed by seemingly endless resources. In the end, I can’t tell if I was successful or not. There were hundreds of coins that I failed to get; those coins sold in my opinion too high and I cannot find any credible reasons to support such prices. I saw none of those in CT, where did they all go!? At the same time I won a few important or very rare coins (IMHO) for reasonable prices and there I also cannot explain the lack of interest. I don’t believe in lucky moments; every single coin, cheap or expensive, rare or not, important or not, beautiful or ugly, in well-known or unknown auctions, has been thoroughly screened by numerous interested parties. There are certainly reasons nobody cared for the coins I won; it is me that can't understand why. This reminds me a conversation I had with the greatest collector of our times about a coin I got some time ago; I was commenting that the coin was of an unrecorded die combination and I received the reply “who cares”.

Enough nagging, let’s move to the coins. The sequence just follows the usual order in catalogs, so numbering does not reflect their order of importance to me.

1. SICILY, Leontinoi. 476-466 BC. AR Tetradrachm. Bearded charioteer driving quadriga galloping to right; above, Nike flying right to crown the horses / ΛΕΟΝΤΙΝΟΝ (retrograde and partially upside down) Lion’s head with open jaws to right; around, four grains of barley. Boehringer, Leontinoi 2; Weber 1373 (this coin).

ex- auction Florange – Ciani 17-21.02.1925 (Colonel Allote de la Fuye), lot 109; Naville IV, 17.06.1922, lot 257; from the Weber collection, no 1373; from the collection of Baron Granieri, Noto, Province of Syracuse, 1889.




2. SICILY, Syracuse. Deinomenid Tyranny. 485-478 BC. AR Tetradrachm. Charioteer, wearing a long chiton and holding a kentron in his right hand and the reins in his left, driving a slow quadriga to right, Nike flying right, crowning horses / ΣVRAKOΣIO-N, head of Arethusa facing to right, wearing a pearl-diadem and a necklace, four dolphins swimming clockwise around. Boehringer 205.4 (this coin); Boehringer 205.5 (this coin).

It was interesting to discover that this coin is actually referenced by Boehringer as two separate coins i.e., 205.4 and 205.5. The 205.5 is coming from the John Glas Sandeman collection, while 205.4 from the G. Picard collection. The plaster cast used in the Sambon sale shows some weakness on two of the dolphins, therefore confusing Boehringer who registered it as a different coin.

ex- Santamaria auction 12.10.1949, lot 331 (Conte Alessandro Magnaguti collection); Schulman auction 07.06.1937, lot 125 (Mathey collection); Hamburger auction 96, 25.10.1932, lot 54; Sambon auction 14-16.03.1923, lot 325 (Picard collection); Sotheby’s auction 13-20.06.1911, lot 52 (Sandeman collection).




3. ATTICA, Athens. 515-490 BC. AR Tetradrachm. Archaic head of Athena right, wearing disk earring and crested Attic helmet decorated with chevron and dot pattern / Owl standing right, head facing; olive sprig to left, AΘE to right; all within incuse square. Seltman group L (A-/P283).

ex- Vinchon auction 13.04.1985, lot 281.




4. LESBOS, Mytilene. 521-478 BC. AR Drachm. Forepart of winged bull right / Quadripartite incuse square divided diagonally. Imhoof-Blumer Griechische Münzen 804 (pl. 13, 25), same obverse die but different incuse punch; probably unique.

ex- NAC auction 126, 17.11.2021, lot 217; CNG 88, lot 325; Leu auction 65, 21-22.05.1996, lot 202.




5. ISLANDS off CARIA, KOS. 280-250 BC. AR Tetradrachm. Timoxenos, magistrate. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin / Crab; KΩION above, TIMOΞENOΣ and club below; all within dotted square. Requier Group II, Series 2, 25a (D7/R22) = Ingvaldsen Issue XIV, 29a (O10/R24) = Stefanaki Issue 17, 789 (this coin); HGC 6, 1308, otherwise unpublished. One of two known.

This was a particularly unwanted coin. Elsen was trying to sell it between 1993-2000 in 11 different sales and FPLs (!!!). It then started another journey in CNG auctions, until I decided to put it out of its misery.




Please feel free to post comments, opinions, coins or anything you find relevant.
Wishing a happy 2022 to all !

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Wonderful quintet!...Love the crab, winged bull and super looking Syracuse Tet with charioteer...Glad you decided to continue collecting...Congrats on some lovely acquisitions.

 

Pauca sed bona! Since you're a Greek collector: καλα νομισματα. That's the best I can do, maybe Roman Collector can translate it mot-a-mot.

I adjusted my interests after I realized that I may never fill some greek silver holes in my collection.

 

Wonderful 2021 pickups, @pprp.

All your five coins are my favorites. Great Syracuse tetradrachms. Your Kos tetradrachm has a cool crab design. I really love archaic Owl tetradrachm, and you have an outstanding example!

Thanks for sharing.

 

It was a tough year. You picked up some nice coins despite those challenges and I particularly like that Deinomenid tet-- for the coin itself, the pedigree, and the reference appearances.

The archaic owl tet is stunning! Such unusually good centering and preservation.

The Mytilene drachm is appealing to me because I'm fond of oddly winged creatures and this denomination is a tough one.

Congrats on pulling some rabbits out of the hat!

 

I agree with your opening remarks. Insane prices are a reflection of the World catching up to the overpriced/ overhyped US coin market. Most World coinage (Ancient-1918) are still relatively great buys compared to the US scene. The ONLY overpriced/ overhyped Ancient is the Athenian Owl. New Chinese/ Japanese collectors are putting a lot off upward pressures on the market. Also the concerns over the economy/ inflation are to blame for demand for "collectibles"
Lots of super wealthy people in the World.
My advice, enjoy your hobby/ never give up on collecting

Now as for your top "5", all are very beautifull classic coins/ I hope you will cherish owning them. Thanks for sharing your treasures
John

 

wonderful coins all! I do not understand why your Herk / crab coin had trouble finding a home, it is great. My favorite is the winged bull.

 

#2

 

pprp, Great additions ! My favorite is #2, the stunning Tet from Syracuse. An excellent strike from two fine dies .

 

I love them all, but #'s 2 and 5 are my favorites.

 

Well done! All five are great additions to your collection. The Syracuse tet is great and with a stellar pedigree but my favorite is the Mytilene drachm.

 

All wonderful and valuable coins. Love the Crab! Yea. Happy 2022 to you and to All.

 

Gotta love that Syracuse tet! All are outstanding coins. Prices have definitely gone up, but it looks like you still had a great year.

 

An excellent group!

I like Sicily tetradrachms and the owl, which is an outstanding example for this challenging type.

 

I'm very glad you didn't end up exiting collecting as this is a highly refined and well chosen group of coins! Your Athens tetradrachm is my favorite: these earlier examples are very hard to come by and it was a smart decision to buy one now when most collectors are distracted by the far more common unpedigreed examples flooding the market.

I'd be interested in seeing some of the ones you were outbid on as well; there have been a few "blackhole" collectors recently who have irritatingly siphoned up nearly everything. Here's to hoping that 2022 returns some semblance of sanity to prices but I'm not holding my breath.

 

Attribution is not certain but 99% it is from Lesbos rather than an uncertain mint in Ionia. The coin is so rare that the only reference used for it, is the 1890 German edition of the book of Imhoof-Blumer on Greek coins. I haven't seen another one in thousands of old catalogs. I still need to check several SNGs but I doubt I will have some result.

I remember at the live I pressed the button for the starting price and waited. Time passed and nobody cared to bid it up even for 50 francs (starting price was an off-increment amount). I thought my internet connection stopped working. But a few stressful moments later the hammer fell and I burst into nervous laughter. I surely wasn't expecting this outcome. The coin sold for 1/4 of what the sheikh paid 10 years ago, a good example that he paid absurd prices for his coins. Yet if you do a bit of research, hammer prices for several of his coins now seem like bargains in this numismatic dystopia we are living in.

 

I underbid for the one below. I could hear a female voice bidding against me, and this was certainly not the first time I run into her or the other one. This was a sad loss as I will probably never have another chance to get this coin.

 

Forgive me, but is there anything special about this coin?

 

Excellent coins. My favourite is your Athens tetradrachm. It's very well centred and struck. I have a similar example to yours, it's a great type to own.

Also like your Syracuse tetradrachm very much, very attractive style.

I only purchased five coins this year too, but like you got a nice combination or rare and attractive coins. Well done.

 

I’ve considered making a whole thread on ones that got away. It’s best not to dwell on them but I’m sure we all have a few, myself included