I got myself a budget Caligula for my 12 Caesars collection

I finally got myself a budget Caligula AE As for my 12 Caesars collection. I focus on silver denarii when building my 12 Caesars set. However, I had to resort to bronze coins for Claudius & Caligula as their denarii are too expensive for me. Claudius’s Imperial bronzes are quite common and affordable, so he wasn’t a challenge for me. In contrast a Caligula As is still pretty pricey, especially in higher grades. I don’t want to spend too much money on bronze coins due to my fear of them being ruined from bronze disease. I finally bought a budget friendly Caligula As from Ken Dorney last week:



Description
Caligula, 37 - 41 AD AE As, Rome Mint, 30mm, 9.28 grams Obverse: C CAESAR AVG GERMANICVS PON M TR POT, Bare head of Gaius left. Reverse: VESTA S C, Vesta seated left holding patera and scepter. RIC 38

Ex. Ken Dorney


I currently own 10 of the 12 Caesars. Please share your coins of Caligula!

 

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Ah, so you were the one who got it! I saw that come up for sale and thought it wouldn't last long. Congrats! That's a nice one for the price, nicer than my very "budget" example:

 

As is true with many of my fellow-addicts, I take a peek at new VCoins listing every few hours throughout the day. When I saw your new example appear last week I said to myself, "THAT one won't last long!". I was right! I'm glad to see it went to a good home! Congrats!

I have 2 budget bronze Caligula portraits.

One from Corinth... RPC I 1173c...


One from Miletus... RPC I 2703...

 

Haven't the slightest idea what happened, but the frontside of this slab is scratched up like crazy. I sent it in for grading myself, so I don't think it was like that when I got it back.

Did I take a brillo pad to it while sleepwalking?! Luckily it doesn't show up all that much over the coin.

 

Too bad about the scratches, but that is a beautiful coin!

 

20 years ago you could buy ones like the OP for $20. Glad I got this one when I did.

 

Thanks! Given the extreme detail in the hair, I was expecting it to come back in a "Tooled" bodybag. Luckily, it only got "Smoothing", which of course I knew would happen before sending it in.

This coin was part of an experiment that I tried where I purchased attractive, raw bronzes and sent them to NGC. Unfortunately, most of the other coins weren't so lucky....Tooled!

It was kind of an expensive lesson, but one that I learned well.

 

That Corinth RPC is pretty cool! I don’t often see Provincial coinage from Corinth

 

I never knew NGC bodybagged ancient coins. Obviously, NGC wouldn’t slab a US coin that’s been tooled. But I thought their policy towards ancients is different. So they won’t slab it mentioning the tooling on the label?

 

Everyone has seen my silver but the bronze deserves love now and then too.


Caligula (37 - 41 A.D.)
AE30 AS
SEGOBRIGA, SPAIN
O: C CAESAR AVG GERMANICVS IMP, laureate head left.
R: SEGO BRIGA in wreath.
Segobriga Mint
30.5mm
10.1g
Burgos 1724

 

My Caligula coin is a fairly run of the mill AS with Vesta on the reverse. It’s easily the most common Caligula coin, and thank goodness for it! Otherwise that emperor would be a hole in most collections.

I have priced the denarius, which goes for $6,000+. The coins at that level have had issues, like an unattractive, cleaned look. I might buy a decent one sometime, but it’s not like Caligula has any attributes for me to admire, like Julius Caesar or Augustus, that would make me want to spend big bucks on him.

 

Congrats on your pick up. Hope you get the last two soon.

 

These types of designations occur on a spectrum for ancient coins, and NGC draws their lines based on different criteria. All ancients are cleaned by modern coin standards, so this isn't a problem. Depending on how you define it, all ancients could also be considered tooled (bronzes anyway), as some kind of device is almost always used to scrape the surfaces clean.

This kind of thing becomes problematic for collectors when the scraping goes beyond the dirt and starts removing metal or patina for the purpose of improving the aesthetics of the coin. NGC will allow somewhat excessive scraping that is used to flatten the fields, which they call "Smoothing". They are more strict about this kind of thing on the devices though, where smoothing becomes "Tooling" (can't smooth the face and neck). NGC won't slab tooled coins.

And then, of course, there are the extreme cases where someone literally re-sculps the bust (like cutting in some hair). This is also simply called "Tooling", which is kind of problematic because NGC doesn't specify the extent of the designation. (In my opinion, there is a big difference between a smoothed neck and a re-sculpted bust)

 

@Mr.MonkeySwag96 Out of curiosity, which two Caesars are you lacking?

I've got portrait coins for all except Julius Caesar, but I do have one of his elephant denarii. I'd love to get a portrait JC sometime but not sure if I can spare the $1k or so.

 

I'm missing Augustus, Claudius, and Otho.

The Augustus coins have doubled+ in price over the last few years, and I haven't yet been able to get myself to cough up the premium.

I want to knock out two birds with one stone on the Claudius, so I'm holding out for a nice Agripinna Jr Cistophorus.

Nice Othos are just painfully expensive in contrast to the history. Gotta pull the trigger at some point!

 

So, your saying that the coin needs a cabinet to age, it's too clean?

 

Like most, I had to forego getting a silver Caligula for my collection and contented myself with a bronze.

In spite of its shortcomings, I still like this sestertius very much.

 

Tiberius & Otho. A Tribute Penny is easily obtainable but expensive in higher grades. I’m saving up to get myself a decent Tribute Penny. Otho denarii are too pricey for my budget. In addition, Otho never produced any Imperial bronzes. However, Otho did mint billon tetradrachms and bronze hemidrachms at Alexandria, Egypt. I’m planning to get an Alexandrine tetradrachm to fill my spot for Otho.

Obviously I can’t afford a lifetime portrait of Julius Caesar. I’m satisfied with this generic Venus type denarius. Despite being heavily worn, my example has a fully visible “CAESAR” legend:

 

All ancient coins were mechanically cleaned. The dirt is gently removed using bamboo picks and distilled water. The problem is that some ancient coins are “overcleaned.”

Overcleaning is less of a problem for ancient silver coins. Ancient silver coins can always retone over time when stored in a cabinet.

However, an ancient bronze coin that’s been “stripped” of its patina is ruined. I believe a patina is thicker than typical toning. The patina protects ancient bronze coins from corrosion such as “bronze disease.” When you strip an ancient bronze coin of its patina, it can’t get it back.

Correct me if I’m wrong

 

I've passed up a few of these in auctions that were pretty decent, and I kind of regretted letting them go (Always feels good to fill a slot). Problem is that he looks normal on these coins, and I really want a denarius for that football helmet-looking hairdo! Always figure that it's better to just save the money up for the one I want.