Having shown the best looking coin I got, I'l show the worst two. Once a gorgeous coin is this sestertius of Marcus Aurelius as Caesar issued while Antoninus Pius was alive. I love the early Aurelius portraits and this coin has all but one important letter of the legend - the F at the end of the obverse saying he was son of Augustus Pius (AVG PII F). A lot of its ugly points come from the uneven color worn through to the brass below the black tar like surface. It would not clean well, IMHO. Perhaps worse is the cheapest ($15) late Roman siliqua I recall seeing in this millennium. It has good legends except for the missing mintmark (Trier or Milan, I suspect) but there are many heavy scratches and three deep punches (test cuts?). The coin appears to have once belonged to a museum or a very old collection that cataloged it by writing a 33 in ink on the reverse. On the other hand it is a real silver coin from a time that most coins were not and it is far from the worst one I have seen offered. The other coins that followed me home were between these two extremes in grade but most were cheaper than the sestertius. That is another decision we all can make: Do we spend $35 for an ugly sestertius with good die work from a popular ruler or $30 for an exceptional small bronze (the Constantine II in part 2) from a relative nobody? With the $5 we could buy an identifiable small Greek bronze or something small and Byzantine from the junk box like the Justin II 5 nummi below (the cheapest coin form the day). Thankfully when you only go coin shopping 3-4 times a year, you can buy both and see which one you regret later.
Nice Pius & the siliqua I know I couldnt live with even at that price. The byzantine has a beautiful patina. I would even add it & I dont pay attention to byzantine much.
Very nice. I like Marcus Aurelius as Caesar on coins very much too, and yours has a great portrait. I think I'd snatch up siliqua like that for $15, easily.
