What Is One Thing You Think About When Handling A World Or Ancient Coin?

Please Don't Drop It

 

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With an ancient, it would just add to its patina.

 

I lost a 1856 FE in the sewer on West 46th Street and Avenue of the Americas where you can still find it today...

 

Building patina and character.

FE? Is that a gold eagle of some type?

 

All the DEAD people that have handled this before me and those that will have it when I am gone......

 

[video]http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=20&cad=rja&ved=0CFYQtwIwCTgK&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4OK txWyVhk4&ei=BcV_UN6bAYew0QHH7oHoBg&usg=AFQjCNEC7fV6Z2zAP7GJIYYOlOf7rfQQWw[/video]

[video=youtube;4OKtxWyVhk4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OKtxWyVhk4[/video]

 

this thread shows that we don't really own our coins, we are just temporary guardians of them.

 

I never think about the people who spent them but only the people who made them. Why were they made the way they were made? When? Where? How? What I would like to know more than anything is who decided what would be done for any given issue. Did the Emperor care or was it delegated down to a freedman mint official who was constantly in fear of upsetting the boss? Like most questions worth asking, there is no concrete answer.

 

When I hold ancients, I think about, how the world was difFerent, and, how many people held this, who were they, could it have been at the colisium? In someone's pocket, did it fall into the arena, and one of the fighters slipped on it, and lost the fight

 

exactly, if coins could talk what a story they could tell............

 

Honestly, since WD40 said he had modern coins I would agree with his sentiments. I feel the same way about modern coins, a cold detachment. I believe the reason for this is they have never been touched by human hands, they have not been treasured as their only hope of a meal tomorrow, they have no connection to humans. They are cold industrial objects.

Now, the same object 100 years from now will change its "tone" to me. After 100 years of someone taking care of it, collecting it, valuing it, the same object has now to me acquired human connectiveness. Then this object is more human than could sterile industrial product.

Its the human connection, real or imagined, that makes coins more than sterile objects to me. Connections between the ruler who name or picture is on the coin, the conditions under which it was struck, sometimes for obccure coins WHO struck them at all, and why.

Holding these objects in your hand just have a way of transporting you back in time to when these coins circulated. Who owned these, how much of their total fortune was it, why did someone bury these, what happened to the previous owners, etc.

Because of this ability, I treasure my coins and try to maintain them as well as possible for posterity. Future owners are owed the same kindness we have had of being able to own these objects.

Chris

 

Yeah. It is interesting to think of what the people of a particular country were doing when the coin came out, where it has been, and how you eventually got it. EX: Things were much different for the people of the former Yugoslavia as compared to the people of the Bahamas.

 

one can only wonder how a £1 coin from the tiny south atlantic island of sthelena ended up in my change from the newsagents shop?

 

It's always fun for me to thing about where a coins from, where it's been, and which hands passed it along. I like that with my Mark Antony legionary denarius, I have at least one good idea whos hand it passed through, and what event it could have seen.



Mark Antony, Triumvir and Imperator, 44 - 30 B.C., Silver denarius, cf. Crawford 544/14, Sydenham 1216, BMCRR 190, and RSC I 27 ff., Fair, Patrae?, 2.818g, 17.7mm, 180o, 32 - 31 B.C.; obverse ANT•AVG / III VIR•R•P•C, galley right with rowers, mast with banners at prow, border of dots; reverse LEG - [...], legionary eagle between two standards, border of dots Ex Forvm


The silver for this issue may have come from the Ptolemaic treasury, and this coin may have been present at the Battle of Actium.

"The Battle of Actium was the decisive confrontation of the Final War of the Roman Republic. It was fought between the forces of Octavian and the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC, on the Ionian Sea near the city of Actium, at the Roman province of Epirus vetus in Greece. Octavian's fleet was commanded by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, while Antony's fleet was supported by the ships of Queen Cleopatra of Ptolemaic Egypt.
Octavian's victory enabled him to consolidate his power over Rome and its dominions. To that end, he adopted the title of Princeps ("first citizen") and some years after the victory was awarded the title of Augustus by the Roman Senate. This became the name by which he was known in later times. As Augustus, he would retain the trappings of a restored Republican leader; however, historians generally view this consolidation of power and the adoption of these honorifics as the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire."

 

Good thought. All it takes is one thought to write a book. Thanks for the input.

 

Here is a piece you will enjoy pondering on.

ROME. Titus. As Caesar, AD 69-79.
Æ As (20mm, 9.84 g, 6 h)
Rome mint. Struck AD 77-78.
Retarrifed under by the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy as 42 nummi, 6th century AD.
Laureate head left; XLII (= mark of value, 42 nummi) carved before bust
Spes standing left, holding flower and raising hem of skirt
For host coin:cf. RIC II 1101. For revaluation: cf. Morrisson, Re-use 19; cf. MEC 1, 76 (Vespasian)


Ex Giamba Collection (Classical Numismatic Group 82, 16 September 2009), lot 1139​

 

That is easy. That is Winston Churchill

 

Very funny. I thought about Titus (who I assume commissioned the coins) and why he didn't have a more attractive image placed on the coin.

I really like that coin, the image is so genuine.

 

I think of dirty fingers. :smile

Actually, my recent obsession with coins has more to do with my obsessive compulsive disorder (pseudo psycho babble) to organize and catalogue things. Still, I do enjoy coins for their historical and pictorial elements.

 

This is a really tough question but the more I think about it the more it seems to get to the very heart of why I collect world coins at all. It's often been said that coins are ambassadors and this is true. They tell about the place and time they were produced. And the main thing they say is that humans are really all the same and always have been. Of course, at the same time they highlight our subtle differences as we evolve over time in different places.

I think this is the primary cause of my utter hatred for the penny and what it represents. We have a culture founded on waste and no matter what I do the very existence of a coin that is wasteful will serve as a calling card forever announcing our foolhardiness. Even a few of the zincolns will be around in thousands of years with a note under the glass in the museum pointing out that we made these in the hundreds of billions after they were a drag on the economy. People will have a good chuckle at our expense and move along.

In this day and age it might be best not to be remembered too long.