One of these big ol' drachms of Alexandria has been a long time coming for me. After hunting for about a year, I finally chose an Antoninus Pius with a fairly common Nilus reverse, but one I've always liked. The surfaces are abit rough and the reverse lacks the cool Nilometer measurement indication, but on the plus side, it has a very nice mossy green-brown patina, excellent details, and a crocodile! In hand, it's a wonderfully weighty coin... not in my Top 5 of the year so far, but definitely in the Top 10. Please post your Alexandria drachms! ANTONINUS PIUS AE Drachm (22.17g, 35mm) EGYPT, Alexandria, RY 9 (145/6 AD) Dattari (Savio) 8632; Emmett 1621.9 O: AVT K T AIL ADR ANTWNINOC CEBEVC, laureate head right. R: Nilus reclining left, holding reed and cornucopia from which emerges a Genius; crocodile below, L ENATOV (date) around.
I know you said Alexandrians aren't particularly appealing but I'm glad you bought a nice example anyway. Warning: these generally homely Roman Alexandrians are addicting. I just bought an Antoninus Pius drachm too but it is almost not worth photographing. It was a local purchase-- from the same jewelry store where I found that Pontos Perseus and Medusa. I was there again last week and other than the never-selling handful of poor condition LRBs and a few very worn Syracuse obols, this was the only other unset coin. It was more or less a pity purchase (pity for the coin, poor A-Pi!). They didn't even know what it was. Plus, since that there are no coin shops in my area, I feel compelled to buy almost any ancient coin when the occasion arises. It is now my pocket piece. Well, purse piece, and it's in a little velvet pouch. I think it's a wonderful coin to carry around; he's a worthy emperor EGYPT, Alexandria. Antoninus Pius drachm, Emmett 1496(17), R1.
Thanks, TIF. I've always been a fan of the Alexandria drachms of the 2nd century, in particular A-Pis for the variety of interesting (and unfortunately often scarce and expensive) reverses. It's the potin tets I have trouble liking . Thumbs up on the jewellery store rescue. I really see something to like even in these worn pieces... they're like homelier cousins of sestertii that you can just relax and hang out with (or have hang out in your purse) .
zumbly's coin is a very nice strike with a lot of obverse legend often lost due to the tapered flans on which these were made. I do regret the lack of the 'cool Nilometer' digits but it is overall a great coin. Before showing drachms, I want to show a Pius tetradrachm that may or may not be missing the Nilometer number. It is year 16 (LIS). The Nile went into flood at 16 cubits so the Nilometer number is always IS. You will not see happy postings of close numbers since a flood of 15 fails to spill over into the fields and that means no crops. My tet may be using the single 16 for both purposes. My Hadrian of the same reverse has the IS at the top and year 12 spelled out at the bottom. The worn Pius adds the IS to the end of the date word L TPICKA (13) My last one was bought because I liked the color. The reverse shows Serapis seated in a temple and has enough letters to narrow it to either the common year 12 or the rare year 11, I believe. I am not willing to risk the color to try to clean it.
Wow => fantastic new score, Z-bro ... your new score is a wee bit sharper than my example (congrats!!) I may have posted these babies recently, but yah, that's how I roll, right?!! => so, here they are again to rock yer world!!
That is one big, gorgeous lump of a coin, Z. Nice find. I've taken a very modest step in collecting some Alexandrian tets recently, which I'll post later.
oh yeah, check out that sweet "tetunkatunk" tetunkatunk, noun: a voluptuous Alexandrian tet, greater than 30 mm in diameter. seriously, that is a very wonderful coin z man. great tetunkatunks everyone!
oh yeah... duh. sorry for the duh-dunkadunk. duh-dunkadunk, noun: a silly post made when sleep deprived or inebriated. but seriously, some part of my brain always wants to make a tetradrachm bigger than a drachm. which makes sense....if you don't think about it to much.
=> no harm, no foul ... I was rollin' with your Tetunkatunk comment, until Doug swatted you down!! (man, it's pretty difficult to slip one by "The Ancient Goalie") => awesome job Doug (keepin' us all honest)
