Baltimore Show Newps

That was one Red head you did not mess with!
I always check her oil and wash her windshield . ...definitely the windshield and she called me out one day, I was like 15-16 Y/O she was like ladies you ever notice how Paddy always gets the windshield so clean...

 

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What years are you talking about? I was stationed at Ft Holabird in Dundalk in the late 60s.

 

68-74

 

I was there in 68-69 and 70-71. Small world.

 

Nice Gaius! I was intrigued enough to look up the type online. Given that in the G-N auction yours was correctly described as having "Bare head of Gaius Caesar right", I think their giving it to Augustus was just a bit of sloppiness. What I found more curious was that in their other two auctions, they described the portrait as "Bare head of Julius Caesar right", which is at least a little misleading, even if his full name was Gaius Julius Caesar.

I thought you might also be interested in seeing several other examples that came up on acsearch :
http://www.acsearch.info/search.htm...1&ot=1&images=1&currency=usd&order=0&company=

Yours still looks like the finest one around, even taking into account the one sold by G&M for almost $800.

 

Thanks for those links Z. I find it odd that my searches didn't come with some of those coins. The $800 coin was ex-Lindgren and the plate coin used in RPC. Somebody really wanted that pedigree. My coin's standing as finest known example still holds (in my grossly biased opinion). I should post it in Best of Type at FORVM and see if anyone's got a better one.

 

We err when we assume that the collection of a 'name' collector who wrote the book on a certain series will include the finest known coins of a type. Some who study the coins are more interested in having a type than in waiting for years to find a perfect one. I knew one such author who did not make a point of upgrading types he had and worked from an unillustrated checklist that told him which coins he needed but not which ones he had in poor shape.

Still, we seem to value having the coins of the 'master'. I cherish the coins I bought from the sale of Roger Bickford-Smith who was the leading student of Eastern Septimius coins at the time of his untimely death. My Gallienus from the John Quincy Adams is one of my least attractive coins but I keep it because of who once owned it. I only own one of the Lindgren volumes (not the right one for this) and I enjoy seeing the thousand coins in the plates but it is obvious that he collected coin for their being different and interesting but not because they were mint state.

 

those last two coins are sweet JA and DS. ....gaius and nero!

i'd give my left obol for either of them.

 

Looking at this coin in a G-N sale, I got more interested:
https://www.pecunem.com/auction-26/lot-394
It translates the monograms and identifies the portrait as Julius Caesar. I can't buy that one just from the portrait. To me, the face looks a lot like Augustus and much too long to be Gaius (a bit old, too?). I'll be if you write G-N about the coin you might get a differing opinion. Of course I do not see how it can be proven what the intent was unless you talk to that magistrate who signed the coins.

 

The plot thickens I suppose. I haven't studied the portraits enough to have an opinion on the matter myself. It would appear that there's some disagreement, which would explain the bust being variously described as that of Augustus, Gaius, and now Julius Caesar.

 

I'll say Caligula, just to be difficult and to add another name to the pot. When is the drawing?

 

Caligula came up in the discussion of the coin at the show, but evidently the type does not exist for him. No need for a drawing - I'm calling it Gaius. If anyone else wants to say different, send me a letter and I'll make sure its properly filed.

 

Gaius it is!!!

 

I suppose I should ask at FORVM. I posted it in Coin of the Day, and Curtis Clay took a look at it. I'm pretty sure he would have corrected the attribution if it was erroneous.

 

Any friends I know will be at a show who willing to, I meet them for breakfast or lunch before a show.

 

The cheese is getting more binding. You first photo showed the ticket for G-N sale 29 lot 450:
https://www.pecunem.com/auction-29/lot-450
This is a 15mm AE weighing 2.76g
The photo clearly shows the same type you have but I do not see the same specimen. Yours is better. Their listing:

PHRYGIA. Laodicea. Augustus (27 BC-14 AD). Ae. Anto Polemon Philopatris, magistrate.

Obv: ΓΑΙΟΣ ΚΑΙΣΑΡ.
Bare head of Gaius Caesar right.
Rev: ΛΑΟΔΙΚΕΩΝ.
Eagle standing right, head left, between two monograms.

RPC I 2900.

Condition: Very fine.

Weight: 2.76 g.
Diameter: 15 mm.

The G-N listing seems to be pointing out that Augustus issued the coin in the name of his grandson Gaius but the program that prints out their tickets only grabbed the Augustus ID and not the obverse description. They did not misidentify the coin but they do show really poor computer ticket skills.

See if you can find Ancient Bronze Coins of Asia Minor and the Levant from the Lindgren Collection by Henry Clay Lindgren and Frank L, Kovacs, 1985. coin 990A page 52 lists:
2.77 ΓΑΙΟΣ ΚΑΙΣΑΡ Bare hd. of Caligula. r. Rv. (ΛΑ)ΟΔΙΚΕ(ΩΝ) Eagle facing r., wings spread, hd. reverted; monogram 1 in field l.; monogram 2 in field r. BMC 154

At the bottom of the page he provides drawings of the two monograms as on your coin. Plate 34 990A illustrates a coin with reverse centered low on the flan losing two letters on each end as indicated by the parentheses in the description. Your coin is easily twice as desirable as the Lindgren plate coin or the G-N illustrated coin. These are not from the same dies. (I'm less than positive about this on the Lindgren coin because the photo is small and screened.)

I suspect that Lindgren copied his Caligula ID from BMC (need to find that - it is online) but that it was corrected in RPC to Gaius. It would be good to find an RPC I to read what they have to say on the matter. Someone decided BMC was wrong (perfectly possible) but I might expect RPC to comment on this if it were their call.

I can not get over the weight of the Lindgren coin being .01 g off the listed weight of the G-N coin. What is the weight of the coin you have? Scale flutter .01g so I'd be surprised if the tolerances of a tiny bronze would be that tight. In any event, the coin you got was not the coin G-N sold but a secondary back up lot offered after the sale to an underbidder would not have been better than the illustrated lot and I have no reason to believe that G-N does this sort of 'second chance' lots. I could see someone buying an upgrade coin in the auction and then selling their old example in the G-N ticket but one would expect them to keep the better coin rather than the lesser.

I assume someone will now post a cartoon hero saying, "Veeeawy Intwisting."

 

How about curiouser and curiouser.....

 

It would seem all coins of this type were corrected by RPC to Augustus/Gaius, and I believe you are correct in suggesting Lindgren copied the BMC attribution. I can't find any examples of the type currently assigned to Caligula.

I wish I had $400 to drop on RPC I at the moment, but look at this GHN lot in which the notes include "Diese Münzen wurden früher dem Caligula zugewiesen." These coins were previously assigned to Caligula. GHN Auction 281 Lot 656.

I think it's safe to assume GHN has a copy of RPC I, and they're merely reporting the facts. I certainly would like to know how and why they were reassigned. I can only assume the monograms were empirically connected to an earlier magistrate. That, and the busts of Caligula are in general, appreciably different from the ones found on this type.

As far as the mystery of different coins goes, the answer seems obvious. My coin was supposed to be the primary offering, but it got mixed up with the second-chance lot before the coins went to auction - a case of babies switched at birth.

Edit: I see that Curtis Clay has given us the answer at FORVM. The monograms were indeed discovered to be of a magistrate during Augustus and Gaius' time.