How about this thread? Odd stuff (modified, mistakes, anything really weird). I have plenty but not much photographed. Here are a few as examples: Republican Denarius, who knows what the reasoning was??? Massive test cut on Athenian tetradrachm. So severe the flan is broken but still intact, makes the coin articulated. I can make my kids laugh when I make Athena 'talk'. Constantinopolis mule. Double beaded obverse rim. Current theory is a transition between flan sizes. That magical moment when the rule came down to downsize but the celator already started the die to the old standard but finished the die to the new rules.
I have some strange stuff. I have a Claudius II which is overstruck in such a manner he has a brow ridge which makes him look like a Neanderthal. Also just bought but dont have yet a Gallic coin so severely struck half the flan is smooshed severely like a Byzantine Trachea. Weird things. I love them.
what in the world happened to that republican! lol! interesting post ken but I don't have anything that rivals those in strangeness to contribute.
Oddball? I love this stuff but don't have many. Of course most oddballs are ugly enough that most collectors wouldn't touch them but I am definitely weird enough to make such things a specialty. My favorite technical oddity is the Magnentius with three reverses and one obverse. It is a flipover double strike but the first strike was a brockage. This coin got my heart racing until I discovered it was not what it looked like for the first five seconds. It appears to be a unique Constantius Gallus with diadem on the portrait. In fact it is a pretty well aligned overstrike with the right side provided by Gallus dies and the left (including the head gear) by Constantius II. I paid $5 for this which is $5 more than the coin is worth to most people but how many doubles are this well aligned. Tomis usually had a denomination letter in the reverse field including the unusual four and a half assaria with delta ligate with <. This Gordian III die was modified to remove the field letter. This Stratonicea AE35 issue of Septimius and Domna usually has a small countermark of a head which sometimes is IDed as Caracalla. I wonder if the Caracalla vs. Geta controversy at some point caused the countermark to be removed. Die breaks are common but this Syracuse Boehringer 703 shows what I consider something more interesting than just the reverse die break. I assume that the coin was struck while someone was feverishly engraving a replacement die for the one missing a large chunk behind Arathusa's head. This coin was struck with the die held at an angle resulting in a well struck lower right and barely struck upper left. I see this as an intentional move to keep from breaking the die further before the replacement was ready. There are quite a few coins of this die but I'd like to see photos of examples later than this one. Did the die R481 survive with this amount of damage or is there evidence of yet another break? US collectors like overdates. This Ptolemy II Tyre tetradrachm is year 34 over 33 or lambda delta over lambda gamma. Nobody cares for beat up silver so I got it. This Antioch Constantius II is an over-officina. ANZ over ANH (or the other way around). If you think nobody cares for overdates, you should see the lack of interest in over-officinae. This is the only one I have seen. You? Fourrees are common. Brockages are common. I have seen about half a dozen fourree brockages. This Hadrian is also special to me in that the diamond shape pit on the reverse neck is my best example showing a heavy eutectic layer suggesting it was made with added powdered eutectic as proposed in Campbell's great book on plated coins. Republican denarii of one period were struck what is termed al marco or so many to a pound of silver. Rather than weighing each flan carefully, they made the proper number of flans so the total was a bit over a pound. Then a small scoop of metal was removed from flans before striking (at random?) until the batch was reduced to the correct total weight. That much was explained by Clive Stannard so some of us call these Stannard scoops. My coin is unusual in that the scoop was taken at a very low angle stuttering across the surface more times than most we see. It is not unusual to see one, two or three stutters. This one has ten. The coin I want is an example scooped twice, once on each side. This probably would have been done accidentally when the same coin was picked up twice without noticing it was scooped on the other side. hen I bought the one below (one deep scoop) I thought it might be but now believe it received a banker's mark on the reverse that caved in the thin spot from the scooping. It is still odd but not what I had hoped. That is ten - all the attachments allowed. I used to collect Septimius Severus as a specialty but now my #1 interest is coins with something to teach about technical numismatics. Try explaining that one to the average dealer at a coin show.
Sweet odd-balls, Ken Dorney Ummm, I may have a few odd babies, but none as freaky as your first example (it's very cool)
