Affordable scarcities....

The term 'scarce' or 'rare' seems a bit overused these days---and what was once actually scarce or rare a few years ago, let alone decades ago, seem to be relatively plentiful now. But, these two coins grabbed my attention, successfully counter-offered for an attractive price and nicely complement what I already own.

AE Sestertius of Trebonianus Gallus, 251 AD. Rome mint
IMP CAES C VIBIVS TREBONIANVS GALLVS AVG
Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right.
IVNONI MARTIALI SC
C Juno seated in front of round distyle temple, peacock at her side
RIC 110a C50; 19.48 grams, 29 mm (Scarce)




AE Follis of Fausta. Rome mint
FLAV MAX FAVSTA AVG
Draped bust right, her hair waved with bun at back, wearing pearl necklace.
SPES REIPVBLICAE; R wreath P in exergue
Fausta standing, looking left, holding two infants (?? Constantine II and Constantius II ??); 18 mm. 2.95 grams
RIC VII 292 SRCV 3903 (Rare)




Please post any similar examples or any recently acquired 'scarce or rare' coins

 

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Cr. 41/6e post-semilibral struck semis - extremely rare. Only a handful of dies know, only a handful of examples known and thought to be unique by Crawford. This is probably the lowest grade identifiable example of the type but the price was right and I might not see another one any time soon so I took it.


Cr 142/5 "Bull and MD" sextans. Sextantes from this time period are all fairly scarce. The scarcity of this type, even in this condition, is attested to by the fact that it was at one time or other in the Goodman, RBW and McCabe collections, all some of the best Republican bronze collections ever held in private hands. An interesting note: the flan is evidence of the two-piece molds used to cast flans of this period. The top and bottom were not perfectly aligned leading to the strangeness at the edges.

 

That's really cool!!!

I don't think I have ever heard of that type before....

 

Very nice, MZ!

 

Both are wonderful, Mikey!

 

Nice coins! I am writing this post on the train on my way to the FUN coin show. Hope to buy some affordable scarcities there for myself

 

Beautiful coins all around. And yes, the message is an important one, rare doesn't always mean expensive.

I have two coins also that would be considered rather scarce...my Phillip II Deultum dolphin and my particular variety of Caracalla Serapis denarius, with the lowered wreath. Both of them were about $75 each despite being "scarce", and in the case of the Phillip II with dolphin reverse, very scarce. I will post images of both later. I can't seem to be able to do that from my phone for some reason.

 

The second one looks a bit funny, it's probably just me.

 

scarce or no, nice new coins MZ.

TG is on my hit list, and i always like a nice fat sestertius...plus cool patina and a neat temple.
the fausta with infants reverse is on my list as well. it looks like she's a bit... full figured...on your coin compared to some i've seen.

 

6th century countermarked early imperial bronzes are very scarce. There are an estimated 150-200 known. A cache or caches of 1st century bronzes were rediscovered around four and a half centuries later and thrown back into circulation in 6th century AD Ostrogothic Italy (and/or North Africa), but not before being revalued, the Asses to 42 nummi (XLII). Got it for a portion of what these usually go for.

Domitian, Roman Empire (revalued under the Ostrogothic Kingdom)
AE as/42 nummi
Obv: CAESAR AVG F DOMITIAN COS II, laureate head left, countermark XLII (42) in left field
Rev: VICTORIA AVGVST, Victory advancing right, standing on prow, holding wreath and palm branch, S-C across fields
Mint: Rome (struck 73-74 AD; revalued 498-526 AD)
Ref: RIC 677



This reverse type was probably the inspiration for the similar reverse type under King Theodahad for his folles:

 

Hopefully, although I do have a return option....

Here are two other examples from acsearch:

 

Love them VK !!!

That has to be the inspiration for the King Theodahad reverse

 

My copies of Fausta

 

Awesome coins, everyone!

I'd love to get some affordable rarities at some point. The ones I have are all pretty common. I do have a blank flan, but I don't know if you could classify that as a coin.

Anyway, thanks for sharing!

Erin

 

Your Fausta looks fine to me. The style is right at least.

 

Ok, here are my $75 scarcities:



Phillip II AE from Deultum, with a cool morbidly obese dolphin on the reverse. Ty to find this one on V-coins and Ebay just to see how hard they are to come across. Not too many examples in the market from what I've been able to search.

And of course, this Caracalla with Serapis. The variety type is scarce. The more common reverse features Serapis gesturing high above his head, while in this much scarcer version features Serapis holding a wreath low.

 

The Ostrogothic kings (except perhaps Athalaric, but his mother Amalasuntha wanted him to be "Roman") looked to the early Roman imperial era and to highly regarded emperors like Augustus and Hadrian for inspiration, Theodoric especially; he sought to be the founder of a new and prosperous Italy, the protector of Roman life and culture.

 

Excellent additions! I'd be happy with both of them.

 

We never can get across the fact of ancient coins. A Lincoln cent with mintage under a half a million is a great rarity. PCGS has slabbed over 2000 mint state 1909s VDB rarities (if I read their site correctly). An ancient defined as a great rarity could be defined as one where every known example could be held in one very small hand. The fact that an ancient is known from only one or a few copies means nothing unless that rarity is matched by demand for that type. Almost any specialist has at least one coin that may be the only surviving example exactly like that. I have shown a couple here and no one cares. It is now thought that the number of EID MAR denarii is about 100 in all grades. If we use that as a definition of a rare ancient (100 known), how many rare coin types are there? I don't know but consider 10,000 a reasonable guess. Yes, I pulled that number out of thin air. Give me a more reasonable guess based on scientific study. Someone must have written on this before.

 

This is surprisingly common with Republican bronze. There is also an interesting variant of this method where the flans for the asses of a series were cast using the two piece molds and the semises were cast using one half of the two piece mold along with a flat surface, leading to a flan of roughly half the weight and depth but the same diameter. The "SAFRA" as that I recently posted was also made in a two piece mold with slight flan separation but it's so slight that at first glance I think most might mistake it as a casting seam but upon closer inspection you see the separation.