Another Typical Roman Republican

There is nothing special about this coin, except perhaps the fact that I was able to buy it within my budget. Don't get me wrong. It's a nice coin for sure. And as Mikey said in a recent thread, it's all in the eyes of the beholder anyway, right? My only other coin from this Roman family is a fouree.


FABIUS LABEO ROMAN REPUBLIC
AR Denarius
OBVERSE: LABEO before, ROMA behind, helmeted head of Roma right, X below chin
REVERSE: Jupiter in quadriga right, prow below; Q FABI in ex.
Struck at Rome 124 BC
3.8g, 18mm
Cr273/1; Syd 532, Fabia 1

 

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Honestly, high grades are overrated. There are a few coins that if I had to buy them again, I probably would have gone for F or VF instead of XF and saved myself enough money to buy a few more coins.

As long as there is enough detail that you can appreciate the design, read the legend, and the coin has eye appeal, you don't really need anything else. Yes, it's nice to have the shinny mint-like coins, but a coin like yours has eye appeal, enough of the design is present that you can appreciate it (and it's a beautiful design), and it has honest wear. I wouldn't mind having it in my collection.

Like most newbies, i started out thinking it was XF or burst, but lately I've gotten to the point where eye appeal and design are more important. I guess I'm maturing in that respect.

 

Good looking coin, its all about what appeals to you (the buyer). Besides a coin thats been used like that shows character.

 

Naturally, I totally agree with all the posts....Congrats @Bing, that denarius is lovely and well centered---the devices quite clear while exhibiting high eye-appeal!! Not to mention it was struck in 124 BC!!!

 

Agreed. I occasionally feel like I want to upgrade to XF as I can. However, I am JUST as happy with exactly what you said: I am able to see the devices, legends, etc. and it represents a great slice of the history! I am able to go after other cool ones and feel comfortable that I am capturing the slices of History that I enjoy.

 

Nice coin with good eye appeal, and that's what's most important IMO. This is exactly the grade of coin I'm looking for because I want a standard Roma RR denarius but don't want to spend too much, since this isn't my area of focus.

 

I like yours @Bing! I was just looking at an auction that offered a Labeo, and I had to check if I have one... YUP, I do! Mine is like yours... just an average Joe, but I love that I have it in my RR's:


RR
Fabius Labeo 124 BCE
AR Den
Quadriga last X or XVI
Sear 148 Crawford 273-1

OH, and BTW, I am in the middle of cataloging my coins. I FINALLY photo'd them and did the side-by-side Obv-Rev thing over the weekend. The attributions look like that I am lazy, but they are from copying the photo file descriptions of under 100 letters that CT will accept. My NEXT step Bing, is to use the Excel Spreadsheet and load up PROPER specs and info for each of them. 600+ Ancients are a PAIN to pull all this info together as a project... lotta hours. @Ancientnoob keeps offering to help, but I would double the cost that I have in my inventory! Even if I paid him at $2.00 an hour (I think he may be worth $3/hour)...

 

When I had to rebuild my spread sheet last year, the thought of it made me cringe. But after I got into it, I found I was enjoying it. Good luck. I hope that spreadsheet works out for you.

 

Nice one Bing. It's funny, for all of the talk of the Roma/quadriga denarius being very common I still don't have one.

Some months back I lost my (then) most up-to-date spreadsheet. Knew I had a backup but for whatever reason thought it was going to be an old one like a couple of years old or something, but I managed to find one from later last year. It still needs a lot of work since I've purchased plenty and sold a lot. Not sure when I'll ever decide to start on this.

 

Like I said, once I started, it became a fun task. I got to handle all my coins while double checking attributions. It was just the getting started part that I dreaded.

 

This is exactly the decision we all must make. Do you get more enjoyment out of 3000 F or 30 EF+ coins. You will have an easy time selling the 30 for twice what you paid and a hard time selling the 3000 for 25%. Is 300 VF's an option that will work better? If you plan on leaving them to the grandkids, it makes less difference. The way things are going, 2016 F may be 2066 EF anyway. A few of us will be around to know.

 

Yes, I believe it will... LOL, my wife built a nice Access Database one, but I realize I cannot open it on an iPhone as easily as I can with Excel. Gonna build the Excel FIRST, then I can migrate it into Access... Not gonna tell her til I am done...

 

I use Google Sheets(basically a web-based version of Excel) and it works really well on my Android phone. I also keep all my images and additional info(dealer tags, etc.) on Dropbox so I can access it all from anywhere.

 

I use FileMaker Pro. It is operating system agnostic and runs great on windows or mac, plus there is a mobile version that works well on your iPad/iPhone. It's an apple product so it works flawlessly on Mac but I use it on both.

The template below is from their starter templates that I've modified for my coin addiction. It takes a bit of tech skills and I muddle my way through it, but it's an elegant solution IMO.

 

nothing wrong with that coin at tall bing....im' somewhat embarrassed to say i don't know don't have a roma/quadriga denarius either!


hu...that looks interesting carthago.

one of these days i'll catalog my coins.i've been saying one of these days i'll clean out the back storage shed since 2007, and it still hasn't happened. is one of these days about 10 years or so? sounds right.

 

My wife loves filemaker, as she is a mac gal. I have always used pc's in business...

 

Yep, I have to use Windows in my business, but personal life I love Mac. Filemaker allows different layouts for different devices. I've got an iPad and iPhone layout. This is what iPhone looks like (on a computer but fits perfectly on an iPhone screen).

 

Wow, nice simple layout to fit my ipad or iphone... But my main computer is a pc...

 

My first post is what it looks like on a PC, Big A. It looks the same on a PC or Mac plus you can do different layouts within the same database for different devices. I'm being a bit tenacious here because I did the same as you; started with Access, realized it didn't work on my iPhone but discovered that FileMaker works on everything!

 

Sold. Gonna look into it. I always learned off of other's efforts and or mistakes. Thank you!