Do we want Saturnalia this year?

I have The blessing to follow through with Saturnalia and host it this year if we have enough people interested in participating. I have set up a poll and If I have more than six people interested in participating I will host it this year. As with many others here on Cointalk, participating in Secret Saturnalia has held a special place in my heart, so I am hoping we can keep it alive! Feel free to post comments as well! Please vote yes if you plan on participating. Thanks!
Nick

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Good luck Nick. Not much interest in the "light side". May be too early yet?
Give it time but then again with all the shipping issues, you might have to start early this year??

 

Wonder if the guys on numisforums.com would be interested...

 

What is Secret Saturnalia?

 

Like Secret Santa but with ancient coins...I've always been too intimidated.

 

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/saturnalia-2023.408474/

Q

 

So you give a Denarius and get a Constantine

 

That was my problem, I'm just not experienced in ancients.

 

There are plenty of Constantine coins I would rather have than a denarius. I will give two shiny denarii for examples of the Constantine coin below.

 

What makes that one so special?

 

It is the only known example.

 

I've always been happy with what I got the previous years, either here or there. People do what they can and/or will. For me it's the gesture that counts.

As for myself, I have my pride and wouldn't want to send out soething crappy. I assume the other end does the same

Q

 

I agree with this. For the most part everyone wants to give away something decent to make the other person happy.

 

I keep lookin in the mail for a bunch of Dombes coins….
( the rare ones are the best)

 

Thanks for all who voted! Unfortunately it looks like we do not have enough people that would like to participate on CoinTalk this year which saddens me. We can try again next year. I hope everyone has a good holiday season!

 

Poll was up for 5 days. I’m also signed up on the NumisForums as well!

 

I've only done it once. Some people got really lucky, others were only moderately lucky. I don't recall any outrageously bad ones, last year.

However, I think there should be a $50 price floor, although with luck, one could find a nice coin for $35. For instance, I bought a pretty nice Trebonianus Gallus Ant. for that price this year.

$75 is the price floor (unless there's something really nice less than that) for the ones I send. It also depends on what dealer one shops at. I generally go for the prettiest coin I can find. I also try to send one nice one rather than two cruddy ones.

Or,another idea, one could sign up for different tiers:
A) $50-100
B) $100-200
C) 200+
D) surprise/wildcard

 

Only way to truly vet out the bad ones is to have established members be the only ones that participate tbh. I’ve participated in 4 years and only one year I got a few slugs and the other 3 years I was really happy. Also nice profile coin!

 

One person once got a beautiful VF Octavian/Antony Ephesus denarius. However, it was a very popular member. I don't expect nor do I deserve, a spectacular present like that. I'm happy with a decent effort.

For 2022, I chose that. It was pretty but fit within my Saturnalia budget. It took a while to get my pairing, so it sold before I could get it. I chose another nice denarius but the dealer goofed. I had to end up scrambling and sending a Seleucid tet.

Sending a dealer coin takes a lot of stress out of the process. I can send something nice and I have a lot more to choose from. They also do the shipping work.

My giver scored high on the thoughtful scale. The package included nice local (to the giver) chocolates, as well as the coins.

I took a leaf out of work secret Santas and included a like/dislike list this year. There's not really much point in sending someone a genre they won't enjoy. Such a list is helpful to the gifter. I dropped a hint that I didn't have any Roma head denarii.

This might be my last year of participation. We'll see. I actually have a good feeling about it this year.