Picture repost- some of my old 2007-08 Roman Imperial collection

Photobucket is so awful nowadays that it's time to bring these pictures over here, I think, for archiving purposes.

This was my very first (novice) collection of Romans, started in 2007 and forced into selloff in 2008 when I got laid off in the recession. So it was a fairly short-lived endeavor, lasting only a little over a year.

My goal was to get as many different portraits/persons as possible, in an "A to Z" (Augustus to Zeno) collection. My newfound enthusiasm for ancients burned hot indeed, and I was grabbing them up right and left. By the end, I believe I had over 100 different emperors and empresses. My primary goal was a decent portrait, and secondary criterion was as clear a name as possible in the obverse legends. I did not pay as much attention to exotic or interesting reverse designs yet at that time.

I bought a lot from Steve McBride at Incitatus Coins, Marc Breitsptecher at Ancient Imports, a few from FORVM, and got some from @Aethelred, my oldest numismatic friend. Mostly they came from VCoins dealers. I did not yet trust myself on eBay much (but made an exception for a plate-coin pedigreed Pupienus sestertius which I've sadly lost the pictures of).

The last coin was a Zeno solidus from the Eliasberg Collection, which also doubled as the centerpiece of my trademark "Holey Gold Hat", since it was a holed piece.

I'll just make this thread an image dump, for the heck of it.

Unfortunately, I lost some of the pictures in a simultaneous double-whammy of hard drive crashes on two separate computers. But here are the rest, mostly salvaged seller pics.

 

Augustus


Agrippa


Tiberius


Germanicus


Caligula


Claudius


Nero


Galba



Otho


Vitellius

 

Vespasian


Titus


Domitian


Nerva


Trajan


Hadrian


Aelius


Antoninus Pius


Faustina Senior


Marcus Aurelius

 

As you can see, I wasn't terribly consistent in my novice days. The coin quality is all over the place, as is the quality of these images. The ones I imaged myself are scans. (That Marcus Aurelius at the bottom of the last post is an example of one I scanned. In hand, that was a nice bright and beautiful piece, but it looks pretty horrid in the scans). But oh, well. I'm just grateful I archived this much of my first serious ancients collection.

We continue ... (I'm doing them ten coins per post).

Faustina Junior

Lucius Verus


Lucilla


Commodus


Septimius Severus


Julia Domna
Caracalla

Plautilla

Geta

Macrinus

 

Diadumenian (or so I was told and thought, but it wasn't, was it?)
Edit- no- Caracalla.
Elagabalus


Julia Soaemias

Julia Maesa

Severus Alexander (horn silver and ugly-ish, but hey- I wasn't picky over a $10 denarius)


Julia Mamaea


Maximinus I ("Thrax")

Gordian III

Philip I ("the Arab") - first example bought


Philip I ("the Arab") - second example bought (upgrade)

 

Otacilia Severa


Philip II


Trajan Decius


Herennia Etruscilla



Herennius Etruscus


Hostilian


Trebonianus Gallus


Volusian


Valerian I


Valerian II

 

Yeah, I might just (should) do that, too.

But sometimes I like the top-to-bottom linear nature of a thread. Maybe 'cause that's what I got used to in all those years over on CU.

Once they're here and lifeboated off StinkyPooPooCraptasticAdWorld Photobucket, it'll be easy enough to put them in the Gallery here and on CollectiveCoin as well.

Gradually I'm moving most of my old CU content over here, if it means anything to me.

 

Gallienus (this was a nice, bright, fully silvered-piece with lovely orange toning- looks wretched in the scans)


Salonina


Postumus


Claudius II


Victorinus


Quintillus


Aurelian


Vabalathus (with Aurelian)


Tetricus I


Tetricus II

 

Tacitus


Florian/Florianus


Probus


Carus


Numerian


Carinus


Diocletian


Maximian


Carausius


Constantius I

 

Galerius


Maximinus II


Maxentius


Constantine I ("the Great")


Fausta


Licinius I


Crispus


Licinius II


Delmatius


Constantine II

 

Constans I

Constantius II

Magnentius


Constantius Gallus (?)



Julian II (?)

Jovian


Valentinian I


Valens (weird flan, but part of the "raggedyness" is photo artifacts)

Procopius


Gratian

 

Valentinian II


Theodosius I


Magnus Maximus


Arcadius


Eudoxia


Honorius


Theodosius II


Marcian


Zeno (ex-Louis E. Eliasberg Collection)

 

And there we have it. What's left of the pictures of my first serious ancient coin collection, when I was a novice Roman collector. (Not that I claim to be anywhere above low-intermediate status now).

Quantity over quality, particularly with the rather junky later stuff, but I had fun "filling holes" and checking them off the list.

I'm missing quite a few photos. Some empresses are gone. Here's a few I notice missing that I did have coins for:

• Livia
• Pupienus (a decent sestertius)
• Clodius Albinus
• Helena

... and no doubt more.

After my 2008 layoff and distress sale (I kept the Zeno solidus for a few more years, on my Holey Gold Hat), I sort of got disorganized.

Counting what's here, I come up with exactly 100 pieces. So maybe I had 110-120 different personalities.

It wasn't the most beautiful collection, but I was mighty proud of it at the time, and looking back, a decade or so later, I'm somewhat impressed that I got so far with it in such a short time. I learned a whole lot, too.

Thanks for visiting, if you did. That's my "blast from the past" for today.

 

I started again and did the Twelve Caesars in ... uhmm... 2011-2013 or so?

Then I broke that up but still include some Romans in my Eclectic Box of 20.

Will I ever go for the A-to-Z run again? Maybe. Maybe not. It sure was fun, though.

I'd be much pickier if I did it now. And I'm not so sure I could afford to be pickier, on my budget.

 

Photobucket has indeed turned into a big bucket of... ermm... stinky poo-poo.

There were a lot of fun, cheap <$50 coins in here, Cointessa. I did all this in my first year!

The Otho was the only coin over $500 (=575). There were some other 3-figure pieces. Caligula and the gold Zeno at the end were both $350-ish at the time. But a great deal of this stuff was in the $30-50 range. There were some $10s and even a few single-digit coins.

I went hog-wild in the beginning and snapped up anything that sounded reasonable to me. Only later did I slow down some and try to focus a bit more on quality (eye appeal). That's why this set is rather inconsistent.

But it was a proud accomplishment for such an enthusiastic novice.

Mistakes? Aside from grabbing some ugly pieces, I think I did OK. Stuck with trusted dealers on VCoins, almost exclusively.

Had fun. Learned a ton.