A Shot In The Dark Rarity

David's post has all the pertinent information. Is there a particular question you have about the coin?

 

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Cool reverse! I'm glad your gamble payed off!

I received one of the old school printed lists after I attended a coin show a couple years back. There were a few coin I was interested in, but not know the dealer, and not having pictures....I just could bring myself to take the chance. I have take the chance with some ebay pictures that were so bad I couldn't be certain how the coin was going to be in hand. If you're willing to gamble a little bit, you can snag some sweet coins for a great price that way. I've got burned on a couple as well.

 

Awesome coin... a herald is a pretty rare depiction. And what's with the "wand"?!

I didn't know Trenerry was still in business. When I was just a beginner back in 1987, I bought this coin from him:

(Doug pointed out to me that the middle letter in the exergue identifies the officina by its position in the sequence "AEQVITI". Kinda cool.)

I'll have to get on his mailing list again!

 

A very nice coin, David. Interesting reverse. You're sort of turning me into a Flavian enthusiast - maybe not a fanatic yet, but I'm getting there.

As for those old-time un-illustrated coin lists, I had really good luck back in the 1980s buying coins this way, but you did have to get used to your dealers. There was one world coin dealer (not ancients) in particular (I won't mention any names) who consistently over-graded everything. If he said F you could be sure it was VG. Not that I was ever much of a grade-seeker, but it was frustrating, until I got used to his method - he over-graded, but he was consistent, so I kept this in mind when looking at his catalogs.

But pretty much everybody else I dealt with was just fine. Looking back on it, it is surprising the system worked as well as it did. Not that I'd want to go back to the sight-unseen days...