My 2017 Top Ten - Runners Up

All great coins!

 

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While I appreciate your entire list more than most will imagine, your #1 is a very, very special coin to me. Yes, the EVINTVS spelling is unlisted in the polite literature but I have been showing my Pescennius Niger for years. Thank you for joining us. I hope you will show more of your Eastern Severans.

 

Wow!! OUTSTANDING!!

I can't seem to narrow them down to favorites....although my initial impulse is to choose the Elagabalus/Galley denarius since I also own one

My precise reaction as well

 

The denarii are great, but I especially love the two asses. The Geta is absolutely lovely, and the Caracalla such a great type... I'm positive I've never seen it in AE as form before. I picked up the much more common ant. (mine is TR P XVIII) this year:

 

Thanks for sharing the runners-up too. Once again, a very nice selection. It's hard to pick a favourite, but I really do like the interesting reverses on 10, 8, & 7.

 

WOW, this is your runner-up list?? Fabulous. Today I'm going to mine CT for everyone's year-end list and feast on the coin banquet

I love your Philip I with mahout. The CTG is a desirable type with nice pedigree. Elagabalus looks wonderfully bratty on the galley denarius (great galley, too!). The Geta portrait is compelling and the flan is so generous. Love the Domna. Love them all

If it bothers you, PM Peter Davis or any moderator and they can restore the editing button.

As for the errors, I sympathize. I'm finding little (and not-so-little) errors for half the coins on my website .

 

Thank you, Doug. I'll adjust my description to include the occurrence of your Niger coin. It makes me think that maybe these were produced by the same mint, maybe even the same engraver!

I should credit your website and also maridvnvm for sparking my interest in Eastern denarii of Septimius and Domna, and also for an interest in die links and what they might tell us.

I do have more Eastern Severans to show, so please stay tuned. I only have relatively few of Septimius Severus and Julia Domna, but more of Elagabalus and Severus Alexander. Sadly, I was asleep at the wheel of a recent auction and missed bidding on an Eastern coin of Elagabalus that was an obverse die link with another in my collection.

 

Thank you for the nice comments.

Wow, your ant may be more common but it must be best of the type! It's really incredible. I don't have the ant of this type, but I do have a couple of less-common denarii, one of the same type and another related type:


Caracalla. AR denarius, Rome mint, struck 215 CE; 21mm, 3.16g. BMCRE 125, Hill 1491 (R3), RIC 261a (S), RSC 299. Obv: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG GERM; laureate head right. Rx: P M TR P XVIII COS IIII P P; Pluto/Serapis, wearing polos (RSC says modius), seated left, on stool, holding scepter, and extending right hand toward Cerberus at his feet. Rare; three specimens in the Reka Devnia hoard. This type for Caracalla was present on antoninianii in both the Arnold (lot 119) and Kelly collections (lot 1251, first of two coins). However, both lacked examples of the Pluto type on denarii. Reverse die link to Naumann 58, 1 October 2017, lot 482 (realized hammer €260). VF.


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Caracalla. AR denarius, Rome mint, struck 217 CE; 18mm, 2.89g, 7h. BMCRE 176, Hill 1568 (R4), RIC 291b (C), RSC 385. Obv: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG GERM; head laureate right. Rx: P M TR P XX — COS IIII P P; Serapis, wearing polos on head, seated left, holding uncertain object (corn ears?) and scepter. Very rare; only one in Reka Devnia. VF.

From the Laurent Bricault Collection of Isis and Serapis in Ancient Coinage.

 

Do you have a picture you can post? This is one of my favorite coin types.

 

Here it is again


Denarius of Elagabalus, Antioch Mint, circa 218-219 AD
ANTONINVS PIVS FEL AVG
Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right
FELICITAS TEMP
Galley with sail right, eight rowers and pilot holding rudder; 'acrostolium' and standard at prow.
RIC IV, 188; 3.51 grams, 18.8 mm

 

WOW on those denarii!!

Goodie-goodie-gumdrops!!

Unfortunately my ant. isn't as good as the photo makes it look. It's the seller's photo, which makes it look darkly toned overall, but it isn't... rather there's some deposit on the right, with fairly bright silver elsewhere. Still a nice coin, but I was disappointed when it arrived in the mail. Maybe improvable, but I'm nervous to try as I'm not sure what the deposit is.

 

Sorry, I must have missed it the first time around. Beautiful coin, rare with head only rather than bust. I have a coin with an obverse die link to your coin, but CONCORDIA MILIT reverse type. Also rare with head only. The obverse die of both yours and mine are also die linked with a coin from the Samuel Puchala Collection, Berk BBS 190, lot 186, FELICITAS TEMP w/galley reverse like yours. Here's my coin:

Elagabalus. AR denarius, Eastern mint, struck 218–9 CE; 19mm, 2.02g, 6h. BMCRE 276, RIC 187 (citing spec. in Budapest publ. in R. It. 1908, p. 398), RSC 15a. Obv: ANTONINVS PIVS FEL AVG; laureate head right. Rx: [CON]–COR–DIA / MILIT in exergue; two signa flanked by aquiliae. Porous surfaces, VF.

 

Okay, now that you pointed it out I see the deposits on the right, looks like both obverse and reverse. Maybe the seller's photo is dark to try to hide it, as you probably realized after you received it. Even with the deposits, though, detail is incredibly sharp and it's really well struck and well centered. I'm not sure how distracting the deposits are on the actual coin or on a photo with the correct color, but it's got a lot of appeal otherwise. Maybe it would be worthwhile sending it to NCS and having them conserve it. If they could remove the desposits it would be a near-perfect coin I think.

 

That's a good idea, I have another coin I would like to have professionally conserved as well, though I haven't been sure who to use for that. You would recommend NCS, i.e. NGC?

 

NCS is part of NGC. It used to be that you could submit a coin to NCS for conservation and have it returned raw. Now they automatically grade it and slab it, and you are forced to pay for the grading fee even if you don't want it. Still, for a really high quality coin that could benefit from conservation, it might be worth it. If they can improve its appearance without damaging it, they will. You can always crack it out of the slab.