Otho Denarii Don't Come Cheap....... Do They!!!

The NGC grade was XF 3/3 Edge scuff.

The 3 strike grade was for the slightly tight flan and the central weakness on both sides. The 3 surface grade was for some cleaning hairlines, the scuff and the spots on the reverse.

The metal on this coin was nice and the coin had decent eye appeal. The portrait style was also pleasant. Overall a nice coin.

BTW if the prongs cover up any damage on the edge it's always mentioned on the ticket.

The edge scuff on this coin if I remember correctly was above the CV in SECVRITAS.

Barry Murphy

 

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Barry you are spot on. However, the grading did not mention cleaning, just XF 3 & 3 with edge scuff. Did you see the coin in person or are you going by the photos as well? I haven't received it yet but my first impression (from the Photos) was that it is a bright, fairly attractive coin and I though I won it for a very competitive price

 

All ancient coins have been cleaned, so it's not something that gets mentioned in auction descriptions or on NGC tickets, unless it's done poorly. This coin just had some fine hairlines on it, probably from a jewelers cloth or something similar. It's not a negative really, just something that gets taken into consideration when assigning a grade. It's a nice coin and I'm sure you will like it when it arrives. I didn't see what it sold for at Heritage. I did see the coin in hand, I am 1/2 of the ancient department at NGC.

Barry

 

I recall reading a post from someone - perhaps on Moneta - who was trying to come up with a count of existing Otho denarii - I believe the number was around 3,800 or so. This is a very nice example

 

I believe this is a subject that would be of great interest to many, many people but next to impossible to ascertain with any accuracy. I am not talking about just Otho but any coins both by ruler and by specific, exact variety. My current interest of note is Roman Alexandria where we have recent references like Emmett that give rarity estimates (5 being one or two?) and older lists like Dattari that show images of what seems to be a large number of coins not matched by another example. Just how does one expect to take a census of what exists? Counts like the RIC rarity ratings based on sampling a fixed set of collections certainly prove inadequate. No one knows just how many people collect or have old family collections not seen for decades. How can we know what is in the buckets when we have no idea how many buckets there are? Certainly one can tally sales in 'name' auctions making the assumption that coins worth counting would be likely to be sold there but ignoring museum basements and private holdings with less than ideal cataloging. I have doubts of how any census could be valid within reason when the counts are low. There is also the question of how many coins known to have existed a century ago still actually exist. Wars, thefts followed by melting and bronze disease happen. Proving something existed is easy; proving it does not exist is not.

3800 Otho's? 80-100 EID MAR's? A thousand different coins sold as 'Unique'? On what do we base such statistics that elevate the numbers above wild guess status?

 

Nice to know someone who has seen the coin before it was slabbed.


@dougsmit that is my problem with Ancients. One never knows the mintage numbers. One can look at Numisbids or other databases but they will only record sales through reputable auction houses. I bought a Tyre Shekel which purportedly is one of two known examples of that date and type.....until some more are unearthed or surface from a hoard.

 

Jyrki Muona in Finland has been doing a die study of Otho for the last 15-20 years or so, recording all specimens he can find including those not published online. Not sure how the project stands a this point or ow many coins he recorded over the years.

Tyre issues also carefully monitored and recorded by Ed Cohen, who wrote the book on Dated ancient coins and the book on Tyre Shekels. I've sent him photos of 10-15 examples that aren't in his newest book published last year. If it's him who says there are only 2 recorded, that's probably a very accurate statement, although always subject to change with new finds.

Barry Murphy

 

Why don't the TPGs maintain records of the numbers graded for Ancients and other coins like Islamic Dynasties etc. just like for US coins or sovereigns?? Any indicators, however crude, are better than nothing!!

The number count on the Shekel was by ROMA and HA. Don't know if it is accurate. I also purchased some Saladin AV dinars and had them graded by ANACS but once again they don't maintain any records of how many have already been graded by them

 

My coin from Jyrki:


Otho (69 A.D.)
Egypt, Alexandria
Billon Tetradrachm
O: AYTOK MAPK OΘΩNOΣ KAIΣ ΣEB, laureate head right, LA (year 1) lower right.
R: EΛEY-ΘEPIA, Eleutheria (Liberty) standing left, wreath in extended right hand, scepter in left hand, leaning with left elbow on column, simpulum (ladle used for tasting and pouring sacrificial libations) left in lower left field.
12.58g
24.4mm
Milne 359; RPC I 5354 (5 spec.); Dattari 327; BMC Alexandria p. 25, 208; Curtis 238; Kampmann 18.6; Emmett 184


This variety with a simpulum on the reverse is much rarer than the same type without this control symbol. RPC reports only 5 specimens with the simpulum and 17 specimens without it. This variety is missing from the important collections in Cologne, Paris, and Milan, and we know of only one example offered at auction in the past two decades (CNG 76, 12 Sep 2007, lot 3152, VF, $430 plus fees).

 

There already are indicators and they are less crude than a TPG slabbed count would bring. There are various paid and free archives of ancient coins so anyone can extract information for any given type of coin if they are sufficiently motivated and have a TON of time to devote to the effort. How details are handled is another obstacle. With modern coins it's easy-- country, coin, year. It's not so tidy with ancient coins because of the vast number of variables. Jyrki Muona has been working on a die study (think of it as a sophisticated census) for Otho alone for a couple of decades and Otho has fewer coin types than most other emperors. I can't imagine the man hours it must take to do such a study.

The percent of ancient coins slabbed is small so a TPG record of coins slabbed won't provide the type of counts you seek, plus due to lack of space the label information is rudimentary and may not be sufficient for census purposes.

Also, as Doug pointed out, there is no way to account for the multitude of ancient coins languishing in old private collections and in museum basements and who knows what tomorrow's ground clearing and metal detecting may bring.

To me, availability or lack of availability in today's market is the practical indicator of rarity. If rarity matters to you, before buying a coin, check all of the auction databases you can for recent sales (ACsearch; CNG's archives; CoinArchives); check for current "retail" offerings on Vcoins, MA-shops, eBay, etc; check Numisbids, Sixbid, and other auction aggregators for currently up-for-auction listings. For instance, at the moment there are 21 coins of Otho up for auction (not counting eBay) and 25 for sale on Vcoins. Most are denarii and the rest are provincials. I did not examine all of the denarii to see the exact types (there are ~9 basic reverses for Otho denarii, I think).

 

Another point is that even if starting a hundred years ago there had been a concerted and coordinated effort by all collectors and numismatists to document and create a census, it would still be a big mess today because scholarship often changes. Sometimes it's relatively minor (the mint city, perhaps) and sometimes it's major (the issuing entity, for example). Variable transliteration of cities and names is another obstacle.

Sometimes when I'm searching archives for a particular type of coin I come away thinking it must be very rare, only to find later than I was using a slightly different spelling or otherwise had just missed the currently correct search terms.

Too bad the ancient mint overseers didn't leave records . Imagine how astonished they would be to see the degree of study and concern we have over their coins!

 

Yes but the number made means absolutely nothing. The question is how many exist. If a single day's production of an ancient mint had been placed in a pot that was sent to one military paymaster but it were stored away intact only to be discovered today, those 5,000 denarii would be common today even if that one day was the only day the type was made.

I have long been interested in the coins of Septimius Severus from the period of his wars with Pescennius Niger. I have an interest in the coins of Pescennius also but his denarii tend to sell for 10 to 50 times the price of the equivalent Septimius. Long ago, I was told hat this was explained by Septimius having outlawed possession of the coins of Pescennius after the wars. True? I have no idea. There is one interesting thing in my view. The relatively rare coins of Pescennius seem to come from many more different dies and represent many more different type/legend variations than did the Eastern mint coins of Septimius. This would seem to support the idea that there were once many more coins that no longer exist now. This does not prove demonetization but it makes sense as one explanation.

When I started collecting ancients price lists and auction catalogs often illustrated only the better coins with photos. If you were to take a stack of 1000 auction catalogs from the 20th century and counted the coins imaged in the plates only, you might suspect that coins of Septimius Severus were as rare as those of Pescennius. No one would sell a valuable coin without illustrating it and most of them appeared in 'better' sales while coins like those of Septimius only would make the catalogs if they were rare varieties or in magnificent condition. That has changed now in this day of digital photography but we do still see a hundred worn denarii of Otho, Pescennius or Didius Julianus for every low grade Septimius. This makes perfect business sense but explains why using such records as evidence of mintage or survival makes no sense whatsoever.

I have been aware of the wonderful studies of Otho by Jyrki Muona. I wish we had similar studies for all emperors. It would be possible for someone like Didius Julianus but very difficult for even someone like Pescennius Niger because of the larger number of types. Doing this for someone like Septimius, Trajan or Constantine crosses the limits of reason.

A question:
There are quite a few coins of Pescennius Niger and a few of Septimius Severus known today by only one or a very few examples. Is this also the case for Otho? To the casual observer it seems there were only ten types for Otho and all are relatively close in count. Did all the rare types of Otho just disappear?

 

I think die studies can help assign an upper limit for mintage figures. For example, there are 18 obverse and 36 reverse dies known for the sestertii of Didius Julianus.* Now, how many coins could be produced from a die is a matter of conjecture and estimates vary widely. Robert Kokotailo of Calgary Coins states, "How long ancient dies lasted is unknown and probably inconsistent, but it was probably somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 coins with some dies breaking far earlier and some lasting longer." He doesn't cite any studies to back up this claim,** but let's assume he read it somewhere and isn't pulling the number out of thin air.

We apparently DO know that obverse dies last longer than reverse dies. Let's suppose that Kokotailo's estimates are reasonable and an obverse die lasted long enough to mint 20,000-30,000 coins and a reverse die lasted long enough to mint 10,000-15,000 coins.

This would work out to a maximum output of sestertii of Didius Julianus of 360,000-540,000 on the basis of obverse dies (18 x 20,000 to 30,000) and 360,000-540,000 on the basis of reverse dies (36 x 10,000 to 15,000). So, mintage figures of half a million sestertii is a reasonable upper limit, and this would be divided among the CONCORD MILIT, Fortuna, and RECTOR ORBIS reverse types.

Now, how many of these survive? THAT's the 64,000 dupondii question, isn't it? It's this question that @dougsmit addresses, above. It's not an easy one to answer. Even though an example will set you back at least a thousand bucks, and they are considered scarce, lots of them have been sold at auction and there are several to choose from at V-Coins.

*Woodward, "The Coinage of Didius Julianus and His Family." Num Chron. 121:71, 1961. See this table:



**If anyone has any scholarly data about this, please share, because I would LOVE to know the science behind this.

 

I use Drake’s equation... probly the same results.

N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L
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But have you managed to count the stars in the Milky Way???
I started many nights ago but fell asleep on the job

 

On a more serious note, the issue I think, is not how many of a particular coin were minted, heck the Chinese are still producing them, but rather, how many genuine coins of a particular style/year/die have so far been unearthed/uncovered and graded as authentic.

Yes I'm aware that even the grading experts can occasionally get in wrong, that European collectors/auction houses still largely sell raw coins and that purist will not dream of putting a coin in a coffin but then guys like me, who don't know enough about ancients, prefer something that has already been verified. I've bought very authentic looking coins from ROMA which turned out to be fake and had to be returned.....so who can one trust. Imagine if I hadn't sent them for grading, I'd still be happily including them among the pride of my collection. That is why I never buy raw ancients on eBay!!!

New finds can affect the value and exclusivity of ancients but that's applicable to all coins even some very rare moderns found in the wreck of a WW1 or WW2 ship or an outlaw hoard. That's a risk we all take. And if there are 3-4000 Otho denarii or 80-100 EID MARs or 50 Antony and Cleo denarii etc. etc., I'm sure there are many tens of thousands of collectors who would still pay big bucks to own one of them in their collection. I know I would, if I could afford two of the three above.

I'm sure the TPGs must have records of the ancients they graded over the past years/decades, if they somehow found the resources and tabulated these, surely that information would be a great help to the likes of Jyrki Muona and even laymen like me.

 

BTW this is the Phoenician Shekel dated CY 137 (AD 11/2) I mentioned earlier. Records indicate this is one of 2 examples offered for sale in recent years

 

Barry, I would love to hear your opinion on the rarity of this Shekel. Thanks

 

I don’t pay close enough attention on a year by year basis to say whether it’s a particularly rare year or not. I could do a quick scan of coin archives or ac search, but anyone can do that for themselves.

Including your coin, there are 4 on Coin Archives.

Barry