$8 in OGP of the Royal Australian Mint. I can't find a flaw. I thought it was a reverse proof but it's weight indicates and packaging says "frosted uncirculated coin"...
Picked up this Ptolemy II Octodrachm recently. Ptolemaic Egypt was the only Greek-ruled kingdom to strike large quantities of enormous gold coins weighing nearly an ounce. This denomination, today usually called an octodrachm, was worth 100 silver drachms, or one mina, a small fortune in ancient times. The Greco-Egyptians called the 100-mina piece a mnaieion (min-EYE-on). The first mnaieions carried four royal portraits -- Ptolemy II and his sister-wife on the obverse with the epithet adelphon ("sibling lovers"), backed with the portraits of his parents, Ptolemy I Soter and Berenice I, now identified as theon ("gods"). I like the coin because it has 4 royal portraits This particular one is an AU* 5/5 AND 5/5 and possibly my last big ticket (at least for my budget) ancient for the year
The eyeballs alone must weigh 3 grams... Remarkable that many centuries later the Spanish Empire decided an 8 Escudos would weigh almost exactly the same.
Recent local show buys. I'm enjoying world coinage more and more and...uh-oh...my first Thaler...this may be the beginning of...something.
Yep. I see this as a certainty in my near future. The dealer I bought the 1753 from also had a 1612 Lubeck Thaler in nice circulated condition for a reasonable price. This may compete heavily with nice Standing Liberty quarters for my limited collection funds.
If it makes a difference (and it always has to me), the Lubek Taler is likely as scarce as a 1918/17-S Standing Liberty Quarter but without the high price tag. That 1908 Austrian 5 Corona on the other hand is abundantly available up through AU, the real challenge is finding one in nice MS condition. I like it more than the Taler denomination because it is bigger and has more silver in it, a silver crown by anyone's definition which isn't always the case with Talers.
I fully understand the comparative scarcity/rarity of USA coins versus non-USA coins. The Lubeck was priced at $275, which I feel is a good price for a 407 year old large silver coin. I bought the 5 Corona because it's a crown sized coin type I didn't have yet and it was a good deal. I paid $60 total for the Bavaria Thaler and the 5 Corona, so that's not bad.
Had this one a couple years, paid about $275 or what you would expect to pay for a similar graded 1878-8TF Morgan. I've got most of the set, including the 10, 20 and 100 Corona struck for the 60th anniversary of reign. There's also KM-2808, a real common 1 Corona available (even in high grade) for only a few dollars, - I'm missing the easy one! For whatever reason, they didn't strike a 2 Corona for the anniversary which I have never understood.
Simple, the 2 corona denomination did not exist yet in 1908. After the 1908 Austrian corona type, even the 1 corona/korona denomination was not struck again until 1912 in the empire, where it was then struck alongside the new 2 corona/korona denomination during 1912 and 1913. Only Hungarian mints also struck a 2 korona in 1914, but it had a very low mintage.