Featured Their Plagues, and Maybe Ours

I think you cannot blame auction houses like Stacks/ Heritage/ CNG and others for high coin prices. They do their best to secure great results for their consignees, but that is good business strategy.
The market trends for high quality, rare coinage are a result of many factors.
1/ Low supply for ever increasing demand.
2/ Average people have more disposible income for luxary items.
3/ Fear factor, many see precious metals/ coins as the only real $$$$. Cryto-currencies/ plastic/ paper are not backed by anything of value. Before, 1933 one could redeem a US $100 bill for gold/ silver coins of equal value.
4/ Sheer pleasure of collecting coins/ sure beats walking around like a zombie glued to your phone
John

 

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I don’t blame the auction house they do their job, but the same billionaire that buy house buildings pulling out old people and coins pulling out true numismatic hobby in some way even if they don’t compete for the same coins.

You know investors sales quickly what they buy they don’t keep it for a long time and when they live the boat prices fall. True collectors enjoy what they collect for a very longtime.

 

I agree with you 100 percent. But, many super rich collectors like the "Tyrant" guy collect for the pleasure like you and I. Of course there are people that known zilch about numismatics and hire "coin investment specialists" to build them a portfolio of rare coins, along with their stock options.
Many of the best collections/ Pogue/ Tyrant/ Newman/ Garrett/ Farouk/ Eliasberg/ are/ where true collectors/ not investors. Problem seems that coins have made dramatic price increases in past 100 years/ way above inflation, thus many are unfairly classified as investment collectors, rather then passionate numismatists.

 

rich and true great collectors it is ok for me. Many of them have given their collection to great museums.

 

What a great post, @kevin McGonigal ... interesting to bring this into perspective, and interesting that I discussing this exact subject with my Wife yesterday! This includes your statement below about OUR families...

Virtually the SAME situation in my family, except it was my Grandfather who was an orphan at 9 yo. Mine were in Indiana, we lost his parents, brother, aunt, etc. during that time. Going to the family Cemetary is poignant seeing the graves with lives all ending in 1918.

LUCIUS VERUS

RI Lucius Verus 161-169 CE AR Denarius Providentia globe cornucopiae RIC 253

 

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-cyprian-plague.340369/#post-3562095

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/plague-of-sheroe.354328/#post-4050962

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/public-health-in-ancient-rome.350283/#post-3879230

I love connecting numismatics with my profession( medical microbiology)! It really is crazy to think how microbiology has influenced human history, and will continue to do so. Ex- Alexander the Great likely dying of Typhoid enteric fever, or the Cyrpian Plauge sapping Rome’s manpower when it needed it the most.

Unfortunately it is likely the COVID-19 will not be contained and will remain on an endemic level in the population. Luckily it’s mortality is only 2-5%, where as the Cyprian plague would have been upwards of 50%.
See
https://secure.jbs.elsevierhealth.c...rticle/PIIS0140-6736(20)30260-9/fulltext&rc=0

 

Thanks for those earlier posts. I had missed that first one on the Plague of Cyprian

 

Maybe some of our members would be interested to know of the existence of this book:

A Seaby book. 186 pages. Averaging about 1 coin photo per page with many of the provincial coins showing only the reverse. It has coverage by topic such as Chapter 5, "Aesculapius: The Family" with discussions of Apollo and several others, Chapter 7, "Medicinal Plants on Ancient Coins," Chapter 11, "The Water Supply of Ancient Rome," Chapter 12, "Various Medical Associations," which even has Trajan's column because one panel shows first aid being administered (of course, not visible on the coins). The author is "medically qualified and long interested in medical history, looked at his collection of ancient coins and decided that here was a story worth telling."

 

After a devastating fire at Rome in 80 AD, a plague broke out (probably smallpox or typhus) which came on the heels of the Vesuvian disaster from the previous autumn. It's possible Titus rushed the completion of the Colosseum in order to hold the opening games to take the populace's mind off the recent tragedies.

A denarius celebrating those opening games.

Titus
AR Denarius, 3.18g
Rome mint, 80 AD
Obv: IMP TITVS CAES VESPASIAN AVG P M•; Head of Titus, laureate, bearded, l.
Rev: TR P IX IMP XV COS VIII P P; Elephant, stg. l.
RIC 116 (C). BMC 47. RSC 304. BNC 41.
Ex Harry N. Sneh Collection.

 

I wonder if investors will ever find out how great the SPQR coinage of Claudius II is. Speaking of plagues and doom.

 

Trebonianus Gallus, Volusian and Valerian issued «Apoll Salutari» coins.
This is clearly related to the plague around 250 AD, but perhaps to cover up that Treb. and Volusian murdered Hostilian and blamed it on the plague too? I think they are great reverses anyway. Here’s mine:

 

@seth77 reminded us that Claudius Gothicus (268-27) died of the plague:



VICTORIAE GOTHIC
21-20 mm. 4.34 grams.
RIC -- (because of bust "F") but very close to 251 and 252.
Sear III 11381

Death from disease was common long ago, but we have it on high authority yesterday that CORVID-19 is "totally under control." And, I'm sure Claudius II said he had "just a cold."

 

The Black Death, a pandemic caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, ravaged in Europe from ca. 1346–1353, killing an estimated 75 to 200 million people. It caused a massive social, cultural and political caesura in European history: the first decades of the 14th century had been one of the most prosperous, open-minded, culturally and intellectually productive times in the Middle Ages (think Dante, Petrarch, Meister Eckhart, Giotto, Guillaume de Machaut, etc). In the second half of the century, the Black Death did not only disrupt the medieval economy, it also lead to new waves of superstition, zealotism, and persecutions, especially anti-Jewish pogroms. Let's hope that history doesn't repeat itself...

Here are two coins from the time of the Black Death. Both were minted in cities that were hit heavily by the pandemic:


Albrecht II "the Wise," Duchy of Austria, AR "Vienna pfennig," 1330–1358 AD, Enns mint, Obv: cross of four leaves. Rev: angel (struck very weak). 16mm, 0.72g. Ref: CNA I, B248. Ex Allen Berman.


Bishop Johann II. Senn von Münsingen, Prince-Bishopric of Basel, Angster ("vierzipfliger Pfennig"), 1335–1365 AD. Obv: head of a bishop wearing mitre (three pellets at each side) left, between B-A, ring above. Rev: negative design (bracteate). 17–20mm, 0.33g. Ref: Wielandt: Basler Münzprägung (1971), no. 117; HMZ 255; Catalogue Wüthrich, no 31; Berger: Brakteaten (1993/6), no. 2415–1416.

 

That's the best Claudius II Gothicus I have ever seen. Gorgeous and that's hard to say for his coinage.

 

Another coin from Black Death era.
Orange/ Principality
Raymond III 1340-70
AV Florin ND
ex: Terner Coll.

 

There was an early outbreak in Ft. Hayes, and that may have played a part in its spread, but recent research has all but conclusively shown that "Spanish" flu actually originated in 1917 in China. Here's an interesting article on this from National Geographic:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...u-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/

 

Thanks for that story. Interesting and quite probable. I recall reading that the deadliest plagues known in history seem to have had their origins in China and then spread from there outward. But why China? If I recall correctly a theory has been advanced that China has historically been the region where these plagues originated because of the large, densely populated regions where humans lived in close habitation and proximity to their livestock. The deadliest plague illnesses are those that see the microbes pass from animals to humans, that they mutate to allow human to human transmission and then it's off to the rest of the world via international trade contact.

I have read that this also explains why the European arrival to the New World in the Age of Discovery wound up killing off so much of the Amerindian population. In the Americas there was not the close living arrangements with livestock (cattle, horses, swine, chickens are not native to the New World) so when both they and the Europeans arrived they brought the kind of microbes with them that are associated with this dense human-livestock habitation most prevalent on the Eurasian landmass. In the case of the deadly plague epidemics of the Ancient World there are frequent references to the epidemic diseases coming from the "East" , though just how far east that was could not be known by the people of the Mediterranean region. Thanks again for that article.

 

I think there may be room for my avatar coin in this thread, although it doesn't involve the period of the 12 emperors. I found an interesting chapter in "Divus Julius" (Weinstock 1971) about the importance of Salus during the early empire. A recommended read.
https://books.google.no/books?id=Sv...6AEwEnoECAwQAQ#v=onepage&q=Nero Salus&f=false

 

I judge this is the orthodox view, but whenever I looked into the economic aspects of the matter, it does not seem to me to stack up. The Europe wide move from a silver standard to a gold standard was already underway before the plague, and just continued, did not break till Hall quite late in the 15th century. As far as England goes, Edward III's bankruptcy seems to me maybe of more economic significance than the plague. Traditional interpretations of the statute of labour linked to plague effects are misguided, according to recent work.

While coins cannot give us a royal road to understanding macroeconomics in themselves, they are a kind of hard evidence that should stand on its own feet, and not bend to the theories of historians or economists.

Rob T

 

This is of great interest to me. As it seems to be the case with you, I am not convinced by the old argument of 'the plague increased the demand for labour and thus strangthened the position of peasants.' First, there seems to be only sparse and local evidence for such a development, and secondly, this thesis appears to fit the, let's say, political fascinations of the academics who brought it up some fifty years ago a little bit too well.

The last recommendable book I read on the topic was Klaus Bergdolt's "Der schwarze Tod in Europa" (Munich 2000, unfortunately not translated into English). Bergdolt dismisses the old 'rise of the peasantry'-thesis but nonetheless presents evidence for an economic destabilization. Based mostly on northern Italian records of grain prices and labor wages, he concludes that "a high price fluctuation combined with a general tendency towards overproduction became characteristic until the 15th century" ("Ein Auf und Ab der Preise bei allgemeiner Tendenz zur Überproduktion […] wurde bis ins 15. Jahrhundert charakteristisch," p. 198).

This development disrupted a previously quite stable economic situation. It resulted from a high volatility in agricultural productivity and demand, increased personal mobility and a decreased population – all directly or indirectly caused by the plague. Since most cities started to store large amounts of grain, which they bought at low prices when available, the impact of this market situation was somewhat mitigated or even turned profitable for urban communities. The rural population including former aristocratic elites, Bergdolt argues, suffered harder from it.

I'm not sure to what extent the northern Italian and German situation is a a model for other parts of Europe. Yet, Bergdolt's "destabilization-not-decline"-thesis read generally sound to me, and I wonder whether you have any thoughts on this.