These would be (super impossible) dream coins for me too. Related, and slightly less impossible (?): I'm trying to assemble a typeset of SA middle bronzes, which puts this as/medallion on my list: The likelihood of me obtaining one, even in poor condition, is slim... but unlike the two above it is barely possible. Maybe?
This is one of my impossible dreams; it was found in Jerusalem. Only have the obverse picture and no attribution :
Athens New Style c 86/85 or a year earlier...Star between 2 Crescents with Star and 2 Crescents replaced with Headdress of Isis. I don't know how the replacement was done-on the die on the coin, etc. When I saw this in DeCallatay's Historie des guerres Mitradatique vue les pars monnique ( close but no gold star) it added the final nail into my theory extended from Ashton's work on Rhodian large bronze coinage to Ephesian coins that the symbol of Isis became a pro-Roman symbol during the 1st Mithradatic wars because of Mithradates's failure to take Rhodes where a angry bolt hurling epiphany of Isis appeared when a sambuca assaulted and insulted her temple just beyond the Rhodian walls and sunk it. So this is doubly important, a King Mithridates as first magistrate with the tyrant Aristion minted in Athens when Archelous was the Pontic general in Pireas. This coin is history itself with famous names and at the exact time of famous tumultuous events. Essentially the end of Hellenism certainly the Greek world and commemorates the appearance of one of my favourite goddesses. This unique example was not in the NSSCA and is in the BN de France. I wrote about this in Mithradates in Paris and London on my academia. edu page under the name John Arnold Nisbet
I wish you luck on the hair. I found mine at Andy Singer's table at a show in 2017 but it is only an onkia 12mm, 3.49g. I seriously doubt a tetras would be what I would call affordable.
For me it would be more aureii. A boscoreale would be nice, but that seems to be above my price range so I’ll stick to regular aureii for the foreseeable future. In the meantime I’ll continue to admire the beautiful examples owned by members of this forum.
Get out. No, GET OUT!!! That must have been incredible! I have 4 or 5 of his lectures from the Great Courses. And am currently in the middle of his course on the peloponnesian war (that is why I used his quote about, if it's not true its such a great story that it shoulda been). I was wondering what @TIF was alluding to? Just assumed she was enjoying a nice glass of Southern Comfort So many questions! 1: HOW did you get the opportunity? B: I have been fortunate to spend time with folks that I had idolized and turned total fanboy. Think he could tell you were star struck or did you have your poker face on? C: What were the areas of discussion? 4: Anything get him really passionate or excited? Q: Does he start every conversation with, "I will be going over these subjects in today's conversation..." like he does in his courses? 6: What were you all drinking? Seven: Did you have a chance to ask him why he lets audible have a stinking clean it yourself LRB of Constantine the (not so) great on the cover of his course of the peloponnesian war??? Drives me nuts seeing it when there are so many truly great coins from that period and I am listening to such a great storytellers.
What's up with that counting dude? "1, B, C, 4, 6, seven"? Is it a Monty Python and the Holy Grail kinda thing? 1 & B) Just a fluke, really. I first met him via AMCC (I totally went when he signed up). He couldn't find a coin I shipped to him and we corresponded about it. (Turns out he had mislaid it; he was super apologetic and nice about it.) In the course of our correspondence I confessed I was a fanboy. I have connections with the local university and asked offhand if he might like to visit; turns out he and his wife had been wanting to visit BC and were desperate to get out of New Orleans during Mardi Gras. That freaked me out a bit (I had been thinking, y'know, sometime in the next decade), but it also thrilled me. So I made calls, turned on my disused charm circuits... and miraculously enough it happened! C) Too numerous to mention. Among them: his travels in Turkey, the delightful story of his recent marriage to a Turkish woman (who is wonderful!) after having been a bachelor most of his life, dealing with University admin, attitudes towards collectors in academia and museums, his father, the coins of Moesia Inferior and Thrace (he's doing a die study; turns out most of it comes from just a few mints. This discussion prompted me to buy a Philip from the area - the last productions before incursions by the Goths closed the mints); the coins of Tabaristan; some Roman history, some Byzantine history, and various things I'm not allowed to mention on CoinTalk. 4) Well, coins of course. Also those things I'm not allowed to mention on CoinTalk. Q) Haha! No, but I must say he does sound remarkably like he does in his lectures. You know how he starts in a measured fashion and then gradually gets more and more excited!? I love that. It's totally him, let me tell you! 6) Well, he wasn't drinking much, for health reasons. But I was drinking wine from our lovely Okanagan Valley. Coin buddies are more than welcome to visit! Seven) I will ask him, that's a travesty!! Glad there's at least one other Ken Harl fanboy here.
Big fan. Remember I keep quoting his “Coinage in the Roman Economy “ ... you guys are all wannabe fans... oh, wait... @Severus Alexander spent some quality time with him! Great times
... yes please There's a reason why there's always a run on the price of your coins after you post them. It's your impeccable taste so, if you did want to show a couple on your hit list I would never complain
10x like-button smash, and ROFL too! I still don't have any dang snake- or cupid-drawn conveyances or sewer-goddess coins, or suchlike myriad other things that TIF first put on my radar screen. But oh- hey- how would you like to see a medieval coin with a grinning cartoon bull on it? Why, of course you would! Hang on, let me go find that picture. I wonder if I'll accidentally hit the "buy button" when I go fetch it... .
Here 'tis. Not necessarily a dream coin, per se, but it's been on my watchlist a while, ever since I saw that stierkopf (steer's head). A goofy bull sticking out its tongue, in a manner reminiscent of the ancient gorgon coins. What's not to like? This is from Mecklenburg-Wismar, struck after the recess of 1379, whatever that was. I have two of them watchlisted. The question is... should I? Seems a pretty dang cool medieval coin for less than a hundred bucks including shipping from Europe. And if so, which one? Does this call for another ridiculous poll thread? I lean towards the first, double-struck example for some reason. It seems tad sharper, maybe. (Sorry if I drifted off track here. It's @Ryro's fault for getting me thinking about wacky TIF coin types.)
Oops. I just hit the "buy" button. How in the world did THAT happen? The first one, with the doubling, is now mine. So after long deliberation, I now have my very own "Crowned-Bull-Blowing-a-Raspberry" Mad Cow Medieval coin! (MCMC) Nyah nyah! Ain't you jealous? If you are, I'll show you where to get the other one. (= €83.00 EUR, or $98.49 USD after shipping from Germany.) Just found a little info. We now return to our previously scheduled programming.
You'll be glad to know he's working on a 2nd edition! I actually suggested he revise the bit where he talks about the value of the XXI aurelianus, based on @Valentinian's metallurgical analysis of the XI Tacitus version. He wouldn't bite... he still thinks XI means 10 sestertii (a revaluation) vs. XXI meaning 20, I think based on how the notations are used elsewhere. He thinks it's just a coincidence that the metal content works out the way it does.
Wonderful coin @Ryro! Your collection is bursting from those cool Macedonian shields. I think three of my dream coins would be these. And I am pretty sure not one of them will ever be in my collection, even when in worse condition. So I guess they will stay in my dream forever. Seleucid Kings, Seleukos I Nikator (312-281 B.C.), Silver Tetradrachm, 16.70g,. Mint of P ergamon, struck 281 B.C. Bridled head of horned horse (Bucephalus?) faci ng to right, its mouth open. Rev. BAΣIΛEΩΣ / ΣEΛEYKOY , elephant walking to right, a bee above, an anchor below (Houghton & Lorber, Seleucid Coins, part I, 1 (1); Pyrrhus (ca. 297-272 BC). AR tetradrachm. Attic standard, Epizephyrean Locrus, ca. 278 BC. Head of Zeus Naeus of Dodona left, wearing oak wreath / BAΣIΛEΩΣ / ΠYPPOY, Dione enthroned half front, transverse scepter in right hand, raising himation with left over shoulder. HGC 3.1, 261 Syria (Seleucid Kingdom). Alexander I Balas, 150-145 BC. AR "Marriage" Tetradrachm (17.01g) minted at Ake, c. 150 BC. Jugate busts right of Cleopatra Thea as Tyche, diademed, veiled, and wearing kalathos, with cornucopiae over far shoulder, and Alexander I, diademed; to left, monogram; fillet border. Reverse: Zeus enthroned left on high-backed chair, holding scepter and Nike facing, bearing thunderbolt. SC 1841 = Houghton, CSE 407 (this coin) @AncientJoe has this one, I am so jealous.
But I have so many dreams! Here are some of the crazier ones: Amalasuntha (maybe?), like this one Zenobia from Alexandria with Selene Vespasian ROMA RESVRGES sestertius Galla Placidia solidus Alexander III stater
After visiting the new thread about our dream coin for 2022 I just rediscovered this old thread and realized that in fact I managed to purchase no less than six of my ten dream Sestertii of last year within the six months that followed my post. Not necessary in the quality I would have dreamt them to be in, but I am quite happy to have been able to fill the gaps. Have any of your 2021 coin dreams come true yet?
My dream coin? There are many of them... Probably this one: Alexander III 'the Great", 5 sheqels or decadrachm, AR 40.08 g. Probably the only ancient coin with a type that was reenacted in a Hollywood movie:
