Picked up a pretty neat oldie. EL 1/48 Stater ND circa 625-600BC 0.32g. 5mm. Ionia/ Uncertain City State Lion Head Facing Left Quadripartite Square Irregular Punch Unlisted/ Unique?
Just an FYI, but I won my Julia Domna in a Tauler & Fau auction in January. The export license took 34 days, but once it was ready to ship it only took two days from Madrid to my doorstep. Once they got the green light they were fast!
They also always include full documents with coins, it’s one of my favourite auction houses... unfortunately a lot of us probably has the same feeling, as today’s auctions prices skyrocketed...
I ended up forking out 850 euros for my coin. Still not bad for such a rare (unique?) piece. You pay that for a mint state Australian Sovereign from Victoria YH Shield in MS-63
I hope the rarity is your own conclusion and not the cataloguer's. They don't know what they are selling. You might recall the fake olynthos tetradrachm I reported some time ago... But also on the opposite side look at lot 13 of today's auction. This is a disgraceful listing. One of Schmidt-Wadell-Clio- the billionaire probably saved the consignor (probably unaware inheritor) from suffering a colossal fail, but I am pretty sure the auctioneer will boast of the hammer price without even knowing what they are talking about.
I agree, always better to do your own research. Auctioneers sometimes will overgrade/ or pad the rarity of the coin. My example I checked in the new "White Gold" and internet sites/ found none matching. Of course, someone may come across a hoard of them in future. Lots of things still remain to be discovered. John
Looks similar to https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=3735063 but in a smaller denomination. Right facing seems much more common as well?
I have seen this in 1/24 Stater/ definately right facing lion is seen more often. Most of the archaic electrum is rare.
I just took a look at the coin you mentioned: wow, that was a steep ratio over the estimate! It does look like it should have a pedigree but it sounds like someone "needed" it and wouldn't let it go. That said, the closest comparable example of Jameson 2048 to sell in recent history was also expensive (albeit much nicer and with a published pedigree). Neither coin is worth that much to me but I'm also not a specialist and I suppose it is worth some arbitrary amount to some of the super wealthy academic collectors: 11,500 Euro:
5mm?? When it arrives I would love to see a pic of this coin beside some of your larger coins. 850 Euro? Over double estimate - while perhaps unique - is this a type/style that you specialize in? Looks like you had to have it!
The coin that just sold is in fact the Jameson 2048 specimen, so also a part of Bunbury and Weber collections.
Great detective work - in that case, the price makes sense to me and it is indeed a failure on the auction house's part as @pprp said.
To analyse this a bit more, Tauler just found the LHS listing in acsearch and copied the text. Last time I checked in the map, the coastline of Croatia was not part of Boiotia-Thessaly. So it should have been Illyria in the first place. Then the importance of the coin is not the provenance. I wouldn't care less if Napoleon had it as pendant and slept with it every night. There are only 2 silver coin types struck by Pharos, out of which only the Prowe and the Weber/Jameson ever reached the market. As for the bidding itself, I hope the pre-bidder who entered a maximum bid of 5001 euros on Sunday evening got a nice lesson. His pre-bid got tested several times in minimum steps 40 minutes before the live until his max was reached. In the meantime someone placed an off-bid increment which corresponds to a round number in pounds. From a level of 1300 euros, in a few minutes, the coin started the live at 5250. Most of the bidders were aware of the importance this coin would have for their pocket and would surely like to resell it for a profit. Or maybe they advised their wealthy clients and bid on their behalf, and got their commission. Apart from Schmidt, I am sure some of Wadell-ROMA-CNG-CLIO bid for it. The chillionaire's advisor bid 11.000 by phone and lost. I sincerely hope a museum or a governmental organisation won this. Otherwise we might see this pop up in a month's time in the usual online shops selling for 25000$, of course with the Tauler venue forgotten.
Nice coin panzerman. At 5mm you better be careful handling it. At the same auction I won: Diadumenian. Denarius. 217-218 AD. Rome. (Ric-IV 107 (Macrinus)). (Bmcre-84). (Rsc-3). Anv.: M OPEL ANT DIADVMENIAN CAES, bare headed, draped and cuirassed bust to right. Rev.: PRINC IVVENTVTIS, Diadumenian standing facing, head to left, holding baton and sceptre; two standards to right . Ag. 2,50 g. It retains some luster. Almost XF.
Thanks, nice Denarius! I am very carefull, my first task will be to print a detailed data label, carefully place coin ia SAFLIP then just admire it.
