Poor abused and unwanted coin

I put in a lowball bid on this poor thing at today's Lucernae auction and I was the only bidder. It doesn't exactly have 5/5 surfaces.

Let's see your abused and neglected coins that nobody else wanted!

Faustina II, AD 147-175.
Roman orichalcum sestertius, 23.63g, 34mm, 6h.
Rome, summer AD 151 or mid 152- autumn 154.
Obv: FAVSTINA AVG PII AVG FIL, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: PIETAS S C, Pietas standing facing, head left, holding flower and cornucopiae, with child standing facing, head to right, to her left.
Refs: RIC 1379; BMCRE 2177-79; Cohen 173; RCV 4715; Strack 1321.
Notes: Sear identifies the child on the reverse as Lucilla. Ex Antonio Carmona collection, ex-Roma E-sale 82, lot 1380, 15 April, 2021.​

I suspect that at one point, its patina was stripped down to the bare metal but now it's re-toning. I'm happy with it nonetheless, seeing that it hammered for 75 GBP at a Roma Numismatics sale just six months ago. The Roma listing says it was from the Antonio Carmona collection. Here's the Roma photo:



The coin's obverse inscription, FAVSTINA AVG PII AVG FIL, was in use for about four or five months beginning about May AD 151, followed by the FAVSTINA AVG ANTONINI AVG PII FIL legend, which was in use for about seven or eight months, from the end of summer AD 151 to about June AD 152, after which it reverted to the FAVSTINA AVG PII AVG FIL legend, which was in use through the end of AD 155. The empress changed hairstyles, however, about Autumn AD 154. Moreover, this type was only issued in bronze, so Beckmann's die-linkage study of Faustina's aurei and @curtislclay's work on her denarii cannot help with fitting it into the chronology. Dating the coin is therefore a bit tricky: it either dates from about the summer of 151 or sometime between mid 152- autumn 154. You may read more about the issues regarding dating of coins with this obverse inscription here.

And who is the child on its reverse? Both Cohen and Sear identify her as Lucilla. I'm not sure; it's hard to figure out which of Faustina's children it might have been. She had her first child, Domitia Faustina, in 147 CE, and her second, Lucilla, in March of 149. Domitia Faustina likely died by 151. A third child, Faustina III, was born in 150/151, which is a bit early if the coin dates to 152-154, but not necessarily if it is from the summer of 151. A fourth child, Titus Aelius Antoninus, was born in 152. He died in infancy/early childhood. She didn't have a baby again until 157 or 158. So, assuming the child on this coin represents an actual child in the imperial family and not just an attribute of an allegorical figure of Piety (which it certainly may be), is this Faustina III born in 150/51? Lucilla depicted without her sister? Is it the short-lived Titus??

 

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that's a kool coin RC!...now that you have it, you put the ole RC magic on it and now its value has increased 5 fold! .... Lucilla Sestertius

 

Or maybe two coats of spray-tan...

 

Great portrait and reverse! You can tell people not to use electrolysis to clean coins as they won't like the surfaces underneath, but the thrill of the unknown will keep them at it.
Here's some fun rarities that faced virtually no resistance:

(Check out the easily misable countermark of an eagle. It's upside down in this Pic)


(Very rare quarter unit with double axe!)


(A Janiform Celtic... don't mind if I do!)

And lastly, her portrait and the patina screamed at me... and fortunately nobody else

 

It has a beautiful head of Faustina, a lovely smile

 

Good pickup, RC. Despite the coin surface condition, I think the reverse design is unusually sharp.

 

Speaking of poor & abused, I do have several. They came in a lot that I bought, because I felt sorry for them:

Æ Dupondius,Rome, 17 BC Marcus Sanquinius(?) moneyer
RIC I (2nd edition) 342; Cohen 521
Ob.: AVGVSTVS (TRIBVNIC POTEST) in three lines within wreath
Rev.: M SANQVINIVS Q F IIIVIR A A A F F around large S•C

​

Æ As, Rome, 35 - 36 AD
27 mm, 8.7 g
RIC Tiberius 58, Cohen 13, BMC 117
Ob.: TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVST IMP VIII Tiberius head, laureate, left
Rev.: PONTIF MAX TR POT XXXVII large S C to left and right of rudder placed vertically across banded globe; small globe at right base of rudder

​

And this one was cleaned very harshly:
Æ Dupondius, Rome, 92 - 94 AD
10.16 g
RIC II, part 1 (2nd edition) Domitian 754; Sear 2798;

Ob.: IMP CAES DOMIT AVG GERM COS XVI CENS PER PP radiate bust to r. with short beard
Rev.: VIRTVTI AVGVSTI Virtus wearing long dress, standing right, foot on helmet, holding spear with her r. hand and parazonium with her l. hand; S C

​

And these are not the only ones

 

The surfaces may not be good but the engraving is very artistic, RC!

The days of getting a coin for opening bid seem to be gone, at least for most of my targets! I did pick up one such coin recently but it hasn't shipped yet so I won't tempt the postal gods.

Somewhat related, here's a coin that has been abused by aggressive cleaning... although judging from what's left it may have been even uglier before. You'd think I could have acquired it for opening but you'd be wrong . It had 10 bids. At least the increments were very small.

I like coins depicting Pan and will slowly try to get as many different types as possible.


BITHYNIA, Nicaea. Gallienus (253-268)
Obv: ΠOΛIC[Γ?] ΓAΛΛIHNOC CE; radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right.
Rev: [NIK]AI[EΩN]; Pan standing right, holding palm branch and wine hose. (Wine hose?? I thought it was a stag or some other animal)
Ref: (maybe; I do not have access to this book) SNG von Aulock 708 or var.
Appears to be rare, based on the paucity of examples in ACsearch.

 

Because of my work schedule (when I was still working) I found it extremely difficult to deal with auctions, so as a result I often would hunt among the remainders looking for coins that no one else liked. Even after i retired i would do this and i still have a number of coins that fall in this category. I still refer to them as my orphans.
Anonymous Ar Denarius Bigati "Fly" 179-170 BC Obv helmeted head of Roma right. Rv Luna crescent on forehead driving biga pulled by prancing horses right crawford 159/2 RBW 694 This coin illustrated. 3.80 grms 18 mm Photo by W. Hansen
I was subsequently informed by another collector who knew RBW that he had very quickly pulled all of his remainders and thus I got there before he had managed to do so. So in a way this coin is rather unusual. It was from a famous collection, is now illustrated in a book and was unsold in a premier auction.

 

Surfaces are not, indeed, 5/5 but I think the coin is beautiful. The level of details must make you happy (it would make me!). Plus the nice iconography.



Here are some coins I got for opening bids - all 10 EUR



Seleuceia Pieria. Trajan AD 98-117.
Bronze Æ 24 mm., 12,21 g.
RPC 3375
Obv: ΑΥΤΟΚΡ ΚΑΙ(Ϲ) ΝΕΡ ΤΡΑΙΑΝΟϹ ΑΡΙϹΤ ϹΕΒ ΓΕΡΜ (ΔΑΚ)
Rev: ϹΕΛΕΥΚΕ ω Ν ΠΕΙΕΡΙΑϹ (or ΠΙΕΡΙΑϹ)
Sacred stone of Zeus Kasios with fillet attached within shrine consisting of four pillars supporting a pyramidal roof surmounted by an eagle; beneath, ΖΕΥС ΚΑСΙΟС; In field, r., Ϛ
BMC 41; CRS 420/57a




Trajan AD 98-117. Rome
Dupondius Æ
27 mm, 9,85 g
RIC II Trajan 385
Date Range: AD 98 - AD 99
Obverse Legend: IMP CAES NERVA TRAIAN AVG GERM P M
Type: Head of Trajan, radiate, right
Reverse Legend: TR POT COS II S C
Type: Abundantia seated left on chair with crossed cornucopiae, holding sceptre in right hand




Ionia. Miletos circa 525-475 BC.
Diobol AR
7 mm, 1,07 g
Late 6th-early 5th century BC. Twelfth stater or diobol Head of roaring lion right. Rev. Star-shaped floral ornament within incuse square. Klein 426-427. SNG Kayhan 468-475. SNG Von Aulock 2082. Sear 3532




Thrace. Mesembria circa 420-320 BC.
Bronze Æ
13 mm, 2,16 g
Crested Corinthian helmet facing / META between four spokes of wheel. SNG BM 272-274; SNG Stancomb 225; Serdica CCCH IX, 14-18; Karayotov II, 47-54; SNG Cop. 653.




Victorinus AD 269-271. Colonia Agippinensium (Cologne)
Antoninianus Æ
20 mm, 2,31 g
RIC V Victorinus 61
Date Range: AD 269 - AD 271
Obverse Legend: IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG
Type: Bust of Victorinus, radiate, draped, right, or bust of Victorinus, radiate, draped, cuirassed, right, or bust of Victorinus, radiate, cuirassed, right
Reverse Legend: PROVIDENTIA AVG
Type: Providentia, draped, standing left, holding baton in right hand and sceptre in left hand; at foot, globe

 

The coin pictured below was certainly neglected & unwanted by everyone accept me. I bought this coin many years ago at a large coin show in Rochester, NY when the Chinese coin market was getting very hot. The coin was a typical weak strike for a 1920 "Fatman Dollar", as they were called in those days, but it appeared to be in mint state & had a price of only $30.00 . I didn't have much money that week so I decided to wait until I looked over the whole show before going back for it. I forgot about the coin & didn't remember it till the next day. I went back to the show & saw the coin still in the dealer's case , & shocked that no one picked up this coin that must have been worth 10 times what the dealer was asking. I examined the coin carefully & it looked like the "real McCoy", so I paid the $30.00 for it . When I got the coin back from NGC for slabbing I realized why nobody wanted it but me .



Looks like I was the only one stupid enough to buy it . I still have the coin in my collection of counterfeits .

 

Well this reminds me of a fantastic coin I bought at a local numismatic show 5-6 years ago. There was an old gentleman who sold various coins and had some "secret" albums with very old coins. I got my first ancient coins from him (some worn LRBs, fortunately with correct prices). And he whispered in my ear "I have a fantastic coin for you!"


Of course I was amazed, especially since he wanted the equivalent of 5 EUR.
At home I was more amazed seeing it's a coin from 13th century Milan!

...
and even more amazed when noticing it's a special kind of silver, that is in fact magnetic and even more special kind of "coin" that is a souvenir from the 1970s.

 

2 provincio only me bid in auction but nice for mine

 

Really lovely, @Roman Collector. Have to second @cmezner; lovely smile. The same for @ominus1's example. There's something resonantly poignant about seeing this kind of beauty, hidden in plain sight on a coin with obvious, um, 'defects.' Coins to love, for what they are. Who's going to argue?

And @Terence Cheesman ("it was from a famous collection, is now illustrated in a book and was unsold in a premier auction"), that's an amazing triangulation. Not to mention a magnificent example. I could only wish that my sole, representative RR denarius (M. Cipius --as common as they get, and sadly no longer in the collection) was as good.

...And, Woops, some of you probably saw this coming. For collectors who mostly do the medieval thing, the beauty runs more to the cognitive than the aesthetic side of the net experience ...since, for vast swathes of the period (with numerous exceptions, which inexorably prove the rule), it really is a zero-sum game: most of the time, you get one or the other. Thank you, of the two. (...Among Medievals folk here, if you'd care to argue, you've obviously got a bigger budget.) What you can get instead is some form of a miniature historical document, representing a particular reign (...already cool for practicing genealogists), and its wider milieu, both culturally and geographically.

With that as overly-expansive context (Slap me, I'm Autism Spectrum --cf. the Flappers in Swift, Gulliver's Travels), there's this. It's easily the ugliest coin in the collection, that I love the most. ...Think about your childhood, and how much you still needed that one stuffed animal, after you'd 'loved it to death.' Replete with attendant genealogy, this one kind of feels like that. I got enormous help from a French dealer, who steered me toward this attribution, away from a late Carolingian one I was considering, from inexorably limited available information. (It was on Delcampe, unattributed as the driven snow. Initially, all I said was, 'That (expletive of choice, polysyllabic or not) is !0th Century, and You're Having It.'

"Hugues Capet." Denier of Senlis.
Rev. In two lines: :SILVA NECTIS; crosslets above and below.
Obv. (ostensibly --as in, from what you can see: ) +C[/'G']RATIA D-I REX.
[The standard formula of Carolingian legends, since the Edict of Pitres in 864. Regarding legends, this is the spine of that many feudal immobilizations, all over France, into the 11th and 12th centuries.] In field: "HV[O DVX en cercle autour d'un croisette."
Duplessy, Féodales 6. This attribution follows a couple centuries of published precedent, well explicated by @seth77 in other, recent threads. Except that, for one, this listing from CNG cites Legros (on the 'Too Much Money for Another Book, when there's Minus Zero Space on the Bookshelves' side of life), reattributing it to Hugo Magnus, Hugh Capet's dad.
https://www.cngcoins.com/Lot.aspx?LOT_ID=4470&BACK_URL=/Lots.aspx?IS_ADVANCED=1&ITEM_IS_SOLD=1&ITEM_INVENTORY_NUMBER=&CONTAINER_NAME=&ITEM_LOT_NUMBER=&ITEM_DESC=senlis+denier&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_1=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_3=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_2=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_4=1&VIEW_TYPE=0

 

Great coin VGO, as much of this period possibly is or can be considering the fact that research is really incipient -- much as in the case of post-1204 Eastern Roman &Co, btw. But I think you are crediting me with research and knowledge I do not possess on this very interesting and seminal period.

 

Here's another Lucilla, procured for an unexpectedly low price, though it has some wear...

Lucilla Augusta, AD 164-169.

Æ sestertius, 30mm, 24g, 6h. Rome mint.

Obverse: LVCILLA AVG ANTONINI AVG F; Draped bust right.

Reverse: IVNONI LVCINAE; Juno seated left, holding infant and flower // SC

Reference: RIC 1747.

From the Mat Collection.

 

"Abused and neglected" describes vast areas of my collection. Which is to say I like these threads.

From last month, here's a Faustina II from Philippopolis. It has been abused and was unwanted at $3.25 and I had hours of fun trying to attribute it - there are several Demeter standing types and I came to the reluctant conclusion that RPC made a mistake. However, if you were going to place a bet on the accuracy of RPC vs. me, I'd bet on RPC...


Faustina II Æ 23
(c. 147-175 A.D.)
Thrace, Philippopolis
ΦΑVСΤEΙΝΑ СEΒ[ΑСΤΗ], draped bust right / ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟ Π ΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ, Demeter standing left, holding grain ears down and short torch.
Mouchmov, Philippopolis 143; Varbanov 881; (not in RPC?).
(8.18 grams / 23 mm)
eBay Sept. 2020 $3.25
Notes: Many Demeter standing types; short torch / corn down does not seem to be in RPC.
Die-Match: This appears to be an obverse/reverse die-match for an example sold by Numismatik Naumann Auction 102; Lot 417; 02.05.2021
Obverse die-match only: Auction 77; Lot 386; 05.05.2019
Both attributed as RPC IV.1 7496, which is wrong (long torch type)

Here is an issue for Antoninus Pius from Antioch. It's pretty nice except for wear, being off-center, and at $4.25 it was pretty much unwanted. Unlike the vast majority of my eBay finds, it came with an impressive provenance - Harlan J. Berk. Not sure who Robert Effler is, but his name comes up in a lot of real (non-eBay) auction references, so he seems to have had an impressive collection.


Marcus Aurelius Æ 20
(161-180 A.D.)
Syria, Seleucis & Pieria
Antiochia ad Orontem
[AYT K] M AYPHΛ AN[TIΩINOC CEB], laureate head right / S C, H below, all within laurel wreath of eight bunches of leaves
McAlee 590h; RPC IV.3 7049.
(9.67 grams / 20 x 18 mm)
eBay Sept. 2021 $4.25
Attribution Notes:
Coin came in a Harlan J. Berk flip. Attribution on flip is "McAlee-590h."
Also: "Rare. Ex Robert Effler Collection. Said to have been found in Beirut."

RPC IV.3 7049 (temp) seems to match this, but references "McAlee (M. Aurelius) 15."

 

$4 for this Plautilla with a nonexistent reverse.

 

If Caesar's face wasn't delaminated this would easily be a three-figure coin, I believe. As it was, $12.50 in a group lot.

 

The most 'abused' and overall poor preservation coins that I can think of right now -- and they are usually like that -- are the 'maiorinae' of Cherson for the 5th century emperors. Struck on cracked and irregular flans, many lack material, possibly even from the second they were struck.