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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 3565496, member: 19463&quot;]I particularly like Nvb&#039;s Pius because of the way it compliments my Aurelius Caesar.&nbsp; Both coins are LH and Aurelius was using Pius dating so they may have been stuck the same day.&nbsp; Unfortunately they do not share the reverse die.&nbsp; That would be too much luck. </p><p>[ATTACH=full]948428[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>While I agree with the above, I propose one more factor that I really believe had some effect on the matter.&nbsp; I call it the Dattari effect.&nbsp; All collectors of these coins are aware of the great collection formed by Giovanni Dattari at the beginning of the 20th century.&nbsp; Dattari did not buy rare coins in great shape from coin dealers.&nbsp; He lived in Egypt and let it be known that he paid more for the old coins than did the scrap metal dealers.&nbsp; If you were an Egyptian and found coins, you knew where to take them.&nbsp; We see his best ones in his books but he had a warehouse(?) full of things that ranged from mint state to about poor.&nbsp; By assigning a value to everything, he was able to record what was made much more accurately than some might have done if they refused to buy them all.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>There has always been an attitude among collectors of Alexandrian bronzes that a poor coin is better than no coin at all.&nbsp; I credit Dattari for the way he gathered material and could look past the corrosion to catalog everything without ignoring/melting the ugly ones.&nbsp; You could not do such a complete study working only from auction records and museum collections.</p><p><br /></p><p>When I was first in the hobby, I met a few collectors who had purchased Roman denarii for the weight of silver and many of their coins were very nice.&nbsp; Today we see many worn denarii of Otho.&nbsp; Where are the worn slick denarii of the Flavian and Antonine period?&nbsp; Where are the kilogram lots of slick Trajans at a bit over spot?&nbsp; How long ago was the last ancient coin melted as scrap? (Since you started reading this???) Were Roman coins melted during the Twentieth Century when the price of metal and the demand for lesser grade coins made it more profitable?&nbsp; Were the Alexandrian coins more well circulated or did the ugliest half of the finds just escape melting more skillfully?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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