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<p>[QUOTE="Nathan B., post: 7797843, member: 112852"]My coins arrived in the mail today. My thanks to our very own Severus Alexander for putting on a highly entertaining auction!</p><p><br /></p><p>I didn't have very much money to spend, but managed to get three group lots (Greek, Roman & Byzantine, and Byzantine, respectively), and some singles. If ladies are first, then I begin with this denarius depicting Julia Domna, the wife of Septimius Severus:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1338902[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin, as with all the others I won, does not fit any long term collecting goals for me; I just liked the portrait. The coin actually looks even better in person!</p><p><br /></p><p>The number one coin that I wanted out of this auction was this "comet coin," from Mithridates VI of Pontus:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1338903[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Comet coins have been mentioned in several threads here on CoinTalk. What attracted me to this coin was the pair of depictions of a star and comet. One scholarly view holds that a pair of astronomical phenomenon that are mentioned in ancient Chinese literature correspond to the year of Mithridates' conception or birth, and to the year of the beginning of his reign. There is also a possibility that it was Mithridates who once owned the famous Antikythera Mechanism, which has been in the news quite a bit lately. Neither of these claims are certain, but the probabilities/possibilities are certainly fascinating!</p><p><br /></p><p>This next coin I bought more or less purely for its reverse design, and because I can now say I have a coin of Constantine the Great:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1338904[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Similar tower designs have been used on coins in various parts of the world all the way into the 19th century in the New World.</p><p><br /></p><p>Nearly all the coins I won were copper--which is weird, considering I have an active dislike of copper coinage (too hard to see)--but this one is a silver denarius of Trajan. It was kind of an impulse buy:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1338905[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Yay--so now I have a coin from the emperor who saw the empire at its largest.</p><p><br /></p><p>My goal for most of the coins in the group lots that I won is to use them to learn, and eventually to sell them again. One coin that I found interesting, although it really is quite ugly as well as low-grade, was an 8 gram copper coin of Elagabalus.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1338907[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Elagabalus routinely makes the various lists for "worst Roman emperors" because he was something of a transvestite and a homosexual. If you look at the empire under his watch, though, I don't think the empire suffered particularly, and I consider his placement in these lists to be nothing more than a matter of received prudishness.</p><p><br /></p><p>For this post, I think that's enough, as the other coins I won were all low-grade, bargain-bin type coins. I was happy to get this baby-fingernail-sized little thing, though:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1338906[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>After all, who wouldn't want a coin from the reign of Ivan the Terrible?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Nathan B., post: 7797843, member: 112852"]My coins arrived in the mail today. My thanks to our very own Severus Alexander for putting on a highly entertaining auction! I didn't have very much money to spend, but managed to get three group lots (Greek, Roman & Byzantine, and Byzantine, respectively), and some singles. If ladies are first, then I begin with this denarius depicting Julia Domna, the wife of Septimius Severus: [ATTACH=full]1338902[/ATTACH] This coin, as with all the others I won, does not fit any long term collecting goals for me; I just liked the portrait. The coin actually looks even better in person! The number one coin that I wanted out of this auction was this "comet coin," from Mithridates VI of Pontus: [ATTACH=full]1338903[/ATTACH] Comet coins have been mentioned in several threads here on CoinTalk. What attracted me to this coin was the pair of depictions of a star and comet. One scholarly view holds that a pair of astronomical phenomenon that are mentioned in ancient Chinese literature correspond to the year of Mithridates' conception or birth, and to the year of the beginning of his reign. There is also a possibility that it was Mithridates who once owned the famous Antikythera Mechanism, which has been in the news quite a bit lately. Neither of these claims are certain, but the probabilities/possibilities are certainly fascinating! This next coin I bought more or less purely for its reverse design, and because I can now say I have a coin of Constantine the Great: [ATTACH=full]1338904[/ATTACH] Similar tower designs have been used on coins in various parts of the world all the way into the 19th century in the New World. Nearly all the coins I won were copper--which is weird, considering I have an active dislike of copper coinage (too hard to see)--but this one is a silver denarius of Trajan. It was kind of an impulse buy: [ATTACH=full]1338905[/ATTACH] Yay--so now I have a coin from the emperor who saw the empire at its largest. My goal for most of the coins in the group lots that I won is to use them to learn, and eventually to sell them again. One coin that I found interesting, although it really is quite ugly as well as low-grade, was an 8 gram copper coin of Elagabalus. [ATTACH=full]1338907[/ATTACH] Elagabalus routinely makes the various lists for "worst Roman emperors" because he was something of a transvestite and a homosexual. If you look at the empire under his watch, though, I don't think the empire suffered particularly, and I consider his placement in these lists to be nothing more than a matter of received prudishness. For this post, I think that's enough, as the other coins I won were all low-grade, bargain-bin type coins. I was happy to get this baby-fingernail-sized little thing, though: [ATTACH=full]1338906[/ATTACH] After all, who wouldn't want a coin from the reign of Ivan the Terrible?[/QUOTE]
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