An AS of Caligula, the last coin I needed to have the 12 Caesars

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by johnmilton, Feb 13, 2020.

  1. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    A beautiful coin. $400 was a lot 30 years ago!
     
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  3. Orielensis

    Orielensis Well-Known Member

    Nice Caligula coins everyone– and congratulations to @johnmilton for completing the "12"!

    My example has significantly more wear:
    Rom – Caligula, As, Vesta (neues Foto).png
    Caligula, Roman Empire, As, 37–38 AD, Rome mint. Obv: C CAESAR GERMANICVS PON M TR POT, bare-headed head left. Rev: VESTA, Vesta seated left holding patera and sceptre. S–C. 28 mm, 10.18 g. Ref: RIC I, 38.
     
  4. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    When I sold my first collection in 1974 (when my wife stopped working to become a mother) there were a few coins I really did not want to sell. My Caligula sestertius was one. I have no photo so it lives only in a foil pressing. If I could find this coin today, I'd rather be reunited with it than one in mint state.
    foilcaligula.jpg
     
  5. Severus Alexander

    Severus Alexander find me at NumisForums

    Thanks! I could easily be remembering the hammer price wrong. Another number floating around in my head is $240... but surely it would have cost more than that, even back then? Hopefully I'll come across the receipt at some point!
     
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  6. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    Well, Sear's Millenium Edition Vol. I, published in 2000, prices the coin at £750 ($1,200) in EF and £250 ($400) in VF. I also have a copy of the Sep. 1999 issue of Spink's Numismatic Circular, offering an example in "Good VF" for £560. On the other hand, my 1981 edition of Sear's Roman Coins and their Values prices it at £45 in VF. I don't know whether the big jump came before or after you bought it, and unfortunately I don't have a copy of the 1988 edition of Sear, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if your example (which has to be at least EF!) was already selling for $400 or more in the late 1980s.
     
  7. Severus Alexander

    Severus Alexander find me at NumisForums

    Thanks for this info! I just did a little sleuthing through my files, and although I didn't find the documentation for mine, I came across some old FSR catalogues with Caligula Vestas in them:
    • a few from the mid-1980s - VF 200-300 (he says "coins in this condition always bring 200-300 or even more")
    • 1987 - VF+, minor roughness $372
    • 1989 - EF/VF $600
    • 1992 - choice VF $379
    • 1993 - EF/VF $500
    I definitely bought mine somewhere between 1988 and 1992, so I think the $400 number must be right, probably a bit over that. That's equivalent to over $800 today.
     
  8. David@PCC

    David@PCC allcoinage.com

    I won't say what I paid for mine 15 years ago, but it was much cheaper than what others paid. In the early 2000's an Ebay seller by the name of Silenos was selling many of these very cheaply. I picked up quite a few Claudius and Agrippa Asses as well in the $20 to $30 range and there were a lot of them.
    er004.jpg
     
  9. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    Fascinating. Going back as far as I can: in the oldest Roman coin price catalog I have, included as an appendix in Pinkerton's "Essay on Medals" (London, 1st ed. 1784), the coin is listed as "common," with a value of 1 shilling. Caligula's silver coins, by contrast, are listed as "R," with a value of 10 s. (An example of a coin listed as "RRRR": the Eid Mar denarius, which can fetch up to £1 "if genuine," which it often is not. The highest price listed: the Brutus aureus at £25, albeit only RRR.)
     
  10. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    This is a nice coin, very nice, but I would really like to know what FSR called it 30 years ago. I did not save my lists from back then; I wonder if Frank did. In 1990 terms, I would grade the coin as VF+ due to the weakness in the hair and lack of crisp ear separation. It would be EF today but, opposite of those of who collect, coins have improved over the last 30 years. Mine is only 20 years old and fine but was $200 so I suspect $400 was close in 1990.
    rb1000b02306alg.JPG


    The big grading change over the years has been the NGC ancients introduction of 'wear only' letter grading. The coin below has hair detail and ear separation of a VF but abysmal surfaces. Thirty years ago it would have been downgraded to F or maybe VG but today I would expect it to get a higher letter than my green one. If you paid extra for the full service slab, it would surely get a 1/5 for surface but the coin is well struck and less worn. I keep telling myself that I should give this thing an accession number but I have been ashamed of it for over 30 years and do not even have record of where I got it. I only kept it because I wanted the rarer legend (of which, on this thread, only one has been shown by bcuda).
    rb1005bbbbbb.jpg
    Thirty years ago, I was very hard on coins with poor surfaces. Wear did not bother me (and still does not). The value of the Sev beauty was and is more a matter of eye appeal than technical grading, IMHO. I may have bid on that coin 30 years ago but I know I would not have bid enough on a Caligula then to be competitive. 1990, by chance, was the year I spent $400 on a coin for the first time and still regret that purchase.
     
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  11. Severus Alexander

    Severus Alexander find me at NumisForums

    Oooh, burn! I don't know about you, but I have improved. :D (Or were you talking about collectors in general, rather than particular ones? In which case: oooh, double burn!! :jawdrop:)

    Agree 100%. In particular the field surfaces are amazing (mirror-smooth) & totally untouched. You may be right that Frank would have called it a VF+. Maybe I will write to him and see if he can dig up the old catalogue, though I'm loathe to poach on his time for something that trivial.

    Here's another coin issued by Caligula which might be/have been graded VF+ for the same reason, but which has the same superb strike & surfaces. I greatly value pristine surfaces on Roman AE, though I can't usually afford them. (This one is actually even better than the Vesta because there is no hint of corrosion on the face. Needs a new photo though.)
    Screen Shot 2020-02-16 at 11.42.58 AM.jpg
     
  12. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    This is just an opinion: If you have been a regular customer of anyone for thirty years and have purchased a few hundred coins not to mention being underbidder of a few hundred more (thereby driving up the price for the winner), any dealer might just be willing to do you a little favor like this. Like I said, I do not know if Frank has kept a complete set of his catalogs or not but if you know when you bought the coin, it might not be considered too much a bother to look at that listing. In the days before photos, I considered Frank special because I could tell more about a coin from his words than from the lousy photos some dealers used. It would be educational to read the listing from 1990. I do wish I had kept separately every catalog from every dealer from which I bought coins over the years. Hindsight is 20/20. I did not keep Frank's catalogs because they had no photos. I have the illustrated ones from that period and sometimes enjoy looking at them and seeing some coins that still are not worth what they cost back then.
     
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