Ancient Byzantine Empire: gold tremissis of Justinian I, ca. 527-565 AD

Ancient Byzantine Empire: gold tremissis of Justinian I, ca. 527-565 AD





Obverse: D N IVSTINIANVS P P AVI, pearl diademed, draped, cuirassed bust right.
Reverse: VICTORIA AVGVSTORVM, Victory standing right, head left, holding wreath and cross on globe, star to right, mintmark CONOB.

NGC Mint State (Strike 5/5, Surface 4/5, "wrinkled"), cert #4170211-001. Ex-Classical Numismatic Group eAuction 294, Lot 820, 1/16/2013. Purchased raw.

Quoting the original CNG auction description: "Justinian I. 527-565. AV Tremissis (15mm, 1.50 g, 7h). Constantinople mint. Pearl-diademed, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Victory advancing right, head left, holding wreath and globus cruciger; star to right; CONOB. DOC 19; MIBE 19; SB 145. Good VF, slightly wavy flan, small edge split."

This one had a pleasant plastic outcome, garnering a "Mint State" grade at NGC, much to my amazement and delight. That's quite a boost from CNG's "Good VF" grade. The "slightly wavy flan" CNG mentioned came out as "wrinkled" on the NGC label, which is rather strange nomenclature, if basically accurate. In hand, the flan doesn't look terribly wavy. This is a smaller coin, so it would likely be more noticeable on a bigger piece.

Justinian the First, otherwise known as "Justinian the Great", was known for his legal reforms, which became the foundation upon which much modern civil law in the West rests to this day.

Miscellaneous links:
Original CNG auction listing
NGC cert verification page
Coins of Justinian I (Wildwinds reference)
Prior discussion of this coin (Collectors Universe, 07/2013)

Wikipedia links:
Justinian I
Tremissis
Corpus Juris Civilis (the legal reforms of Justinian)
Victoria (the Roman goddess Victory in mythology)

When posted here, this coin was part of my "Eclectic Box of 20" collection.

 

I am only just now getting around to moving my stuff from the Collectors Universe Forums over to here. I have in the last year become increasingly disenchanted with the technical glitches and formatting of the various CU forum "upgrades", and found this site to not only have a much better technical platform and features, but also a living, breathing World and Ancient coin community, as well! So despite 15 years and nearly 60,000 posts on Collectors Universe (I lost 15K post count in one "upgrade"), I have decided to make CoinTalk my new home.

I'll still post on CU, of course, but it will be mostly chitchat and networking and occasional sales. Otherwise I'll leave the CU forums to the "Litesiders" (US coin people) and swim away from the sadly sinking ship of their beloved "Darkside" (World & Ancient coin forum). It's just not what it used to be, though it used to be fantastic and still holds a fond spot in my memories.

I used to post some at the FORVM Ancient Coins board, but that's a very specialized site focused on ancients only, pretty much, and while I love ancients, I am, as you will see in my "Eclectic Box of 20" collection, something of a numismatic jack-of-all-trades rather than a specialist.