[ancients] Marcus Aurelius sest-- remove the gunk or not?

Hehe, isn't it fun on the dark side? Buy more. No!. Buy more. NO! Buuyyyy Moorree...

 

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Eh, that's OK, thanks for trying. Doesn't particularly matter. I checked for comps prior to bidding and only found a couple of this type so that alone tells me it's not very common. Seller blurb said 'rare' but considering how often the sellers are mistaken, it didn't mean that much.

I bought this simply because it caught my eye. For some reason it appealed to me. I was watching the auction because of another coin which was high on my list (got it). No bidders at first, hammered for less than estimate, and I felt it was a very reasonable price based on comps. Mainly though I just like the looks, even with the blemish and the mostly missing reverse legend. Oh, and it's my first/only sestertius.

 

It's a hot coin ... pretty ... congrats

 

I find it most interesting that your Marcus is so perfectly round while my scab of a coin looks to have been chopped from a squared bar to make the flan. There was not always the consistency at the mint that I might expect.

 

I've noticed the squared-off shape to a bunch of larger denomination Roman coins. Do you think they cut the flans from a sheet or strip instead of casting them round (or however they usually produced near-round flans)?

 

I don't own many sestertii, but most have the squared-off look...

 

I do not have RIC for this period preferring BMCRE which lists your coin as BMC388. Considering they only have one front facing bird, I suspect it may be the more scarce type. They did not illustrate theirs but did several other variations on the bird series making me wonder if theirs might be a dog. Heritage sold one for $300 on a $600-800 estimate.
http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=77033
That is absurdly low unless there is something wrong here. Usually big sales have a minimum over half their estimate making me again suspicious of this result as reported. A less common version of a popular emperor in good shape should bring over half estimate.

Rauch did better:
http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=114699
I see listings of two distinctly different coins both called RIC 654 on acsearch so we need to see the book to ID yours correctly. I wonder if our any of us has access to Banti for these. I would be interested in hearing the count provided there.

 

Most of this period are rounder than mine. Squares seem more common later. Of course there are always coins that are hard to classify like my Gordian III with two square sides.


Sometimes I think they experimented a lot with flan preparation.

 

Sorry TIF, but you seemed like the only good shirt where I could stick-in this lil' tidbit o' fun ...

=> hey, there was a 400-500 pound black bear in my garbage cans last night!!

... amazingly, my german shepherd/husky was merely sitting at the fence, wagging her tail and the two of them were enjoying the moment, kinda like a scene outta Winnie the fricken Pooh!!

... ahaha ... great guard dog, eh? (good job, Larry)

=> Natural Resources arrives, but somehow the cagey bear escaped their
clutches!! (brutal!!) ... so yeah, there is a bear in my backyard, waiting
for darkness, so it can come and eat my garbage and/or the neighbour's
garbage once again!!

ahaha ... oh well ... my wife got a kick out of it (Happy Birthday Honey => I
bought ya a bear!!)

 

Smart dog. Contrary to popular music, Saturday night is not alright for fighting a bear.