I was talking to the owner of my local coin shop lately, showing him a few of my latest ancients. He told me the following story. His family lived in Istanbul (Constantinople) in the early 1960s. His father used to take him down to the market on the weekend to shop for various things. At the end of the trip, his father would take him to the antique dealers, and for 3 or 4 dollars, you could get a coffee mug scoop of ancient coins, mostly Byzantines. He became quite an expert in Byzantine as a teenager having access to so many coins, so cheaply. When he became a dealer, he sold most of his personal collection. This story had me drooling for a scoop of chunky, eastern Roman successors of the Sestertius and other odds and ends: My wife of course had to ask if I knew what each coin was and which flip it belonged in. Doh! Of course, I know...not really. Please share your interesting coin shop, coin show, or other coin stories! John
Really fascinating story, John! Thanks for sharing it with us! That mug of Late Late Romans look delicious! I especially love the one with Jesus Christ in the bottom right of the 2nd picture. I am yet to purchase a Byzantine coin.
Many of them have the emperor's name on the obverse. Some do not. I use David Sear's book about this series, and Harlan Berk's book "Eastern Roman Successors of the Sestertius", which has some helpful keys for decoding their inscriptions. I will admit being a newbie in this area and have not even tried to figure out what half of these are.
If you ever felt like making a deal on that chocolate-toned Justin to the upper right, I will be all ears
Cool coin scoop! That anonymous follis on the right ins't to shabby either! I'm going to a coin show tomorrow, I"ll let you know if anything cool happens!
Very cool! I'd love to get a mug of coins. My local shop bought a collection of nice ancients that were glued into a frame. After they got them all out and the glue off, I helped i.d. and price them. They gave me a sweet deal on a few afterwards. They let me take nice Corinthian stater home once just to show my mom. When I got enough money to buy it buy it, it was gone but they gave me a good deal on some other coins.
Nice grab of a mugful of coins with some delicious examples in there. I've got about 15 Byzantine coins so far ranging from 40 nummi pieces of Anastasius to the late trachies of the Comneni. I can't find any local dealers that sell Byzantines or even Romans, which is a bit strange. But coin shops are relatively rare in the Bay Area. Seems like most of the commerce in coins is online these days.
I went back to my local coin shop to check out what they have and to get another scoop of Byzantine coins before they were all gone. I decided I would bring my biggest beer stein to use for the scooping instead of that wimpy coffee mug. They laughed, and were like, no I don't think so. You can use one of our regular beer mugs if you want (they serve beer, mostly Belgian ales), though it will cost more. I gave it my best scoop and this is what I got: They charged me something like $3 per coin for the scoop and threw in a free beer. I also picked up a copy of David Sear's "Byzantine Coins and Their Values" to go along with Wayne Sayle's and Harlan's books that I already have. I love how Byzantine coins are full of little details that can be decoded: inscriptions, valuation marks, mint marks, officiana, regnal or interdiction year, portraits, clothes, globes, books, etc. A little study and they start to make sense. John
Oh my, that looks so delicious!!! I also bought a copy of David Sear's book! I got it used off of Amazon. I am glad I invested on that book, and I've already stuck my nose in it to research the 2 Byzantine coins I have. Those little details are beautiful. I noticed a few interesting details in my 2 coins. My Justinian follis ends with an AUI, instead of an AUG, and I'm not sure why! Sear's book says its "AUG", but the pictures he has shows an "AUI", did the engraver run out of space, for the entire duration the coins were being minted? I also have a coin of Maurice, it's beautiful. But its obverse legend ends with an AUT, and I have no clue why. Really interesting. Also, the variations with mints and officina as you mention it is very cool to study. Wish you actually was able to use that hunk of a mug there, haha!
What a nice collection of Byzantines! There are several delicious coins in there that I won't mind getting . I'm all ears
Well, I hate to revive an old thread, but this holiday season I had time to go back to my local coin shop and see if I could score another scoop of coins. Fortunately, they were open and had several urns of ancient coins available. I brought my beer mug hoping for a big haul, and they were like "No, you can get a scoop, but you can only use a shot glass!!!" I thought, ok, I can play that game, and I went to the urn with the smallest coins and dug my shot glass in deep: Well, how many coins do you think I could get in one shot glass sized scoop? How about 164! They were not too amused, but a deal is a deal. I was hoping for a larger proportion of little Byzantines with cool monograms. I got a few, plus a bunch of coins with a small "x" on the back(?), and some late Romans with small portraits. These will take a while to go through... John
Nice. This reminds me of what came onto my desk today. Here is a small portion, but they certainly werent as cheap as yours!
I’m glad you revived this thread... I missed it the first time around. What a fun story, and I love the pics of those scoopsful of Byzantines.