I enjoy watching live coin auctions. Today I had two coins on my watch list. Unfortunately they were 200 lots, or over an hour, apart in the auction. I watched the auction off and on, and a group of coins peaked my interest.... silphium coins from Kyrene. I bought one of them! The seller's pics are below. Africa. Kyrenaica, Kyrene. AE, 31 BC. Obv - Head of Libya right, diademed. She has ringlets for bangs and behind her head. The nose looks like it is falling off. A few cleaning scratches do not add to the coin’s beauty. Rev - Silphium plant. I think some letters and minor plant details fell victim to corrosion in the ground or a zealous cleaner. SNG Cop. 1312-1313 3.28 grams 19.0 mm About VF, Brown patina I found 648 examples of sylphium on acsearch. The coin below is the best fit, but is not that close. My coin looks concave, but the coin below (from Gemini VII) looks to have a flat field outside the features. The sylphium plant was reputed to have special properties. The last known plant was served at a feast of Nero. Silphium seed look like hearts and might be the origin of Valentine hearts. I have a coin that I think shows a silphium seed. Most folks call it a leaf. You can decide for yourself. I have shown this coin of C.PISO before. To answer @AncientJoe 's questions in a recent post: - Do you work off of a "wantlist"? How has your wantlist changed over time? How rigid are you with following your wantlist and plans? Yes, I work from a want list. The coin I targeted was #315 in the RR section (which I won and will post when it arrives). Watching an auction for an hour and a half led to an itchy bidding finger.
Congrats! There were several bronze coins with silphium plants in that auction and one of them was a "coin of opportunity" for me as well . I had won an earlier coin and decided it needed a traveling companion so I looked ahead and saw the silphium bronzes. I picked up the lot before yours for what I think was a very low price (hammer 60 EUR, so with BP about 81 USD). I've fleshed out the attribution a bit. KYRENAIKA, Kyrene Koinon issue c. 250 BCE AE; 21 mm, 7.47 gm Obv: head of Zeus-Ammon right, wearing taenia Rev: silphium plant; monogram left; K-O / N-I / O-N Rev: Müller, Afrique 114; Buttrey, Coins 219 var. (no monogram); SNG Copenhagen 1276-9 var. (no monogram); BMC 16-9 (Koinon) I think it may be an obverse die match to this CNG coin, and you can see where the reverse legend would be if this coin were in better condition. The reverse of my coin-to-be has the same monogram. Here's an old writeup of the silphium plant: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ancients-kyrenaikas-silphium-plant.245537/ My other silphium coins... one horrible condition rarity from Barke and one British Museum electrotype: KYRENAIKA, Barke 480-450 BC AR hemidrachm, 13 mm, 1.57 gm Obv: silphium plant Rev: head of Zeus Ammon right within linear frame, B A P K around Ref: (which I have not checked) Müller MAA 301. Very rare. KYRENAIKA, Kyrene modern copy by electrotypist Robert Ready host coin, c. 410-400 BCE, acquired by the British Museum in 1872 AR "tetradrachm", 27 mm, 16.64 gm Obv: Bearded head of Zeus-Ammon, wearing tainia with uraeus-like ornament at forehead, facing slightly left within laurel wreath Rev: silphium plant; K V P A N A (split between fields, retrograde K) Edge: initials R R Ref: BMC 77 (host coin); B.V. Head. A guide to the principal coins of the Greeks, from circ. 700 B.C. to A.D. 270. London. 1965 pl. 20, 61 (host coin); host coin BM accession number 1872,0709.361; B.V. Head. A Guide to the Select Greek and Roman Coins Exhibited in Electrotype, London. 1880. Period III C #44. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/sometimes-a-copy-will-have-to-suffice.272376/
I have two Kyrene to show. The first is AE23 of the koinon straight across the field variation. More unusual is the AE16 Kyrene 322-313 BC. Head of Carneius right / Three silphium plants joined at base. I have only seen a couple of these strange little coins. Was the denomination three of something? Trihemiobol??? https://pantheon.org/articles/c/carneius.html
Congratulations! I don't yet have a silphium but I would love to add one. In the meantime, here's my Kyrene stater, with an atypical facing quadriga:
Great job @rrdenarius ! Congrats on the snare. I only have one, and it is a Calico... Cyrenaica / KYRENAIKA, Cyrene/Kyrene Æ25 9.6g 250 BCE Diademed Zeus-Ammon r - K-O-I-N-O-N; Silphium plant; monogram SNG Cop 1278 BMC 16-19
I had a somewhat similar experience with this auction: I was bidding on a total of five lots, and the bids on three of them quickly and somewhat unexpectedly went straight up through the ceiling. I won the other two, a cheap but pretty Carthage AE and a much nicer early Roman Republican semuncia, at the minmum bid or just above. In the end, my total was much lower than I had expected, and I felt the need to look for bargains among the unsold lots to justify shipping costs. There, I found this: Lot 79: Greek Italy. Bruttium, Brettii. AE quarter, ca. 215-205 BC. D/ Head of Anfitrite left, wearing crab headdress. R/ Crab; in field, racing torch. HN Italy 1990. SNG ANS 10. AE. g. 1.73 mm. 13.00 Green patina. About VF. It's a type I always wanted – the crabbiest headdress in the world of ancient coins! Usually, these go for more than I am willing to pay. There are better specimens than this one, but it's good enough for me, and at about $20 after fees I honestly couldn't say no...
nice crab coin! I was surprised at this coin which listed for 30 Euros and hammered for 900 Euros! This is an example of how a coin price increases when two bidders want it. A quick search found only two similar coins and they went for crazy money also. Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II as King of Cyrenaica
I would have liked to have that coin too but it was already too high for me when it hit the virtual block. That's a fantastic coin for $20! It was an interesting auction. There were definitely some bargains in the mix. Some coins went for high amounts, some went unsold, but there were some interesting coins in that auction. I got a chuckle out of the live video feed. Why was there live video feed? It was not a flesh-and-blood auction. There were no bidders in the room... just some guy holding a microphone and reading the internet bidding action off his computer screen .
I follow auctions on this site, deamoneta. The site has several dealers. Some auctions are electronic only and some are "live" at a dealer's office. Previous live auctions were in Italian. I wondered if there was an Italian version also and Lorenzo was translating in another room. The web site has several language options.
