Posted these in reply to another thread, but its an opportunity to post any cup coins you may have?? They are not the most popular coins, but they can be picked up at a reasonable price. Not sure why they havent caught on? maybe they will have their day. Not easy to store in a coin tray due to their shape, but in fact they are not too 'scyphate' and some are quite flat. I love the coins, they are very nice in the hand and the detail, albeit a bit 'samey' is very nice in most cases. I bought 1.3kg of them from Crusty Romans website, with the intention to clean and attribute, then sell most on. Probably about 350 coins here, so should be some rarities....... Not sure 'exactly' where they come from, but all export licences are in place for them I am reliably informed......there were about 12kg at the start! many are concreted together and will be cleaned with strong stuff....early signs are good! Here is a clump of 3 or so coins stuck together, with tell tale water lines on the surface...... I'll post some cleaning pics soon......
Hi YOC, that's a lot of cup coins, i have a few..fully silvered ones seem to be pricey..i went on Crusty Romans, looks like you bought all of them..
I did buy all of what was left....He let me have 1.3kg for the price of 1kg, ie £525. Thats about £1.50 a coin. I'm happy with that...shame they arent worth £50 each though. I spoke to Martin yesterday and he may have some more interesting stuff soon!! watch his space...
neat! i really dig those byzantine cups...here's my fav! and alexius iii featuring a young christ... look's like that will be lots of fun YOC...keep us posted...i'm certainly interested in seeing how they come out.
Thanks ......... I am looking forward to this cleaning and attribution too. Shame I cannot clean them my usual way, but the deposits really are too severe for mild tactics, so the big guns are out. Love your coin, beautiful patina. I seriously think that cup coins will become very popular one day.....until you have a few and hold them, its difficult to appreciate how pleasing and beautiful they are. Its 0430hrs here and I cant sleep, so thought I'd have a natter. regards YOC
The problem I see here is that these probably average one nice coin in 350 or so. Almost all are double struck or really messed up on one side or the other. This is supposedly because the two dies had to be exactly the same curvature for the coin to be struck with one hit so they intentionally double struck them tipping the top die a bit between strikes. Some coins show this more than others. Finding examples with strong faces on both sides and any amount of the legends will take a bit of looking or a lot of luck. My Manuel I has a beautiful reverse with full name on the left and the last half of Despotes on the right. Unfortunately, the two obverse strikes are offset a lot (right side lower by a quarter inch!) leaving a real mess. The same coin with both sides as good as the reverse would be well over £50 but I paid $11 for this in 2009. The Isaac II has all three faces but if you follow the circle of dots around Mary on the obverse you'll see how lucky it was to even have the MHP monogram at the left. The reverse is weak at the edges so legends are gone but I was of the opinion that the three faces were worth the $5 in 2005 (eBay). I consider my Alexis III the best of my cups. It was hit so hard that it spread out more than most. Note the right reverse figure has two strikes of the halo on the left side and his shirt is repeated. Most of that figure is on the upslope. This is not the easiest coin to photograph. Finally, there are a lot of later 'Bulgarian imitations', 'Latin Rulers' and 'Empire of Nicaea' coins that are a bear to ID. One of these terms describes the one below. I bought it because, for these, it struck me as above average detail and interesting. Is it Theodore of Nicaea??? For the $5, I decided to try it. Poor examples of these are sold to non specialists who think they are all cool since anything that ugly must be 'special'. Other people who are clued into how to tell the rare ones from the regular ones cherry pick for details I sure can't see. I'm not that specialist so I only buy them when the seller wants to be rid of them (cheap) and allows going through them to pick out the ones I feel can be identified by my level of amateur.
BTW, The gold versions of these can be really pretty but, being gold, makes them out of my league. Where else are you going to get a gold coin over an inch in diameter that only weighs 4g?
I have a nice gold/silver scyphate in my collection. Ill post it when I get a home from overseas. If you are in to the art and history of the Byzantines then they look amazing but I can also see that compared to Roman/Greek or earlier Byzantine coins they look crude and that must turn people away. Due to the odd shape they also disrupt the uniformity of a tray of regular solidus if they are stored together. But I dont mind. All depends on the art! and some of the themes and gravity of late Byzantium history make them well worth collecting - and all at a great price.
I do see Dougs point. Cup coins in average condition are cheap to purchase, in poor condition they are almost given away and in very nice shape, still nowhere near what a nice Greek or Roman would fetch. I sold one cup coin which was far from perfect on ebay last year and it flew out at £12 buy it now. Thats about $25. That said, I paid £1.50 a coin for these. I know from the 5 I have 'dipped' already that the coins are showing nice strong detail, with 2 being much more 'silver' in colour than the others.............rumour has it that alot of these coins when cleaned are more silver in colour than some cup coins which appear very bronze. This from what I have seen on certain sites makes them slightly more sellable. I am confident that I cannot lose money at this price and so with the fun of attribution and cleaning, which to date has been really fun, I have taken the gamble. I reckon there will be a rarer coin in here which will boost the earnings......(have to be optimistic) I intend to keep this thread going to the end if possible, so I can keep track of money earnt from this lot too..........that will be fun for me. Beautiful coins and pictures as usual Doug........ Watch this space fellow CT'ers YOC
It will be interesting to see what is lurking beneath the 350 lumps of dirt. I just hope it is not a hoard of only one type. Many cup shape coins were mixtures of metal either electrum or billon while flat coins were solid gold or copper. I'm not sure if some/most/all were surface washed or not but there definitely is a variation in color of the coins. Knowing as little as I do about the series, I would not be able to say if a coin that sells for a high price was based on it being a rare and desirable type or just another example of a beginner not knowing that similar coins might be available cheaper. $25 is not a lot for a nice coin of this series but many sellers don't understand what makes one of these high grade or even that such ugly things even can be graded. I'd suggest cleaning and sorting out the lesser specimens of types that represent 50 to 100 of the group. Those can be sold quickly and cheaply. Things that can not be identified will require more time and study to see what is there and whether they are worth a tenth or a hundred times what you paid.
I have discovered there is a side feature that makes keeping us posted on what you have and what you want by keeping up with photos of new acquisitions. More than one person here has tipped me off when they see something that fits me better than it fits their wants. That said, the most recent tip I received just got bid over my estimation of its value. I still appreciate the tip but too many people saw the coin.
I have managed, with a busy working week to get stages 1 and 2 of the cleaning process done on about 15-20 'cup' coins from the group........ lots of work still to do, but I have found some nice coins already. Not identified, or 'finished' yet, but the early signs are pleasing ...... I'll try and get some pictures up of a few in the next week.
