Caligula down! Now just two left to finish the Twelve Caesars!

I was after Caligula for my Twelve Caesars collection.

I did battle over some nice ones at auction, but lost badly (the ones I bid on went for crazy prices!) So I dialed back my expectations a little bit, and ended up buying one at fixed price, from Zuzim on VCoins.

Now I have ten of the Twelve Caesars (83% complete) as of this post, and lack only Julius Caesar and Vitellius!

This Caligula is no showboat, but rather just a middle-of-the-road example with decent-looking surfaces and lightly contrasting patina. Zuzim described it as "VF", but I'm more of the opinion that it will go Fine when I send it off to NGC (we'll see). I'd be OK with that- as long as it achieves that grade with no problem notations. (Fine is my self-imposed minimum grade for my collections.)

Zuzim's description:

"GAIUS CALIGULA AE AS

RIC 38, RSC 27, Very Fine, 27.5mm, 11.22 grams, Struck Circa. 37/38 C.E.

Obverse: C CAESAR AVG GERMANICVS PON M TR POT around bare head of Caligula to left

Reverse: Vesta seated to left on ornamental throne, holding patera and scepter, VESTA above

An above average, problem free example of this popular type with nice eye appeal!

Ex: VJM Collection, NJ Purchased from Tom Cederlind, 1982".
​

Having a piece pedigreed to the late Tom Cederlind is kind of nice.

 

Otho is always a toughie. I made a point of getting him out of the way earlier in the game, this time around. The first time I completed a Twelve Caesars set, back in 2013, Otho was the last coin I got, as I recall.

Here's the Caligula from my old set:


And the one for my current set, shown above:


Here's the Otho from my old set:


And the Otho from my current set:

 

@Mat here is referring to two unfortunate incidents I've had with bronze disease. In 48 years of collecting, I've only had two ancient coins of mine ever catch the dreaded bronze disease, and as luck would have it, they were both relatively expensive Caligulas, not some cheap late-Roman AE4s! I called it "The Curse of Caligula"!

But I think that's behind me, now. This piece looks like it has pretty good metal, no pitting, etc. So I'm optimistic.

 

Good to hear. Thanks.

I too might have been more hesitant on the purchase, but just after failing twice at auction to nab one, I made up my mind and pulled the trigger on it.

Just in the past few days:

I bid €500 on this, but it closed for €550.




Also, I bid $675 on this and was going to go back and bid higher, but it took off to a ridiculous degree. It closed for $3,120 USD, which is, in my opinion, completely insane. It’s a nice coin, but not $3K+ nice! They wanted it way more than I did! (The one I bought ended up costing only one-sixth as much.)

So yeah, I got tired of auctions, and was happy to find one at fixed price that wasn’t ridiculously overpriced.

 

As do I. As long as this one I bought goes Fine at NGC with reasonable strike/surface ratings and no problem notations, I’ll be content. I hope for Ch F. I think VF (as the dealer said) is a bit too optimistic.

For me, especially with Ancients, it’s more about eye appeal for the grade rather than the technical grade itself.

Though, as mentioned, I do strive to stay with Fine and up for aesthetic reasons. I might relax that minimum standard for something truly rare that I want, however. For example, if I ever buy a 1793 US Chain cent for my primary collection, G4 would be the ultimate best I could aspire to on my budget… if even that. (There probably isn’t a Chain cent in my future.)

 

I suppose there is no rule carved in stone that says a Twelve Caesars collection must be all portrait coins, though most people interpret it that way.

That is indeed a very sharp little quadrans.

If one did not focus exclusively on portrait coins, then Julius Caesar would be far easier to do- one could just grab one of those “elephant” denarii, like @johnmilton mentioned. They’re pretty neat. So are the ones with Venus heads, which are actually more attractive than Caesar himself. But in my case, limiting myself to a portrait coin of Caesar struck in his lifetime, preferably in 44 BC, and preferably Fine or better, is going to cost me…

 

This is the Julius Caesar coin from my first Twelve Caesars collection, completed a decade ago. It was a bit of an ugly duckling- VG with banker’s marks- but it was a lifetime portrait coin, from around the Ides of March in that historic year of 44 BC. Caesar’s image was reasonably clear on the coin, and most of his name readable. And it cost me slightly less than 500 bucks. That would be quite difficult to do nowadays.

Getting another, in 2024, and upgrading to at least a Fine, is going to be expensive, no doubt.

 

Looks very familiar.

So that’s the one I bought but opted not to keep, due to rim damage (the one heavy hit at 6:00.)

You can see how much sharper that coin (now yours) is, in terms of details. Quite the nice portrait. It also goes to show you how much I sacrificed in technical grade to let go of the one you just posted and go for the one in the OP instead.

All because I was too picky to accept that rim hit on the one that is now yours.

I wonder what would happen if we put it to a poll in another thread- which coin would more folks pick? I honestly don’t know. Want to try that, just to see what happens?