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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1271135, member: 19463&quot;]Having shown the best looking coin I got, I&#039;l show the worst two.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Once a gorgeous coin is this sestertius of Marcus Aurelius as Caesar issued while Antoninus Pius was alive.&nbsp; I love the early Aurelius portraits and this coin has all but one important letter of the legend - the F at the end of the obverse saying he was son of Augustus Pius (AVG PII F).&nbsp; A lot of its ugly points come from the uneven color worn through to the brass below the black tar like surface.&nbsp; It would not clean well, IMHO.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]139144.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Perhaps worse is the cheapest ($15) late Roman siliqua I recall seeing in this millennium.&nbsp; It has good legends except for the missing mintmark (Trier or Milan, I suspect) but there are many heavy scratches and three deep punches (test cuts?).&nbsp; The coin appears to have once belonged to a museum or a very old collection that cataloged it by writing a 33 in ink on the reverse.&nbsp; On the other hand it is a real silver coin from a time that most coins were not and it is far from the worst one I have seen offered.</p><p>[ATTACH]139147.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The other coins that followed me home were between these two extremes in grade but most were cheaper than the sestertius.&nbsp; That is another decision we all can make:&nbsp; Do we spend $35 for an ugly sestertius with good die work from a popular ruler or $30 for an exceptional small bronze (the Constantine II in part 2) from a relative nobody?&nbsp; With the $5 we could buy an identifiable small Greek bronze or something small and Byzantine from the junk box like the Justin II 5 nummi below (the cheapest coin form the day).&nbsp; Thankfully when you only go coin shopping 3-4 times a year, you can buy both and see which one you regret later.&nbsp; </p><p>[ATTACH]139150.vB[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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