I already posted this in “Coin Chat”, but wanted to also share with the ancient coin enthusiasts. Greek coins I have encountered at the British Museum:
Inspector43- It was very exciting to see something like this. It was also surprising that George III was a coin collector.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/resea...1&searchText=+george++forgery+denarius&page=1 You can search the BM website for coins flagged as from the George III collection. The example above is his forgery denarius of Septimius Severus. He had some nice coins, too.
The British Museum has some of the finest coins in the world. Only a small part are on display of course, but what is there is mind boggling. I was there last week, and some of the coins were hard to photograph in the low light, but I did get this nice shot:
One of my most favorite movies of all time! I know most the the dialog. "Your Majesty, you look like...." Cant finish that in a family oriented forum, but for fans of the movie, you know!
Mine too. That photo of the pile of gold is amazing. Just looking at it quickly there are two with eagle reverse near the bottom that look like they could be a die match. Are these from a single hoard?
I imagine so. To be honest I didnt read the card on the display (in the money room). The problem with the BM is that there is so much to see one cant do it in one day, and even in February it was packed. Not to mention my wife and kids were not interested so I was hard pressed to continue on. But, I've been there a dozen times in the past.
It makes no difference what I think since I will never again travel (done with that phase) but I am sickened by museums that consider the proper display of coins to be a pile. I know the coins are just junk that 99.9% of visitors spend less than a second viewing (the amount of time I spend on 99.9% of their other exhibits). The future use of museums will depend on their online presence. The BM has many coins online with half decent photos which makes me consider them the best in the world even though they display many piles. Years ago, the Smithsonian in DC had a nice display of ancient coins including a beautiful aureus of Septimius Severus which was glued to a board on the display. I asked the person in charge (when our club had a behind the scenes tour) what reverse was on that coin but discovered it had been there so long no current employee knew. I wonder what happened to it when they tore down the exhibit and gave the unwanted coins to the ANS. Museums make more from people who spend coins than from those who collect them. I do suspect that there is a record at the BM of every aureus in that heap. At least I prefer to think they bothered to make a note of it.
