A few months ago I decided to get my toes wet and get something out of my usual with ancients and acquire some antiques. So I got these Theatre tokens since they were priced cheaply from Time Machine. Roman Terracotta Theater Token with a head of a Female, right, 1st-3rd Cent. AD Roman Dark Clay Theater Token with a Female w/Anchor & Bird, 1st-3rd Cent. A.D.
That is true, but sometimes I just buy something just to have "something" in a collecting field. I have several fossils, meteorites, antiques from my grandmother and various other items just to have a little something in that field. I could easily move onto collecting more of them, but I control myself. I have many other regular side collections then just coins. What bores me to death is 20th century & newer Guns and Auto anything.
Those are pretty neat, Mat. The second one looks really cool. I try not to stray from coins, but sometimes I've just not been able to help myself . This one arrived Friday, my only lead seal. PB SEAL. Roman. 11.43g, 22 mm. First tetrarchy, circa AD 293-305. Cf. Obolos 6 (2016), 917. The four tetrarchs standing, two on left and two on right, each holding spear; all in oval incuse punch. And a tessera I picked up last year. PB TESSERA. 3.39g, 15mm. IONIA, Ephesus, circa 2nd - 3rd centuries. Gülbay/Kireç 40. O: Hermit crab right; below, grain ear right. R: Mythological creature (or bear?) standing left.
Nice diversion @Mat ! Fun to digress from coins, but into some cool ancients. I have several Scarabae from Egypt because they never really minted coins (The Makedon Ptolemies did). So, I like to capture scarabs as placemarkers in Egypts LONG history. Here are some cool artifacts that I have from the Egyptians: Egypt Faience Eye of Horus Amulet ca 1070-332 BCE 3rd Int to Late Per - Blue glaze double sided Egypt Faience Eye of Horus Amulet ca 1070-713 BCE 3rd Int Per - orange glaze Petrie Amulets plate XXV 19mm Egyptian red-black stone amulet of a trussed ox Late Period 664-332 BC 25x16mm Ex Norma Goldman 1922-2011 EGYPT Twenty-First Dynasty 1085-945 BCE Green Faience Ushabti
That's some nice stuff, @Alegandron! I have one scarab and will probably stop at that. Blue glazed steatite scarab. Egypt, Late Period, 664-332 BC. Face engraved with winged Isis standing right before a solar disk and a cartouche containing r’nfr, or “may beauty exist”; below, the hieroglyph n’b or “lord” (14x10mm). Crack down center with some very minor loss of material on back. Ex Christie’s London ‘Fine Antiquities,’ 10 July 1991, lot 85 (part of).
That is a REALLY NICE scarab! Gorgeous example! And, of course you won it on my birthday! I have several Scarabae, most of them are Royal. I figgered I would get a little head start on you, as I feel ONE DAY you will take your passion for Egypt further back in history! Here is one of my cool NON-Royal Scarabae: Everyone likes it because of the Scarab Beetle and the Sphynx. However, my faves are the Royal Pharoahs... Egypt SCARAB Middle Kingdom 2065-1650 BCE Scarabaeus Sphinx
Those are neat. So's the rest of this stuff. Some stuff is just so interesting and compelling it is definitely worth sampling. If I were a wealthy man, I could be tempted by carved gemstones: intaglios and seals and such. I've told the story of this one before.
I could content myself with owning just one scarab. Particularly if it looked like that one. If I had more money and living space (and didn't live in a cramped, cluttered, and dilapidated singlewide trailer) I would have a "cabinet of curiosities" the way gentleman antiquarians of the 18th century did it. Really, a "mini museum" confined to a single room or display case. One of everything - and a sampling of natural wonders and curiosities in addition to antiquities and such. But since I am so constrained by space and budget, I keep a pretty exclusive focus on coins and exonumia alone. (But inside that category, I'm all over the place, as you've seen.)
I wouldn't know royal- from non- in scarabs, but I love that one for precisely the reasons you mentioned others seem to.
