$30 for an "M" follis :kewl:. The flan is kind of cracked on the edge in several places, but other than that, it looks quite nice. The obverse is a front-facing portrait of Justinian I, and all the facial details can be made out very easily. The reverse is struck pretty sharply. CON mint, regnal year XXXI. I'll post pictures tomorrow, hopefully.
BTW, it looks very similar to this: http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sb/sb0163.14.jpg, esp. the color, though his face is not nearly as distorted on my coin. The edge-breaks in the flan are similar to this one: http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sb/sb0163.15.jpg.
Fortunately for us, the ancient world banking system was "bury it". So people keep finding lots of old coins and that makes some of them "cheap".
Yeah, I've always been shocked as to how inexpensive these coins can be. I also find it equally hard to pass up a ancient coin in great shape as opposed to, say, a U.S. coin to fill a hole in one of my type sets when I have $30 or $40 bucks to spend. I think I made a pretty profit with this one, too. On all other sites, I keep seeing the same coin in similar conditions (the ANNO year is all that is different) for around $150. Not sure if there's something that put the price of mine down, but I have a feeling it has less to do with the coin and more to do with the dealer, who was liquidating some of his wife's Byzantine collection...
Way to go Jhonn, I'd say you did very well.If you remember,I advised you to buy this coin....yada yada,because of the rarity.The only thing is,you originally said it was Justin I who has about 15 total coin types ever issued,but what you got is his son Justinian I who put out considerably more coins...about a zillion..LOL like I said,good going and now I don't feel so bad about my scruffy looking little Justin I. Keep it going! http://www.cointalk.org/showthread.php?t=16058
One thing to always remember when buying coins is to know your coins. But that is epsecially true with ancients since there are probably more counterfeit ancients than there are any other coins. Luckily there are also a lot folks out there trying to teach others about this and many, many examples have been posted about. You just have to know where to look to find out about them. Like - Right Here And to find out about genuine examples - Try Here
Yeah, I realized later that it was a Justinian, but I'm still really happy with it. If it had been a Justin I for $30, well...let's just say I would have come out of that deal even better than I did with this! * EDIT * Thanks GD for the extra info. I'll be taking a look at that real soon.
