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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;zumbly, post: 2992502, member: 57495&quot;]It occurred to me when photographing this recent arrival that it shared some interesting similarities with the <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/staffieri-collection-win.310866/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/staffieri-collection-win.310866/">ex Staffieri Collection coin</a> I posted yesterday.</p><p><br /></p><p>The similarities are not so much in the coins themselves, or the incongruity of the fact that yesterday&#039;s came from an exclusive glossy-paged catalog where the top coin hammered for $47,500 before fees (for the sake of clarity, not my coin, which cost much less than 1% of that), while this one was part of a group lot of Claudius II ants with an all-in average price of $19 per coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Where I thought they had a kind of kinship was that both came from specialist collections, their former owners passionate collectors with a deep knowledge of their respective areas of interest.&nbsp; At some time in the past (and I&#039;ll put a date on that just because I can <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> - April 1972 for the MA and December 2001 for the Claudius II) both had been looked at by the discerning eye of a coinnoisseur and had been deemed worthy of purchase.&nbsp; If there are coins you want to bring into your collection, even if you&#039;re a generalist like me, or perhaps especially if you&#039;re a generalist like me, wouldn&#039;t it be those from collections like these?</p><p><br /></p><p>Another thing my two new coins share is that they&#039;ve both been published by their former owners, the Marcus Aurelius tetradrachm in Staffieri&#039;s book <i>Alexandria in Nummis</i>, and the Claudius II ant below by Finn Johannessen in an article for a 2002 edition of The Celator entitled, &quot;<i>Just my Claudius II Ant’s worth</i>&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>I hadn&#039;t looked at the article when I bid on the lot, but I tracked down a digital copy yesterday and gave it a quick read.&nbsp; In a nutshell, it&#039;s a short but engaging story of the collector&#039;s journey from starting out with stamps and modern coins, to discovering the incredible world of ancients, then growing disillusioned with being a one-per-ruler collector of ancients, and finally, becoming a committed long-term collector of the coinage of Claudius II.&nbsp; I had an especially good laugh when he described the portrait of Claudius on one of his coins as looking like a &quot;constipated baboon in a straitjacket&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ten coins were used to illustrate various passages of the article, with mine used as an example of a typical Rome mint product of the time.&nbsp; It is that, and probably not the most exciting coin even in my lot of ten, but IMHO it&#039;s a very nice example and much better than average.&nbsp; Not bad at all for $19, I think.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]738660[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>CLAUDIUS II GOTHICUS</b></p><p>AE/Billon Antoninianus. 3.61g, 21mm. Rome mint, circa Sep AD 268 - end AD 269. New RIC V/1 Online temp #194 (<i>this coin cited</i>). O: IMP C CLAVDIVS AVG, radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right, seen from rear. R: ANNONA AVG, Annona standing left, holding corn-ears and cornucopiae; prow of ship at her feet.</p><p><i>Ex Finn Johannessen Collection, illustrated in the article “Just my Claudius II Ant’s worth&quot;, written by the collector and published in The Celator vol. 16, no. 10 (October 2002), pl. 30, fig. 10.</i></p><p><br /></p><p>I suppose I&#039;d be remiss if I didn&#039;t mention here that this 15-year old article brings up the name of one of our CoinTalk members, in the role of the person who inspired the collector to become an ardent specialist no less.&nbsp; Here&#039;s the relevant passage:</p><p><br /></p><p><i>&quot;Douglas Smith opened my eyes with force when he, in an Internet discussion group, told the tale of how he, after years of dreaming and hoping, at last had found a coin that he knew could exist! This was a person who not only knew every catalogued coin within his area of interest, but also those not catalogued, and as if that was not enough: he could see which coins that logically should/could exist, and was patiently waiting for them! What a feeling it must have been to finally find that Julia Domna.&quot;</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p>I invite everyone to share their Claudius II coins, but out of curiosity, invite [USER=19463]@dougsmit[/USER] to share his Julia Domna that&#039;s mentioned in the article <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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