Featured Follow the coin theme GAME - ancient edition - post ‘em if you got ‘em

I have owned this one that is also my avatar for over 30 some years and actually found it metal detecting in Spain. It has a very long story behind it that I wrote about in a thread a couple of years ago here it is if you would like to read about it AE Semis from Asido (Medina Sidonia) Spain | Coin Talk . The picture is also one of my oldest too !



Asido
Ancient Spain 110 BC.
Present day Medina Sidonia.
Phonecian and Punic.
Obv: Melkart head facing
forward.
Rev: Two tunny fish right
Libio-Phoenician legend
( B B L ) Semis

This might limit to only a few here but I will try, Next a coin you found.

 

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Follis of Constantine I, that I found when I was a kid in an old change purse that belonged to my great-grandfather, with small change of the beginning of the 20th c. still inside. This is how I learnt that in rural areas c. 1910 old copper Roman or royal coins could be still accepted for 1 or 2 centimes coins.

Next : a pre-1900 coin you found or was offered to you, but has nothing to do in your collection.

 

My grand father had always told me the same. Where he lived as a kid, at the turn of 20th century, they would use asses as 10 cts (they were merely the same at around 10 gr. of copper/bronze)

Q

 

COIN #1 in my Collection - Found in my Grandparent's Change Jar - Ground Zero for my Passion:


United States
Civil War Token AE (assumed 1 Cent value)
1863 Eagle -
PH Carpeles & Co. Dry Goods & Groceries
In Ex: Waterloo Wis
Coin no 1

One of my first Ancients (I acquired 5)


Athens Owl TET 16.8g 22x6-5mm Late Classical 393-300 BC, Sear 2537, SNG Cop. 63

Next: Your first coin and first Ancient

 

Proof that the Philips screwdriver was invented at least 2300 years ago.

 

LOL... where do you think the name came from?


Kingdom of Macedon,
Philip II
AR Tetradrachm.
Pella, lifetime issue, struck circa 353-349 BCE.
Laureate head of Zeus right /
ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΥ, Philip on horseback left, wearing kausia and raising right hand; spearhead below, star below horse's raised foreleg.
Le Rider 102 (D58/R82)

 

WHATS NEXT

 

We are still on "your first coin and first ancient."

 

I have no idea what the first coin I ever bought was. Probably a British penny, halfpenny, or farthing before I was 10 years old. Or perhaps one of the silver dollars I "bought" at the age of 7 or 8, on one of the couple of occasions when my parents would give me a 5-dollar bill and I would walk to the local bank a couple of blocks away, hand it to the teller, and ask for five silver dollars in exchange. Which one could do until 1964, I believe.

But here are the first two ancient coins I ever purchased as an adult, both at the same coin show somewhere in Manhattan in the mid-1980s, at a time when I was pretty much exclusively a collector of British coins. Why? Pure impulse; they caught my eye and didn't cost much.





Over the next 30 years, I bought perhaps a dozen more ancient coins, but I didn't really start collecting them actively until 2017.

Next: your first ancient coin, continued.

 

MARCUS ANTONIUS
AR Denarius
OBVERSE: ANT AVG III VIR R P C, Praetorian galley, thyrsos behind prow
REVERSE: LEG XI, eagle between standards
Patrae 32-31 BC
3.05g, 16mm
RSC 27

Purchased in 1981 0n a whim

Next: More first ancient

 

The first ancient coin I had was some batch of crusty junk, and I no longer have any of them.

The first ancient coin that I obtained, that I still have, is a lovely Caracalla denarius from Secret Saturnalia 2019.


The first ancient coin that I actually bought for myself and still have is this $10 Augustus As, which helped me learned just how affordable some coins can really be.


NEXT: keep the firsts coming

 

This is the ancient coin I've had the longest.
I bought a denarius of Marcus Aurelius as Caesar the year before, but it was stolen in 2004, along with quite a lot of the coins I had at that time.

This is an Istros drachm I got from Spink in March 2002. It needs a better picture.



Next - another ancient first for you.

 

Next up: Greek fouree

 

This is my favorite because it is a die duplicate of another that I have notified two different auction houses that theirs was plated but even had less core exposure than mine. They both took down the listing. I am sure the consignor found another sale willing to ignore the light weight and bits of core. I wonder where that coin is now.


Next: a coin that you got with erroneous ID

 

Next up: Elagabalus

 

@TIF ’s favorite Emperor…


RI Elagabalus 218-222 CE AR Antoninianus Radiate Roma seated

next: Baktria

 

Lysias

BAKTRIA, Indo-Greek Kingdom. Circa 130-125 BC. Æ (20x20mm, 8.82 g, 12h). Indian standard. Head of Herakles right, lion’s skin tied around neck, club over shoulder / Elephant advancing right; monograms in exergue. Bopearachchi 8A; SNG ANS 1040-7. VF, dark green patina. Ex: Timeline Auction
Next up: unconventional Herakles

 

too slow on Bactrian.....Hermaios drachm (c.105-90 B.C.)

however, I do have this Hercules - perhaps not the most common portrait:

The Roman Republic, Faustus Cornelius Sulla, Denarius 56, AR
Obv: FEELIX, diademed bust of Hercules right, wearing lion-skin, border of dots.
Rev: FAVSTVS, Diana in biga right, holding reins in left hand and lituus in right hand; above head, crescent; above and below horses, stars, border of dots.
Ref: Babelon Cornelia 60, Sydenham 881a, Crawford 426/2

Next: Hercules / Herakles (conventional or not)

 

Definately not conventional+ ancient Rome one conventional
Next: Jupiter

 

Probus, Antoninianus (24 mm, 3.39 g), Rome, 282. Radiate and cuirassed bust r./Rev. Jupiter standing front, head to l., holding thunderbolt in his r. hand and scepter in his l. R(thunderbolt)B. RIC 175

Next: oblong-shaped flan