(Just added a second 10) My Top 10 Roman Imperial & Greek Coins for 2021 (first of 3 lists)

Looks like it was a pretty great year @DonnaML , can't wait to see your two other lists! Being a primarily greek collector myself I had to pick the aspendos as my favourite, but the titus and honorius were a very close 2nd and 3rd for me.

 

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Lovely list of coins DonnaML! I voted for the stater, the denarius of Titus (who doesn't like that reverse!) and the solidus of Arcadius, because of the great reverse depiction of Constantinopolis. And three lists? Wow, how many coins did you manage to acquire this year?

 

All coins are great. I like Titus denarius and Pius with Marcus Aurelius denarius.

 

Lovely coins, @DonnaML.

I wish I had bought enough to justify more than a single top 10 list...
Looking forward seeing the others ( and no way one of them is about RR denarii).

FWIW: I voted for the Aspendos stater (the photo really doesn't do it justice, it looks great in hand!), the Diocletian argenteus (fascinating reverse) and the Antoninus Pius with young Marcus.

Happy collecting in '22!

 

There are not many people here able to have a yearly top 30. From what we see today, it looks like you had (have) a glorious year.
My vote goes to #1, #2 and #5

I'm impatient to see the two last thirds

Q

 

Gosh, Donna-- what a list! I'm looking forward to your other lists too.

My favorites for this batch: Aspendos stater, Nerva denarius, and Faustina sestertius. The Pius/Aurelius double portrait denarius is wonderful too, as is the Titus elephant denarius.

Coingrats on a fine year and thank you for your numerous informative posts .

 

That Titus is superb!

The remainder of the list isn't too shabby either.

 

Great group Donna. The Aspendos stater and the Titus denarius are my favorites.

 

As always beautiful coins , my preferred is Titus followed by Arcadius and Nerva. Congratulations !

 

Fantastic top 10 @DonnaML ! You've made great additions to your collection this year! My favourite has to be the Aspendos with its gorgeous iridescent toning, followed by the Nerva, Titus and Arcadius.

 

I had a feeling that you might vote for the two coins depicting Faustina's children. I guess I must be psychic!

I'm very pleased to see that the Titus elephant has been so popular, right behind the Aspendos stater in the voting. I had wanted one for a long time before I bought it, and am extremely happy I found it for sale at Kölner Münzkabinett (on MA-Shops) back in February. I have a number of elephant coins, but that one has to be at or near the top! So even though I paid a lot for it (about $500), I think it was worth it, and not out of line with auction prices for specimens in comparable condition..

 

Thanks Al (and everyone else). I think I was quite fortunate that I happened to see the current HJB Buy or Bid Sale (still open for a another couple of days!) within an hour or two of when it first "went live" back in September, and that the Aspendos stater was near enough the beginning (Lot 132) that I found it almost immediately. And took the time to watch that video, given how mediocre we all know HJB's photos are. I bought it right away, because I don't think it would have lasted another 24 hours. Yes, the price was $600, which was a lot for me, but if an Aspendos stater in that condition were to be sold in a regular auction these days, I strongly suspect that it would go for quite a bit more.

I have to thank HJB and Aaron Berk for sticking to this format: I read a comment of his not too long ago in the Ancient Coin Sales Facebook group that one of the reasons they do so is to give ordinary collectors (like me!) the same chance at buying really nice coins that the wealthy have -- something that just isn't possible in regular auctions.

As for the two solidi, once I had the Arcadius, how could I resist his even more feeble brother, especially with a Sear Certificate accompanying him? (Not that I necessarily believe the story that when he heard about the sack of Rome in 410, he panicked because he thought people were talking about his pet chicken with that name.) I would love now to buy a solidus of their father Theodosius I, but for whatever reason they seem considerably scarcer, and more expensive, than those of other emperors from that period.

 

A very attractive and distinguished selection. Congrats all the way..

 

I remember that discussion, and looking at about a million photos of captives' bent legs before I wrote it! If I had left that footnote in my Top 10 post, and the footnote to the Aspendos stater (discussing all the attributes of the Tekin 4th Series), and a number of other footnotes, the post would have become so ridiculously long that it could stretch across the Hudson River, right outside my window, all the way to New Jersey. Anyone interested can easily look up my original posts on any of these coins.

I look forward to seeing your example of one of Honorius's captives!

 

Beautiful coins! I also picked up my own Titus colosseum this year.

The Aspendos has to be my favorite. Eventually I want to pick up one of these.

 

Thanks, @Limes. I'm glad you noticed the quality of the reverse on the Arcadius -- I think it's pretty amazing in its detail and three-dimensionality, including the little Victory she holds in her palm, a figure often rendered much more sketchily.

In terms of the other lists -- assuming I do get around to them! -- I doubt that either will engender as much enthusiasm as this one. The Roman Republican list because the number of active collectors of such coins here is so relatively small compared to those who collect Roman Imperial and Greek coins, and the Roman Provincial list because I recognize, as appealing as I find them, that they really are an acquired taste (sort of like Byzantine coins). One has to judge them by an entirely different standard, in terms of artistic quality and condition, from Roman Imperial and Greek coins.

How many ancient coins have I bought this year? I try not to think about that too much, and had no idea of the answer off the top of my head, but just checked the current version of my personal catalog against the one from the beginning of January, and the answer is 73 (so far)! So a rather substantial percentage will end up on one of my Top 10 lists. As large as 73 may seem, it's a lot less than the number I bought in 2020: 140! (To add to the 90 ancient coins I owned at the end of 2019, so the current total is 303.) I'm so glad I saved so much money this year compared to last year!

 

The Aurelius portrait on your denarius is superb, the Aspendus wins in overall eye-appeal, your solidus is made particularly appealing via the added pedigree, and the Nerva is a very attractive example of a nice type. An overall exceptional year!

 

Thank you! That 1960 pedigree for the Arcadius (for which the dealer, Dr. Busso Peus Nachf., kindly provided copies of the relevant pages of the original catalog) is actually my oldest documented provenance -- not counting coins purportedly from the 1887 East Harptree hoard and ex. Giovanni Dattari (his unpublished Roman Imperial collection sold by Jesus Vico), both of which are entirely plausible, but neither of which I could prove. (Not that I'm likely ever to have to do so.) Someday, perhaps, there'll be a reasonably complete database of old catalogs for image searches, and a much more technologically advanced search engine that can reliably recognize different specimens of the same type or even the same dies, even from different photographs.

 

I should mention, but forgot to do so earlier, that I have our fellow Coin Talk members to thank for two of the ten coins I've posted in this thread: I bought #5 (the Ant. Pius/M. Aurelius denarius) from @PeteB, and #7 (the Faustina II sestertius) from @Victor_Clark. Plus #8 (the Diocletian argenteus) came from a former member, Ken Dorney.

 

Awesome coins all of them; voted for 2, 5 and 10.
Titus' expression is impressive - a stern character. The portraits of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius are so beautiful, and the Honorius solidus is perfect.

Kudos for all your 2021 acquisitions