Lord Marcovan's "Eclectic Box" collection as of October 8, 2017

It's an interesting story, and an interesting place I'd love to visit.

Wikipedia has the story of the coins and shows one in their History section of the article about Lundy.

Apparently Martin Coles Harman (who sounds like quite a character) found himself in a spot of trouble with the British government for issuing the coins, and was found guilty, but then had to pay only a laughably tiny fine. The coins became collectors items and we're discussing them almost 90 years later, so Harman got the last laugh.

PS- if there are any authors/editors with Wikipedia credentials who might want to upgrade the coin picture in the Wikipedia Lundy article to mine, I absolutely grant permission. The picture they are currently using doesn't even show the puffin side of the coin!

 

Jacob- here's a post that should give a general idea of how tiny an ancient Greek electrum hekte (or hecte) is.

They're adorable little things. But don't drop one in a room with shag carpeting!

(As if there was still such a thing as shag carpet. What is this, 1978? Haha.)

Edit- geez, it still does exist! Frighteningly, in rainbow colors, no less!

Um. Yeah. Don't drop any electrum hektes or Indian gold fanams in that room.

 

Actually, @AncientJoe was the first one who helped me with those Photoshop templates, and I sort of adopted his format. (Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery and all that).

I'm pretty sure these "shadowbox" style templates first appeared and became popular over on Collectors Universe (I knew AncientJoe as "smeagle1795" over there), though I can't now remember who started doing them first.

@brg5658 has also helped, and @Deacon Ray is my current go-to guy for digital wizardry- as mentioned, he created the "fantasy" image at the top of this thread, with no prompting from me, and just surprised me with it. I love it. (Sure wish I could tell what the embossed pattern on top of that gold box's lid, is, though...)

 

They generally run $500+ on up into the low four figures. Mine cost me $391.20, so I was happy to get a nice piece with an attractive portrait and good centering (no missing nose or other features off the edge of the flan), for just under 400 bucks. I also like the archaic punchmarks on the reverse. Those quadripartite punches ("quadripartite" meaning "four parts") are a feature of some of the world's earliest coinage.

 

Look what @RonSanderson is doing for me. I sent him the 1806 British gilt proof halfpenny, the 1847 Liberian proof cent, and the 1848 French essai specimen, to create animated GIFs that capture some of the reflective attributes of those.

This is his preliminary animation on the Liberian, which is perhaps the most subtle of the three. I can't wait to see the others when he gets around to them.

My coins can dance!