Its always kinda fun when you have forgotten all about something and a surprise package arrives in the mail. I scored this nice Lucius Verus sestertius. Photo is pretty close, but the patina is more brown in hand:
How can you forget such a nice Sestertius My Budget one, same scene on the reverse, but with Marcus Aurelius on the obverse.
Lets try to imaging the situation when these coins dropped from the dies. For the first time, Rome had two supreme emperors. Before this there had been junior Caesars and other minor players but this idea of sharing the top spot was new. This is not the same as the old Consul pairs. It had been 150 years since the Republic was terminated. What was the position of these men? Can you have two heads? The tabloids of the day must have speculated on the odds they would kill each other (not far fetched - ask Geta). It is no wonder that these Concordia types were a big thing.
I do not have a Marcus Aurelius or a Lucius Verus--the two largest lacunae in my quest to get a coin from the major/significant emperors. This is the reverse type I most want to get, but I may have to settle for what I can find in my price range. A lovely coin.
Easy. I had a lot of packages delivered this month! Luckily this reverse is common enough for Lucius. Some 25 years ago CNG (or CNA as they were called back then) had one, a nice VF-EF but with amazing patina. The estimate was low, a couple hundred. I figured I would bid $1,500. But as luck would have it I had to fly to London (to buy more coins) and forgot about it. Ironically it sold for $1,500, so I imagine I probably would have lost the bid anyway. Took long enough to find a suitable replacement (but this example I just bought was far less money!!!).
