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Message:: [QUOTE="Voulgaroktonou, post: 5298090, member: 84047"]Dear Only a Poor Man, You are most kind; we are ALL lucky to have so many knowledgeablepeople on Cointalk who are willing to share their experiences. I learn something new every time I sign on. I don’t know whether the second reform in 512 made the coins of the initial reform obsolete, or whether it was common knowledge that 2 lighter folles were equal to one “new” one, etc. Nor do I know how to account for their rarity today. Quite a few of the ones that have come down to us are holed. A follis of the type that appeared in Triton XIX, lot 688 was holed. My half follis is holed, as was the second specimen of the half follis that was in the Fleischmann Collection and is now in DO. In fact, when I published my coin and the Fleischmann coin in my little Celator article from April 1999, I whimsically alluded to their both being pierced by the title, “A Pair of holed rarities”. This suggests that they MAY have been popular, being pierced and worn as a pendant or talisman. But earlier today, the exact opposite occurred to me, when I thought of the passage of John of Ephesus (Ecclesiastical History III.3.15). John implies a negative public reception of the seated Constantinople on the solidi of Justin II, contrasting this type with the cross on steps introduced by his successor Tiberius Constantine: “And further he also [Tiberius Constantine] made a public profession of being a Christian; for Justin had introduced in the coinage of his darics [solidi] a female figure, which was generally compared to Venus, and this Tiberius discontinued, and had a cross struck upon the reverse of his coins: and this act, as he himself said, was dictated to him in a vision.” But Justin’s solidi are plentiful today, so this fact detracts from that argument….[/QUOTE]

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