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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 5157351, member: 110350&quot;]Thanks to all of you for all the kind words about these coins.&nbsp; I didn&#039;t want to put up a poll, but I think every single one got at least one mention from someone.</p><p><br /></p><p>And it&#039;s not that I really see these coins as in any way &quot;lesser&quot; than my favorite Republican coins purchased this year; I just gravitate a bit more towards those.&nbsp; It&#039;s entirely possible that others will prefer these.&nbsp; But I&#039;m extremely fond of both groups, and think I&#039;ll keep them!</p><p><br /></p><p>No way I can buy as many next year; I don&#039;t think my landlord takes ancient coins as rent payments.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yes, [USER=110226]@robinjojo[/USER], the Ptolemy VI is an AR tetradrachm.&nbsp; I don&#039;t know how that got dropped from the description.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think Frank Robinson said something in his description about the Julian II obverse being one of the best he&#039;s seen. That didn&#039;t necessarily come through in his photo, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Of course with a bronze coin there&#039;s always the concern about tooling, but I didn&#039;t see any obvious signs of it.</p><p><br /></p><p>I should have mentioned that I chose the Julia Domna not only because of Isis and Horus on the reverse, but because it&#039;s one of the most pleasant, youngest, and most vulnerable-looking portraits of Julia that I&#039;ve ever come across. Especially considering that on average her portraits easily take the prize for the most sour-looking of any empress!</p><p><br /></p><p>[USER=99456]@Sulla80[/USER], I look forward to reading your articles on cistophoric tetradrachms. Yes, &quot;PTOL&quot; is supposedly short for the name of the magistrate, presumably Ptolemy. I should mention that traditionally (as in BMC 22 Lydia, from 1901) the dating on coins of Tralles -- like my Year 8 (H) -- was interpreted, just as on the coins of Ephesos, as the 8th year since&nbsp; 33 BCE, when the Pergamene kingdom passed by bequest to the Roman Republic upon the death of Attalus III, and became part of the Province of Asia. But it&#039;s my understanding that more recent authorities have posited a shift of the era forward by approximately five years.&nbsp; These authorities reject the idea that these cities had the time (or the inclination) to start issuing coins dated by a new Roman era as soon as Attalus&#039;s will became public, particularly given the immediate rebellion of Aristonicus.</p><p><br /></p><p>Meanwhile, it&#039;ll probably be a while before I can draw up my list of favorite Republican coins: there are two I&#039;m still expecting, and I ordered one from Spain more than three weeks ago, to be delivered by DHL Express. The dealer assured me that no export permit was required because the coin originated outside of Spain. But for some reason DHL put the package on a plane to Cincinnati instead of directly to New York, and it then disappeared into a Customs void for more than two weeks. And now it turns out that the package went all the way back to Spain. This is what the dealer said:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;The spanish Custom service required the package back from the USA for a stupid mistake thinking that NOT all the export documents were in order! But they were! So, we have sent again all the papers scans to the Custom Service in Vitoria (Spain), hoping that they will be satisfied. Our apologizes for this horrible situation but sometimes happen when any stupid Customs agent exceeded his professional area of attention for nothing! I will keep you updated specially now that I finally was informed about the real situation of the package.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Who knows how much longer it will take now! So much for DHL &quot;Express.&quot;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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