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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kirispupis, post: 8324712, member: 118780&quot;]For the most part, I don&#039;t actively collect Roman coins. I have roughly fifty of them, mostly denarii, from that naïve time when I thought a &quot;reasonable&quot; goal was to have one coin from each Roman emperor and spouse and one from each Greek city. I quickly abandoned that plan and with it any Roman expansion.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, I was jealous of seeing those huge hunking sestertii, so I made it a goal to pick up one. My criteria was as follows:</p><ul> <li>Needs to be decent enough to read</li> <li>Should be one of the early and heavier ones</li> <li>Must reference an event or show some building (until I looked at the prices of those). I didn&#039;t want one of the generic ones.</li> </ul><p>I would up picking this one up from Marc Breitsprecher.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1475023[/ATTACH] </p><p><b>Attribution:</b> RIC III 1029 Rome</p><p><b>Date:</b> AD 172</p><p><b>Obverse:</b> M ANTONINVS AVG TR P XXVI, laureate head right</p><p><b>Reverse:</b> IMP VI COS III, Victory standing right hanging shield inscribed VIC / GER on palm tree; S-C across fields</p><p><b>Size:</b> 31.20mm</p><p><b>Weight:</b> 27.18 grams</p><p><b>Description:</b>&nbsp; CNG Electronic Auction 299 (27 Mar 2013), Lot 561 (part, visible)</p><p><br /></p><p>The Germania Capta reference is to the defeat of the Marcomanni and their leader Ballomar in 172 CE. Prior to that, the Marcomanni had scared the daylights out of Rome with the first invasion of Italy in 270 years. This had followed several disastrous defeats. Technically the coin is mistitled, since in modern terms it should be &quot;Slovenia Capta&quot; but back then pretty much everything up north was called Germania.</p><p><br /></p><p>Besides being my only sestertius, it&#039;s also my only coin of Marcus Aurelius.</p><p><br /></p><p>From research, the type can&#039;t be considered rare, but nor is it very common. Overall, I&#039;m very happy with the purchase and it&#039;s one of my favorite coins to show off.</p><p><br /></p><p>Feel free to show off your own sestertii![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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